Giveaway of the Day - A man with a Monocle

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game please take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of ‘potential’ cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain why your reasons for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with more block types for the levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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Problems installing, activating and running today’s game:

If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following – for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” Check to see if your internet explorer isn’t offline (thanks to MrSnoozles/Mike and GMMan for that fix). If the previous suggestion doesn’t work go check out previous comments from the last several weeks and look for comments from GMMan and Mike. They have also posted their possible fixes for this problem.

Mike suggests that you check to see if Internet Explorer is offline (even if you use firefox). If it is make sure that it’s online thn try again. I’ve always tried re-booting my modem and/or router with some success, though Mike has said that doing that does nothing. Still, it’s worth a try if all else fails.

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember thta XP uses DX 9 or earlier only, Vista uses DX 10 or before and Win 7 DX11 or before). Also try updating your graphics drivers. The main two chip manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI both of which offer driver downloads for free. Just go to the respective manufactures home page and you’ll find a link to the driver download page. To find out which grapic card or graphics chip your computer uses type in dxdiag in the search field (Vista or Win 7) or the run command (XP); this opens up the directX diagnostcs panel. click on the display tab and look to the left panel. You should easily see what graphics card or chip you are using. (This is required information when selecting the correct download from the develoers site).

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A Man with a Monocle:

Installation:

A Man with a Monocle downloads to a 15.5Mb zip file that unpacks to a read me with terms and conditions and a dual setup and activation module. Once installed the file size is 24.7Mb. The default installation location is as follows:

C:\Games\A Man With a Monocle

There are no shortcuts installed so you’ll have to create your own. If you want a shortcut in the Start Menu/Program folder you’re not sure how to create a shortcut in the start menu/programs folder you can find a short tutorial in the game discussion forums that tells you how to create one. The game works on Win 7 Pro and Ultimate 64 bit and XP Pro 32 bit. I’ve not tested it on my Vista platforms yet. (May do so later if I have the time). Today’s version (v1.1) is an updated version from the one we got last year, for examle you can now skip cut scenes like the one at the beginning of the story. Previously you had to sit through these scenes. I’ve posted the full change log at the end in an addendum. There’s no uninstaller provided; however, to uninstall just delete the installed folder and shortcut that you created. It’s a free standing game so there’s virtually no registry entries involved (apart from installation entires).

Options menu

Introduction:

Today’s game giveaway was previously given away last year (Nov 20th 2010). It received a positive 35% out of 355 votes. You can check out the 35 comments HERE. Please excuse any inconsistencies in my review below that do’t take account of the changes from v1 to v1.1, I don’t have the time to search and edit them out at the moment.

A Man With a Monocle is an adventure/platform game developed by Neogen2 Creations for the PC.

Follow Henry McAllister in your quest to discover the mysteries behind the Monocle and your ghost friend, Kain, while you go through many different and fascinating locations.

A Man With a Monocle is a story-based but at the same time old-school platformer, featuring over 55 levels coupled with countless challenges to overcome, alternative passages and many hidden secrets waiting to be discovered.

In addition to the story mode, there are many un-lockables such as another playable character and new game modes and levels. You can even create your own levels and campaigns, using the Level Editor released with the game and play your own and other people’s work.

reference: accessed HERE on 19th November 2010

Start of game dialogue

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The Game:

The main menu is navigated by the arrow keys. To select from the various choices in the main menu use the up and down arrow keys. To toggle between full screen and windowed mode use the left and right arrow keys. Selections are automatically saved. The main game is the story mode with other modes available once unlocked. Those that require unlocking are greyed out; The Custom Campaign mode is open at the start of the game but Iron monocle and Charles’s Story are closed. To open these you need to earn an unspecified number of golden bones, to earn golden bones you have to find every white bone on the level that you are playing.

