This game had some of the most fabulous artwork I've seen on an adventure/hidden object game. Ravishing. The story was gripping and loved the concept of wondering about a cemetery and discovering all kinds of beautiful and odd things. However although this was really enjoyable, I couldn't see anyone taking off into a cemetery at the bequest of a maniac whether one's boyfriend was in peril or not. It would be a call to the police for me. And as it was a violent maniac the heroine was dealing with, it was a little surprising that she finished him off so effortlessly - with a sedative dart in the back. However, apart from those nit-picks, it was terrific fun and I was really sad when the game came to a finish.

All in all, brilliant effort. Thank you so much for this great game.

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

:)

Installed cleanly. Game was fun but i think the King Richard 3?(was it richard i coulnt remember) corpse puzzle lacks more instructions.

Hi!
It took awhile to download on 8.1, but set up fine. I like the graphics and the play is
smooth. You move back and forth and find items fairly easy. A few need more figuring.
Thanks for another good game and have a good week! Lee

Same here. I have been trying from last night, but each time download failed.

Oops, sorry, I am running Win10 on a Intel Core i5 64bit ASUS Laptop and usually do not have any problems downloading any games or programs from this site.

Unable to complete download. "GCD" file completes, but will not complete "Setup" file. Have tried multiple times. Keep getting messages. Either: "CRC error" or "The key cannot be decrypted."
That is a true shame as I was really looking forward to this game. It has taken anywhere from 35 minutes the first time at about 11:ooam (the first time) to 48minutes this evening (the last time) to download this game.
I do appreciate the opportunity to download and try the games from game giveaway of the day and the various vendors as well as the comments and reviews from the others who frequent this site. God bless you all.

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

Did you try turning off your security :?: The Themida based gcd file was probablt the culprit. Sorry to hear it wasn't resolved.

I bought this from Big Fish Games & played it a while ago. I checked my notes and rated the game 7 out of 10. (Yes, I'm the sort of person who keeps notes on all the games played. Yes, it's weird & a bit compulsive. Yes, I do have a life too!) I noted that the ending of the standard version wasn't all that great & I lost interest in the story by then. It's possible that getting the full Collectors Edition would offer up a more complete ending but I don't know which version GGOTD is offering. I found the game enjoyable but fairly easy but I play lots of these so I'm good at them. My notes mention that I wasn't all that engaged by the writing, wanted more & harder puzzles and found the graphics a bit fuzzy in places. I also think the game could have used morphs or collectibles and some achievements but I say that about a lot of games. In all, it's a pretty good game that a beginner could play but that an expert would likely find rather easy. It's great that GGOTD is offering IHOG's these days so please don't take my comments negatively.

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

Thank you for your feeback Sublime One. Negative, or positive, so long as its constructive, comments are welcome. :)

I have downloaded this game twice, both times on clicking set up it states "key cannot be decrypted". any help is appreciated

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

Hi Allen, have you checked the FAQ's thread over in the Game Discussion sticky section :?: I've linked to the thread in my review, (see comment number 1).

The problem may be related to your anti malware suite. The giveaway team have given away well over a 1000 games since the game giveaway project started back in Dec 2006 and there has never been any games infected with malware, so it should be safe to turn your anti malware suite off temporarily. This should fix the problem. The setup.gcd file is Themida based, which can be seen as a threat by some anti malware suites, which then block the installation and/or activation.

A lot of community members have had this problem since the gcd file was introduced over 2 years ago. There may be other fixes, which can be found in the FAQ's thread.

Software installed fine, I started playing and it's OK. I found some of the puzzles incomprehensible and clues lacking. In particular, a musical one I had to skip as I can't read or follow music, and I also skipped a color puzzle due to lack of clues. As long as I can skip the things that I can't follow, I don't mind too much. System is Windows Vista Home Edition, Dell Vostro 1000 laptop.

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

Thanks for your feedback Therese. :)

I do - thank you!!!

