Although I am not so fond of the restaurant TM games, I do like the Amelie series. This is mainly because of the match three bonus, which add something extras to the game. Without it I would not be able to finish in time on the higher levels. I was a bit disappointed though with the lack of Christmas decorations. I would have expected more garlands, bows and wreaths, but if it had not been for Amelie's Santa outfit and the Christmas tree in the first cafe, it is just the same as the other Amelie's TM games I played. I believe the extra decorations of the cafes could have been more festive with e.g. Christmas table cloths. Another thing is that if you gain four rewards, you get a golden Santa, but this does not show up in the calendar at all. A Santa hat added to the golden bauble would have been nice, so that you can see which levels you did very well and which not. Also I would have appreciated a Restart button on the results page in stead of going back to the main menu and choose career mode again. All in all I enjoyed playing the game. There is also a Santa mode which is much harder, but I did not try that one, because the normal mode is challenging enough for me. I did try the Survival mode, but got carried away and could not stop really, so I am not doing that again, because my wrist was not amused. Thanks again for the game. I wish everyone a good gaming year.

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Thank you for your feedback Merlyne, much appreciated. :)

This website and GOTD were down all day for us here (U.S., New York). Would have liked to give this a spin, but the website was down from morning until evening when I gave up. checked with diagnostic sites and they confirmed that both GOTD and GGOTD were down.

Hope all is well with the MRI!

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I don't know about earlier in the day, but when I tried to get on the site when i got back from the hospital yesterday evening, I wasn't able to and when I tried later it took hours for me to finally be able to moderate. I've been experiencing the same problem all of today (Monday a swell. finally got on the main site and the admin site to finsih off moderating just now (22.45 GMT Monday evening). Sorry for the very late moderation. Hopefully the giveaway team will give the game away again next week. They have done this when technical issues have stopped a lot of people downloading the game. I tohught it was odd that there were few comments for what is usually a popular genre.

You are right. I usually enjoy time-management, but this special game I uninstalled because it was too hectic for me. It worked well on win8.

Hi Stephen,
Sorry to hear your MRI aapt took so long. My husband has had several in the last year, most of which took less time than I expected. He also told me that the modern machines make less noise than the early ones. Hoping they find nothing serious.
I'm giving this game a thumbs up because I think it's cute with its holiday theme. Since Sunday was the tenth day of Christmas, I don't see anything wrong with it being offered now (On the tenth day of Christmas, Game Giveaway gave to us...). On a personal note, I've always wished the season lasted longer. It always seems like everyone takes down the holiday decorations just before my birthday, making me feel a little less celebratory. I can blame my parents for choosing the day to have my birth induced, but then they were facing the possibility of labor starting during a blizzard in New England. However, some years later, my Higher Power had the audacity to kick my butt into sobriety on my birthday. So now I get to celebrate two significant events on one day, with this year being the thirtieth time.
But let's get back to the game -- I'm really bad at TM, having failed the second level 2 or 3 times, but have probably only played TM about twice. But I'll keep trying and maybe I'll get better. Still too early for me to evaluate the game or make suggestions for improvement.
Cara in NC

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Thank you for your feedback Cara. I think my hospital must still be using an old MRI machine as it was as noisy as i remember my first MRI from many years ago. :)

Mys on has had issues with his birthday for years, partly because it is also near the end of the Christmas 12 days He was born on the 4th January, but also because until this year my daughter used to do the christmas show via her dance classes. She was showing less interest in it over the last few years and becasue of the exhorbitant cost of the costumes she had to buy each year becasue she danced in the bakket, modern dance and jazz parts of the show, all of which required costume changes. , costing us as much as £600 (over $900) per season. The shows were always held over the last few days of chritmas, so invariably were held on his birthday. He always felt the emphasis was on his sister, when it should have been his special day. This year he got all of the attention for his 16th birthday. :)

Considering this is from a Russian publisher, it only makes sense to post it now because they celebrate Christmas in 3 days going by the Julian calendar. In the Gregorian calendar that Pope Gregory XIII pushed in the 1500s that's used around these parts, it falls on January 7. Countries that recognize it: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Macedonia, Republic of, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States.

Take it as you will, here's the holiday list http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/ if you're interested and be able to celebrate at the calendar date of your choice.

I don't want to derail the topic here. Art looks great, the game's probably a load of fun if polished a little too much to appeal to as many as possible. But we're expecting that from a publisher with a good repertoire. I'm digging the bullets too as they know how to draw a crowd in:

Incredible bonuses.
Fantastic action.
Decorate the Christmas cafes!

I don't see anything missing here but crazy festive visual filters. I don't know how customizable the decorating is, but look at those screens! My download just finished so I'll click send on this and give it some ++++ maybe with an a before it.. a+++ just for having another christmas game in my download folder. I might post another actual assessment.

Not my kind of game but hoping everything is ok with your health!

I like the game well enough. It's rather charming and for me challenging. no problems installing. works great.

I always loved the games from gamegiveawayoftheday, they are fun, easy to install, no virus's, malware or spyware. But I have a problem, the games were always for Windows which I had.
but now I have a Mac and can not download any of these games.
It would be nice if the games offered, would be offered for Mac...