Climb the ladders by using the up arrow key

Watch out for the red block, it’ll kill you if you touch it

Once you’ve selected Story mode you can select your difficulty from Normal, Hard and Hardcore. At the start of the game you have to watch the story unfold, which can take a few minutes. There seems to be no way of avoiding the story. As each dialogue finished you can proceed to the next one by pressing enter or X. Once the game starts proper you have to collect bones. Each level has a specific number to collect. Once you’ve collected the correct amount you are awarded a golden bone which will replenish your life as well as go towards unlocking new game modes (beware the end of each level as you can be transported to the next level with no chance of returning to complete your collection of bones). Apart from the first level, levels are inhabited by various enemies (10) that you must avoid or kill by jumping on top of them. If you touch any of these enemies (apart from jumping on them) you will lose a life. You can also lose lives by falling to your death especially when walking on unstable ground that collapses under you after a few seconds. When walking to a ladder you can immediately climb, but if the ladder is going down you need to press either the up or down key to grab a hold of the ladder or you will fall. to dismount from the top of a ladder you have to use the jump key (X). You can pick up new lives occasionally as power ups (in the shape of a red heart) and there are jumping platforms that enable you to make extra-long jumps. You’ll also find locked doors of various colours (violet, blue, green and brown) that require the same colored key to open them. Keys are usually found in secret chambers). The maximum number of lives you can have is three. Once you lose a life you restart the game from the beginning of that level,or where you left it previously (when ending the game. Beware when restarting a game not to choose new game if you have already progreesed through part of the game otherwise you will lose all of your progress. When you lose a life and have to restart from the beginning of a level you still retain the bones that you collected (which IMO rather defeats the object of having lives in the first place). To the top right of the playing arena you can see how many lives you have plus the number of white bones you’ve collected and the number you require to complete that level. There’s also an indicator telling you how many golden bones you’ve collected.

Watch out for the red block, it will kill you

Look for secret areas; these are usually signposted discreetly, and seemingly point to nowhere, but you’ll find you can walk through what look like blind endings to secret compartments. Sometimes you cn disappear along the top of the screen but there will be hidden bones so make sure you walk your character as far as you can before returning to the point where you disappeared. (I don’t think it was my monitor that caused this becasue I use quite a large sized one (25″) with the resolution set to maximum, so all parts of the game would show.

The game includes a levels editor which enables you to create your own levels. The different layers such as Main layer, background layer and objects layer are selected by clicking on 1,2 and 3 respectively. Each section has a collection of blocks. To select a new block such as grass, no collision walls or flowers use the mouse wheel to scroll through the various blocks that you can use. You can also select blocks by right clicking anywhere on the playing area and then move your mouse up and down to scroll through the various blocks. To place a block use the left mouse button, to erase a block use shift and left mouse button. The developer has created a section in the forums specifically for you to upload your creations so that you can share them with others. When I last looked (last year) there were no custom made levels uploaded, but hopefully with the number of giveaway community members that downloaded this last year, plus this years users we may soon see some custom made levels, all of which are free. I’ve posted a link to the developer’s forums below.

If you find the music annoying you can change it by replacing the .ogg files (5) found in C:\Games\A Man with a Monocle\Music\. You’ll need to convert your MP3′s/WMA or other sound files to ogg and rename them to the files you are replacing. As a precaution I’d back up the original sound files, but if you don’t and a problem does arise you can always download the demo from the developers site; though be sure not to install the demo over the full version.

If you have any problems running the game please post in the developers forums which I’ve linked to below. You will need to create an account. I posted a review in the giveaway forums last year which you can post any problems that may arise or even to let the community know that you’ve uploaded custom levels with download links. You can find the forum post HERE. There is a PDF document in the games folder which tells you everything you need to know about the game from what’s it all about, the game keys, options and the editor.

Start of Game Dialogue

Modes of Play

Story Mode

Normal – Accessible, not too hard, not too easy. You have a total of 3 lives.

Hard – More challenging, you have 2 lives and the only way to replenish them is to get a Golden Bone.

Hardcore – This is the hardcore mode. You’re hurt, you die.

Extras

Custom Campaign – Play campaigns made by other people. The campaign must be copied/pasted into your “CustomCampaign” folder, in the game directory.

