We give a gentle introduction to the Hamiltonian formalism of curl forces, introduced by Berry and Shukla and show its application to non-central forces and dynamics related to saddle potentials. We demonstrate its connection with the cofactor systems introduced by the Linköping school. We impose gyroscopic and frictional type forces on the existing curl force and study the generalized Hamiltonian structure. We also give the geometrical structure of the linear curl force, a hidden holomorphic structure is uncovered.