Thank you.

Shirley

I had no problems installing it, and I like it as much as the previous one I played

Hello, Whiterabbit,

wish you happy, healthy and prosperous new year. I've been working at the Neurosurgical Dept. of the University Hospital in DUS, Germany. Take good care, don't take it too easy! If you have any questions, send me a personal email!

All the best

Gaby

.............................Moderator Comment............................

Thank you Gaby. Sorry for the very late moderation. Was held up at the hospital; didn't get home till almost 7pm, was really exhausted, so went to bed. Only just woken up recently apart from a short stint around 9pm, but for some reason wasn't able to log into my admin account. sorted now though.

I hope your tests go well. Please take care.

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Thank you Debbie, just got to wait awhile now for the results. I'm going to pay for copies of the MRI scans. always wanted to look at my brain, lol.

Downloaded and hated it which is odd since I usually love Alawar games. Problem now is I can't remove it; it's not listed in program files to uninstall.

"Please forgive my shortened review": it's enough to get a idea of the game.

I had a lot of luck then: a MRI during lunchtime.
Work until 12:00, went to hospital and back to continue work at 14:00.
At that time I gave a course in Excel. So they ate and I listen to some stupid radio :-)
For you: I hope the results are good for you.

.......................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you Ootje

That was my first thought. too...

Missed your post White Rabbit. Wishing you all the best with your tests, I hope the results are what you are hoping for and it all works out well for you.

Good luck. Doctor appointments aren't fun!


..................................Moderator comment..................................

It's for an MRI of my brain. don't know how long it will take to scan. Reckoning on 30 minutes or so. Hope that have some piped rock music for me to listen to, lol.

A bit late or way too early for this theme? ;)

I love time management games and will be putting this one on my new computer, which desperately needs a bunch of games. I'm getting a bit sick of Scare Pairs and Pyro Lights - the only 2 I have at the moment! LOL.

I bought this game awhile back and I enjoy it. I like all of the Amelie games.

It's not Diner Dash and you shouldn't expect it to be. In this game you control 3 cooks and Amelie. She serves the food. You can buy upgrades to make them faster and neater (they won't cook if their station gets too dirty). It's a fun game to pass the time and if you enjoy this one, there is a whole series available.

It's pretty and has all the ingredients (no pun intended) of an enjoyable time-management game.
But.... there seems to be too much going on and a bit too much to remember.
A decent tutorial starts you off but soon it becomes a little "samey" and there's something about the game method which - for no reason I can explain - just isn't fun!

Generally, I enjoy this genre. However, other games of this type which have been given away in the past (like; King's smith, Bilbo's 4 corners of the world, supermarket mania, gourmania, etc etc) all seem better and offer a challenge I want to take up.
Unfortunately, Amelie's Café doesn't. I'd rate it as 3/10 - playable, just. When you have no other games of this type and want to play one.

As with the original version, tried and uninstalled.
Thanks anyway, GGAOTD and Alawar.

This is a nice game if you enjoy Time Management games. Not my favorite genre as I find I can enjoy it for a few levels but I can't click fast enough to keep up for too long. There is no installation process. Instead you unzip the game to a location of your choice on your computer. The installed folder is 132 MB. When you finish the game or no longer want it, you just delete it. I will keep it for some play while I wait for a download to finish, etc. Thank you GGOTD and Alawar Entertainment.

I have an appointment at the hospital for an MRI on my brain, so don't have time to write a full review. As yet I've not been able to install the game as I keep getting the connection problem some of the community suffer from ocassionally.

The medics are checking to make sure my memory problems are not of a more insiduous nature. Hopefully will be back mid to late afternoon. Hoping that a Sunday appointment will go quickly rather than the usual half day marathons we are subjected to in the UK NHS.

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Amelie’s Cafe: Holiday Spirit:


Installation:


Amelie’s Cafe: Holiday Spiritdownloads to a 135MB zip file that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped setup activation file (the orange colored file with the key symbol), plus there's a setup file with security (setup.gcd) that's protected from being hacked. This file may case some security software to alert the user to a possible malware attack, but it will be a false positive. The game giveaway team check all game giveaways for malware using several well known anti -malware suites. There has never been a game giveaway infected with malware since the project started back in Dec 2006.

I don't know what the installed size is yet becasue I've not been able to install the game yet as I keep getting a failed to connect message. Don't have the time to solve it at the moment. The default installation path for the game is:

C:\Games\AmeliesCafeHolidaySpirit_game







Introduction:

Welcome to Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit! Would you like to earn money to make your Christmas holidays happy, pleasant and full of fun? If yes, then you should immediately take part in this nice activity. New visitors are coming every minute and there is no place for rest now. Be fast, careful and polite with those who visit this or that café to earn money and get nice gifts. Serve the customers and pay attention to the people who're already waiting for your help. Your task is to attract more and more clients, so do your best serving people and making their rest comfortable. Let them all feel the atmosphere of Christmas and Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit. As your cooks are ready with all those salads, chicken and mashed potatoes you should rush to the kitchen and carry the dishes to the customers. You'll need energy to cope with the difficulties of this job. Try to serve as many visitors as you can to get high scores and wonderful gifts. Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will provide you with bright emotions while you pass levels and mini-games with realistic details and capturing game play. Accomplish your goals in each of 50 levels and become a real specialist in the field of holiday's preparation. You'll definitely enjoy this game and spend hours of playing surrounded with bright graphics and nice music. Download this game right now and learn what Santa has in store for you! Perhaps your Christmas stocking is already full of gifts! Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit is all about this!

