Giveaway of the Day - Cradle Of Persia

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

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Installation:

Today’s game giveaway Cradle of Persia downloads to a 33.1MB zip file that unpacks to a wrapped set up file and a read me that contains installation instructions, the Terms & Conditions and a registration code. The wrapped set up file ensures that you can’t install the game after the giveaway is over. The game installs to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Cradle Of Persia\CradleOfPersia.exe

or without the x86 if you are installing to a 32 bit system.

I think the install path may depend upon where you last installed a Game Giveaway. Please do check the install path before you continue with the set up wizard because I’ve found some games even install into the last game to be installed, which could cause running problems. (I think this has something to do with the Temp cache). If this appears to happen please would you report it here, thank you. The installed game is 83.1MB in size.

When installing today’s game a shortcut is placed on the desktop as well as in the Start menu programs list. You’ll also find an uninstaller and a link to Awems website in the start menu.

Introduction:

Persepolis – the mysterious heart of Ancient Persia. The original capital of the Achaemenid Empire was adored with luxurious metals, gems and stone carvings that were set to impress peasants and visiting nobles alike. But its exotic gardens and impressive architecture that once filled this place have long since vanished in the passing sands. Soon you will seek out the riddles of these ruins as you travel through the land of a thousand and one nights. To do this you will need skill and a keen wit, but the result-if you survive-will unlock a mystery never before seen by man, here in the Cradle of Persia game.

With Cradle of Persia you’ll travel through 7 historical epochs. As you precede the game more unique and original bonuses will be available for you. Conquer your way through over 100 levels to build 20 masterpieces of Ancient Persia and free the genie from Aladdin’s lamp! Unlock the wonders of Persepolis and become Caliph of Persia in this highly addictive puzzle game!

Reference accessed December 2011 HERE

The Game:

Build up the glorious heart of Ancient Persia in this engaging puzzle game! The original capital of the Achaemenid Empire was adored with luxurious metals, gems and stone carvings that were set to impress peasants and visiting nobles alike. But its exotic gardens and impressive architecture that once filled this place have long since vanished in the passing sands. Now you have a chance to seek out the riddles of these ruins as you travel through the land of a thousand and one nights. To do this you will need skill and a keen wit, but the result?if you survive?will unlock a mystery never before seen by man, here in the Cradle of Persia.

Gameplay is similar to the game 4 Elements that we were givena few months ago though in my opinion this game has more to offer with respect to varied gameplay, power ups, and extra’s such as building several cities ranging from the Achaemenid Empire, the mongols, Turkish rule, Hellenistic Persia the Parthian Empire, the Sassanid Empire through to the mythical land of Aladdin.
The graphic is older than 4 elements but it still looks pretty good. 4 elements had some nice animations and mini games, but the lack of these is offset by the empire building (I suppose you could call it an extended mini game). The mechanics of Cradle of Persia is the same as 4 elements with respect to the way you match three or more tiles. that is you select the first tile in the match by clicking on it then with the mouse button depressed drag your mouse pointer across all the matches. when you let the mouse button go the match is made.

In Cradle of Persia you have to clear away the marble plaques by destroying the tiles on top of them via the matches you make. Though you also need to ollect as many matches of the various types of tiles such as resources, food and gold as you can before the time is up. The more of these you collect the more you can build, tohugh you can also get gold bonuses for completing the level well within the alloted time. you can see how much time you have to complete a level from the indicator to the right of the main game arena.

The end of level statistic shows you how much of each resource you have managed to collect plus the high score. If you create more than one profile you can then compete to see who can get their name in the high score section.

When you’ve built specific parts of your city, special bonuses are unlocked, by collecting specific numbers of various types of tiles; for example, after building a Spring, collecting 1000 units of food in a single level will give you 200 extra units of food with every new level
When you make enough match 3s of like items, you will have enough money to buy your first building. Once you start your villages, the people will begin to come and it is up to you to make food matches to feed your clan. Unlike Cradle of Rome the previous game in this series you make matches by chaining like objects together instead of swapping. The object of this game is to break all the marble tiles by making matches over them. Like other match games you have chained blocks you must also make matches over in order to break the links.

