Meander Forth: Teak's Tall Tale++
A downloadable Video Funtime for Windows
Welcome to Pivot!
Meander Forth: Teak's Tall Tale is a short sidescroller about Oscar Teak, a lovable loser with a big heart and reasonably decent drumming skills. His day gets off on the wrong foot when he's kicked out of a punk band by his so-called friends.
The day only gets worse when a masked child reveals that his actual friend, Tamree Willow, has gone missing! It's up to Oscar Teak to get to the bottom of what happened to Tamree.
Teak must proceed with caution, however. Something bizarre is bubbling under the surface of his quiet town...
Meander Forth?
Teak's Tall Tale was created in 2019 as a standalone-ish demo for Meander Forth, a considerably higher-profile game about a friend of Oscar's- a troubled young otter named Garret Rapids.
Meander Forth has had a troubled development as of late. Technical problems forced me to rebuild the game from scratch- and that's before my motherboard was fried and I had to get a new PC. Uff Da.
Regardless, I assure you that if you like Teak's Tall Tale, you'll enjoy Meander Forth whenever it DOES get finished.
Plus Plus?
One year after the original Teak's Tall Tale was released, an "enhanced version" with nicer backgrounds, new dialog, and a short demo of the actual Meander Forth was released. to coincide with the Sonic Amateur Games Expo 2020. This version was called "Teak's Tall Tale Plus."
Unfortunately, the Plus version had some HUGE technical oversights during development that caused it to barely run on machines running Windows 10, on top of being a technical mess regardless.
The 2021 version, Teak's Tall Tale Plus Plus, was compiled in GameMaker Studio 2, mitigating some of the technical issues. On top of that, certain visual effects have been redone for optimization. Certain art assets have been replaced, as well. I hope this version's release is a lot more smooth than it was last time!
Content Notice: This game contains some "PG-13" language and occasional references to mental illness and suicide. Cutscenes can be skipped with the "Skip Textbox" button listed below.
Controls:
| COMMAND | KEYBOARD KEY (DEFAULT, QWERTY) | GAMEPAD BUTTON (DEFAULT, xinput recommended) | Etc. |
| Walk | Arrow Keys | Left Joystick/D-Pad | |
| Enter Door/ Talk | Up Arrow | Left Joystick Up/D-pad up | |
| Jump, Speed-up text | X | A/Cross/Button 1 | |
| Shoot, Jump to end of text | C | X/Square/Button 3 | |
| Skip Textbox | S | Y/Triangle/Button 4 | |
| Dash (Unused) | Z | B/Circle/Button 2 | |
| Start Game, Pause Game | Enter | Start/Options/Pause/Menu/Whatever They're Calling the "Start" Button These Days | |
| Enter Windowed Mode | F3 | N/A | |
| Enter Fullscreen Mode | F4 | N/A | |
| Exit Game | Esc (Hold for ~2 seconds) | N/A |
Download
Install instructions
This download is just a 30-some megabyte .zip file containing an .exe. Just download, extract it, it and double-click it the .exe to run it.
Sometimes Windows 10 gives you hell when you try to run the file, since it's not commonly downloaded. If that happens try pressing something like "show more info," and it'll let you run it. I promise this game is clean.
If Windows still won't let you run it, try installing it through the itch.io client.
Development log
- 25 Nov 2024 - Snow Problem! [Devlog]17 days ago
- 23 Oct 2024 - Pining For The Fjord [Patreon Devlog]51 days ago
- New Meander Forth Test Build! (24 Sept 2024)79 days ago
- 23 Sept 2024 - The First Boss [Patreon Devlog]81 days ago
- 12 Sept 2024 - The Woods [Patreon Blogpost]91 days ago
- 3 Sept 24 - Friendly BanterSep 04, 2024
Comments
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Ur art is damn good dude! I'm excited to try this out!
Thanks!
Dude. I love teaks tale. I have one dollar on my debit card and i want to give to you. Do you have paypal? Can you keep me up to date on this game please? My email is mr.alexaston@gmail.com
As a 2D platformer junkie, this exceeded my expectations.
First off, if this is a demo for a larger project... wow. I can only imagine what the full version's going to be.This game plays amazing. The physics are on-point - not too floaty, not overbearing. While the difficulty is a tad easy on my end, I don't think this game needs to be balls-to-the-cheese-grater difficult.
Graphically, it's right up my alley. I feel the Yoshi's Island-esque art style suits this game well. While I wouldn't call it straight-up pixelated, the character sprites gives this a late 16-bit era feel.
The sound is in the same boat as well. Crunchy chip tunes are bomb.
The controls are simple, crisp, and hit the sweet spot between too responsive and absolutely sluggish.
Overall, I regret not getting this video out sooner. I'm stoked to see how this concept evolves into its final product. Impressive work!
Nice little game you've spent time putting together. I did a video and really enjoyed the playthrough. The only issues I had was that at the end of each level there is an 'o' in the exit and I couldn;t get this to work with the xbox controller but eventually worked out that the up key is to exit but as always, I didn't read the instructions.
well done and good luck
:)The X's and O's in the doors are there to mark whether or not they can be entered, since I'm only using one-way doors for the sake of not having to worry too much about story flags. You're not the only one confused by them, though! There's gotta be a much better way to do that on my part, lol. Also, I just noticed I forgot to mark which key enters doors in the description.
Thanks for the playthrough! I don't have very much raw footage of this game, so it helps a lot.