Iron Monocle – Unlockable by finishing the game in the Hard or Hardcore modes. You have 3 lives, but if you die it’s gameover and you can’t restart your game again.
This mode has exclusive levels that aren’t in the Story Mode.

Charles’s Story – Unlockable by finishing the game with at least 20 Golden Bones in Normal mode. In this mode you can play with Charles as the main character, you have only 2 lives and finite restarts. You start with 3 Golden Bones, every time you die you lose one, once you lost them all its game over and your save is wiped out, with no restart possible.

This mode has exclusive levels that aren’t in the Story Mode.

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Control Schemes and keys:

Keyboard 1:

Shift – jump
CTRL – Run
Arrow keys – Movement
Up /Down arrows – Climb ladders

Keyboard 2 (default) :

X – jump
Z – run
Arrow keys – Movement
Up /Down arrows – Climb ladders

N.B.
If a character is talking to you, you can speed up the text with the Run key or if you wish to skip it altogether press the Jump key.

Gamepad:

Controls – Varies from gamepad to gamepad.

Keys for Editor:

1 – Select Main layer (floor, etc…)
2 – Select Background layer (for level props like trees, flowers etc..)
3 – Select Objects layer (enemies, bones, etc..)
Q – Select non-collision floor tiles. This can be useful for secret passages.
Shift – Erase tiles
F1 – Show/Hide Main layer
F2 -Show/Hide Background layer
F3 – Show/Hide Objects layer
F5 – Previous background
F6 – Next background
F7 – Previous tileset
F8 – Next tileset
F9 – Previous music
F10 – Next music

Moving Platform

Features:

• A unique and unpredictable story

• Old-school platforming action

• Travel across many different and fascinating locations

• Over 55 levels full of secrets and hidden passages to discover

• Un-lockable game modes and a new playable character.

• Create and play new campaigns for the game

• Soundtrack written exclusively by Swedish composer Johan Hargne

• And much more !

Images:

You can see about 30 images as a slideshow HERE

A Man with a Monocle Forums:

You can find comments and a place to post bugs and other issues as well as making suggestions to improve the game via the Developers forums. It only take a few moments to register and then post your comments, so please if you do have any suggestions please take the time to post in the developers forums. Who knows, we may get a much improved game if enough community members take the time to post their ideas and bug reports. Thanks.

Alternatively you can post comments, suggestions and bug reports over in the game discussion forums [url=http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/8876#post-85507][b]HERE[/b][/url]. I’ve placed a return link in the forums to make it easier to return to this comments section.

What other reviewers are saying:

• “One of the best stories I’ve ever seen in a indie game”- GamerGround (8/10)

• “It’s more of a steal than a deal, and should be snagged up immediately” -HarryBalls.com (4.5/5)

• “AMWAM has a lot to offer to fans of the tried and true side-scrolling platformer” – IndieGameReviewer (3.5/5)

Game modes

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Conclusion:

The game is reasonably well made apart from poor instructions on how to play the game or use the levels editor, though if you look in the games folder you’ll find a PDF file that explains just about everything you need to know. The developer should include a link in the options menu to access this file. There are lots of challenges, secrets and a couple of modes (which unfortunately I wasn’t able to test as the demo I used to write up the review when I wrote this last November doesn’t have access to them). The graphics are retro 90’s style which may put some off, but I would recommend downloading the game and checking the game play out for yourselves as this is one of those games I think you’ll either love or hate. As platformer’s go this is about average IMO; however, I’m not the best person to ask as I expect something very different from the usual run of the mill platformer’s (hmmm, what’s normal about platformer’s, lol) before I get interested in playing one. I’m not overly enamoured of platform games anyway unless they have something very special about them, for example Gish, Wik & the Fable of Souls, Trine, Aquaria, The Undergarden, Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time and Gumboy Crazy Adventures (to name just a few that I like). There is quite a lot to this game, but it’s slow to start and may give the impression of being shallow and uninspiring. The game is anything but if you are willing to invest some time in it.