Features:

Build over 20 masterpieces of Ancient Persia!
Travel through 7 historical epochs.
Collect supplies to unlock the wonders of Perselopis!
Earn gold, food, and resources.
Access power-ups and special abilities.
8 original bonuses, including Hourglasses, Magic Wands and Dynamite!
Build and conquer your way through over 100 levels to free the genie from Aladdin’s lamp!
Fun and challenging puzzles. Become Caliph of Persia!
Create your own civilizations.
Unique and truly addictive gameplay!
Switch Window/FullScreen Mode
For Any Age Player
Match items to clear puzzle tiles
Best production values in Innovate 2007

Controls:

Mouse plus keyboard for adding your profile and esc for pausing the game.

Video & Images:

You can see video of Cradle of Persia HERE, HERE and HERE, and you can see a slideshow of about 40 HERE

System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Memory: 256 MB
DirectX: 8.1 or later
CPU: P3 1.0GHz
Video: 32MB Direct3D Compatable Video Card

Conclusion:

You can check the game out for free via several online game distributors and gaming sites including Playrix and Big Fish

Cradle of Persia is not original or different from other match 3 games, but is above average and well worth downloading. I’ve posted a link to a online game at the beginning of the conclusion so that you can try it out before downloading, but to get a feel for this game you need to play it for a good 30 minutes or so it may be just as well to download it anyway becasue then you can play it in full scree.

This type of game play is addictive and fun to play as a family. Multiple profiles enables each member of the family to play a seperate game and you can even compete against each other because each level keeps a record of the highest score made for that level together with the profile that attained it. As well as the match three game, whch I find quite relaxing, despite the time limits on each level, which are quite generous for this game and especially after playing a more involved real time strategy game such as Shogun 2: Total War or East India Company or an ‘in yer face’ shooter such as Call of Duty or an involved Role Playing game like Skyrim, watching your empire expand and grow is kinda fun to watch. The artwork is decent and music appropriate for the scenes.

I found the game an above average game in all aspects; the score averaged out at 8 out of 10

Score:
Gameplay – 10
Graphics – 8
Audio – 7
Replayability – 8
Originality – 7

Overall 8 out of 10

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Alternatives:

You can get Cradle of Persia (Persian Puzle) from Gametop 24/7 as well as it’s counter part Cradle of Rome (Rome Puzzle) , though you’ll find that both games have had their names changed for licensing purposes, Gametop names in brackets). There’s also a good selection of other match three games available from the site. MyPayCity have a fabulous collection of Match three’s (over 50), but I won’t post a link any more becasue some of the games will install toolbars and hijack your home page without permission. (I haven’t checked all of the games) .

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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.

If you are getting the black screen problem right click on the games executable and select properties then click on the compatibility mode and select the disable visual themes. This should fix the problem, if not try disabling the display scaling on higher dpi settings and disabling the desktop composition.

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember that 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 graphic 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 diagnostics 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 developers site).

If you are having problems unzipping the game giveaways zip file, for example getting a message saying the file is invalid try using a different file archiver such as 7-Zip http://7-zip.org/ , J-Zip http://www.jzip.com/ , CAM UnZip http://www.camunzip.com/ , Hamster Free Zip Archiver http://ziparchiver.hamstersoft.com/en/home , GZip http://www.gzip.org/ , B Zip2 http://bzip.org/ , peazip http://www.peazip.org/ , ZipUnzip http://www.info-zip.org/UnZip.html , FreeRAR Extract Frog http://free-rar-extract-frog.pwpw.de/ , RAR File Open Knife http://www.rar-file-open-knife.com/rar_file_open_knife.php , ALZip http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALZip.aspx , The Extractor http://theextractor.org/ , RarZilla Free Unrar http://www.philipp-winterberg.com/software/rarzilla_free_unrar.php

Okay, that should be enough. there are actually many more free versions available. also there are other commercial titles such as the well-known WinRAR, Stuffit, WinAce, NXPowerlite and Corel Winzip Pro, but IMO 7-Zip is probably one of the better freebies. I did purchase a copy of Stuffit when it was on sale a few years ago, but didn’t like the interface for some reason, so hardly ever use it.

Gd game. . . . I love such match making games. . . . Its visualisation is fine as compared 2 its cost. . .