Reference accessed HERE 4th Jan 2015

Review of Amelie’s Cafe: Holiday Spirit from Gamemile:

How many Amelie’s cafes have you already managed? Have you tried Amelie's Cafe: Summer Time or Amelie's Cafe: Halloween? If you’re Amelie’s fan you can enjoy the well-known story-line decorated according to the Christmas playing Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit. And if you’re a new comer, welcome to the Amelie’s world! Taking into account that Alawar Games has already cut its teeth on the café theme, the new release will disappoint neither experienced players, nor the newbies.





As usual to in all the games of Amelie’s Café series, you’ll help the heroine do everything from serving customers to decorating the cafe in order to bring new customers in. The only thing that differs from the previous games is that all the decorations will correspond with the Christmas. What is the Holiday Spirit means to you? And for Amelie it means the workers wearing Santa’s hats, X-mas trees, gifts and many other things that will be clear to you while making progress through the game.






You’ve been playing time-management games for so often that you doubt that Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will be challenging for you? No problem! You just have to choose Santa Mode. Santa Mode is an advanced difficulty mode in which customers arrive earlier and lose patience faster. Players who beat this mode earn a commemorate mark. Don’t even ask me what it goes about – I spent too much time managing that so hardly I’d give away this secret for free.





As every time management game does, Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will make you move as fast as you can and decide on quickly. If you succeed in that, you’ll be provided with the upgrades. You may either renovate the café’s interior or make your workers work harder or neater. By the way the amount of the cookers will increase and if you think, that this will make your task easier, you are mistaken. At the very beginning you are supposed to serve smashed potato, turkey and salad or a combination of two of the mentioned dishes. Then a girl cooking a kind of muffin appears. And then you have to serve candies. And then… But Amelie is still the only one to serve!




Thanks God, in the bottom of your screen there is a special line where the images of coins, brushes and candy canes arrive. If you click any of them it disappears, and the rest three of a kind that makes 3 in a raw improve your current situation. Three brushes in a raw make all the tables of your workers clean in a moment. Three candy canes in a raw make all your visitors happy and pleased even if you’re delaying their order (that is my favorite, by the way). And tree coins in a raw make your tips bigger.




The last week has been extremely busy for me, so no full review again. Hopefully things will return to normal now that the festive season is over.

I haven't been able to install the game yet, so wasn't able to give my own opinion of the game. The review above was copied from Gamemile HERE


Video:

You can see video game play of the game

HERE (Cafe 3 day 24) and HERE (episode 1 day 1-2)


Other Information:

If you miss todays giveaway the game is available from the usual free game sites; please do remeber that you may get your browser changed or your home page changed or toolbars added to your browser when installing these games, usually unchecking the checkboxes during installtion stops these from occuring. All these games will open your browser when you close the game down, but it is totally inocuous. You can get the game from
MyPlayCity and Jenkat Games

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Problems:


If you have any problems installing or getting to work today's game please go HERE for help. I've posted all of the common problems and solutions in a FAQ thread, which you can find in the sticky section of the forums by following the above link.


If you are posting late in the day I would also suggest posting in the main giveaway forums, in the game discussion section because I cannot moderate 24hrs a day over the weekend. I've created a thread HERE for that purpose. If you've installed the game but it won’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at another time. Unfortunately if your problem is actually installing it then once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done until the game is given away again (though that isn't guaranteed). Sometimes you can still register the game after the giveaway has ended so long as you managed to start the download before the giveaway ends. I've tested this and sometimes the grace period lasts for up to 2 hours, but more often than not 1 hour is the norm.

It’s always worth checking out the free games sites because sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them. MyPlayCity (MPC) has the most with over 1000 games to choose from. This particular game is available from both Jenkat and MyPlayCity. See Extra Information above for links.

If you do download any other games from MPC or the other free game sites 'do' watch out for toolbars etc. Make sure you un-check the check-boxes during installation, and, in the case of MyPlayCity, every time you boot the game up, (this may have changed now as MPC tend to change the format frequently. .. I've posted links to all of the common free game sites below in the games, games games section. :)




If you are posting late in the day I would also suggest posting in the main giveaway forums in the game discussion section. If you’ve installed the game but it won’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at another time. Unfortunately if your problem is actually installing it then once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done until the game is given away again (though that isn’t guaranteed. It’s always worth checking out the free games sites as sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them as is

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Please forgive my shortened review, got to go for my appointment in a few moments.

will continue to moderate later this afternoon. :)