The inclusion of a levels editor and the ability to share custom made levels with other owners of the game via the developer’s web site is a big plus for this game as it should extend the life of the game in terms of replayability. Unfortumnately I couldn’t figure out how to save the level I created, (well edited as you get a preformed level when you start the level editor and have to edit the various tiles that are available).

I originally gave this game a six out of 10, but I persevered with this game when it was first given away and found it a lot more entertaining that when i’d first played it. So I’m updating my original score of 6 to 7 out of 10. I think the game deserves it. There’s more to this game that at first seems, which lead me to change my mind over the scoring. That plus the ability to create your own levels quite easily means that this game has quite a good replay value.

I did find that that automatically being transported to the next level when you ran up against the end of the level annoying when I’d not completed collecting the required number of bones to win a golden bone, I don’t remember there being any warning that it was the end. You require golden bones to regenerate your health and help you open up new modes; which isn’t possible if you are transported to the next level before completing the quest to find the right number of white bones. It’s definitely a problem that needs addressing (IMO); maybe by placing a sign at the end of the level that says something like ‘Point of No Return’ or ‘To the Next Level’; that would enable players to turn back to collect more bones if needed, though it’s not possible to return all the way to the beginning because some areas are blocked simply because of the way the levels are designed. This could be overcome by including a reset button that takes you back to the beginning of the level.

Level Editor

I’d also consider adding a levels map so that you can see your progress and make it so that you are allowed to replay any previous levels. There is no access to the levels editor via the main menu; to access it at present you have to create a second shortcut; which needs to be added to the main menu. Also a help menu would be great. In it you could explain the basic game play and instructions on how to use the levels editor as well as explaining how to upload the levels to your ftp and how to incorporate other player’s custom made levels into the game; (not everyone knows how to do this).

The storyline at the beginning of the game needs to be shortened by placing all the dialogue onto one page rather than trying to give an appearance of a conversation. Though since the developer updated the game to include the ability to skip cut scenes it’s no longer a hassle.

For me something’s missing from the game. The basic game play is there, but there’s nothing special about the game that would distinguish itself from the countless other platformer’s that are available either as commercial or freeware alternatives. You need to add something extra special that will make this game stand out. The name is definitely unusual and implies a different sort of platformer, but IMO it doesn’t deliver on that impression. I’d also consider lowering the price to $5. You can get some excellent games from places like Big Fish and Gamehouse for less than the price you are asking, and there are hundreds of freeware platformer’s some of which are ‘much’ better than this game (check out the link to Caimans Games).

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Alternatives:

There are several decent platformers available from the arcade section of MyPlayCity including a new Turtix adventure called Turtix: Rescue Adventures:

MyPlayCity
Also more commercial quality platform games are available at Gametop; (there’s no specific section for platformer’s so check under arcade and puzzle games). Finally you’ll find 540 freeware platform games over at Caiman Games, some of which are excellent and of a very high standard. You can also get older platform games from many of the abandonware sites such as Abandonia, GamesWin and The Game Archives (just a selection of the growing number of Abandonware sites. A lot of the games from these sites do require DOSBox to work. You can find a short tutorial on how to set up DOSBox in the game discussion forums.

Here’s an additional Abandonware site that lists loads of Old School Platform games

Addendum:

It seems I was wrong about the versions being the same. You can now skip the cut scenes unlike with the first version given away last year. this is a big improvement on the original. The following is the update log:

Version 1.1

-Improved player control
-Improved collision detection
-Dialogue and cutscenes can be skipped (including initial sequence)
-The game can be closed down by pressing ALT+F4
-Improved documentation for newcomers
-Fixed bugs in level 10,21,26,27,34,43 and 51
-Fixed unlockables access bug
-Fixed some other minor bugs

Cannot start “a man” on XP 32bits: improper congiguration

…………………..Moderator Comment…………………

Try redownloading and installing. It worked with no problems on the XP (with SP3) 32 bit system that I run for testing these games. If that doesn’t work try changing your screen resolution temporarily to see if it works.