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

Wish I was still in Cyprus :)

Great game. Thanks Alawar & WR. I liked everything about it but the ending was disappointing. Other than that the graphics, flow of the game, story line, ease of working within the game, etc. were great!!!

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

Any suggestions that could improve the ending :?: ;)

I like these games but I'm having problems downloading this one today. The download has failed several times already and it is currently showing a completion time of 7 hours!. I have fibre optic broadband and this is the slowest speed I've ever encountered on your site. Has anyone else reported any problems today?

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

Hi Lynn, all I can suggest at this juncture (with only 8 hours to go), is to download one of those free download managers. There are some decent ones available. I personally use internet download manager (IDM), but that is a commercial title.

Using a download manger usually protects the download, so that if there is a break in the download, it retains what has been downloaded, so you don't have to restart over again. What most download managers do is break the download up into several packets ((using IDM you can have as many as 16 packets, which gives a very fast download speed) it is broken up into several packages thus increasing the download speed. Some sites don't allow the use of them because you are using a higher percentage of bandwidth.

You'll find a couple of free download managers HERE and HERE. The following download manager i.e Internet Download Manager (IDM) is a commercial version, and has more bells and whistles than the free ones linked to above. You'll find IDM HERE. Personally until a freind told me about IDM I never felt the need to use one, but i was really impressed with the demo that I decided to purchase the software. If you contact the developer and ask for a discount they are quite generous. I got it with a 50% off discount. :D


The following image shows the Internet Download Manager's GUI, from clicking the start download to taking the image took about 3 seconds, in that time 29% of the file had already been downloaded. It say there was 35 seconds left to complete the download. In actual fact it took half that time. you can see eight distint packets of data being downloaded. These are downloaded concurrently. I could set it up to download 16 packets, but feel that 8 is ample (the red lines represent a download slot. In the image above one of the slots had not started, so only 7 were being used at the time). Using 16 slots would effectivly be slowing other community members downloads down as the bandwidth is shared equally between whome ever is downloading at the time. :D

Great game from the wonderful Alawar studios. Lots of fun and worked fine on my old, lovingly-handled Windows XP 32-bit system. Keep 'em coming! :-)

Downloaded, installed by switching off Avira, played trough (am on vacation) and loved it.

Beauftiful graphics, cool story line, unexpected ending ;-)

Thanks a lot for 3 cool games in a row.

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

Hope you are enjoying your vacation :)

Whiterabbit,

For your information, there are these nifty little things called DOM's (Disk On Module) which would prevent you from needing to do a lot of this unnecessary reformatting, which is really BAD for SSD's.

Go to directron dot com and have a look at what I mean. They're veery small and fit directly onto the motherboard into the first SATA connector. You use them as the boot disk, and only put your OS on them. A 32GB DOM would be all you need. After that, anything you need to install in the way of programs or games would go onto your D: or E: or whatever drive, which you would then only need to defrag once or twice a year.

Also, from your fast bootup time, it sounds like you only put your computer in sleep mode. I do the same, and with the hybrid drive I have, I get to the password screen in less than 30 seconds, and the computer is ready to go from where I left off when I put it to sleep as soon as I enter my password.

The hybrid drive in my laptop is a Seagate 500GB with 4GB of SSD on board (first generation circa 2009; they now have 8GB) on up to 4TB drives. The hybrid drives come in both 3.5 and 2.5-inch sizes. Toshiba also recently started making some.

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

Thanks Bart. I've consdere getting both hybrid and DOM's in the past, but decided to sticj with SSD's party becasue there's very little space left on my motherboard (at least on my main gaming rig). I m,ay invest in one when i start my next build.

I do try to keep everything off the C drive, apart from the operating system , the only other folders are the user folder with the appdata folder etc and My Documents plus of course the desktop. If I could find a way to get those automatically installed to a different hard drive I would, but as yet I've not found a way. I usually remove most of whats in My Documents regularily, transferring them over to one of the other hard drives installed on the computer.

The "plot" IS a bit disturbing for what should be a simple arcade game; but in such games I pay little attention to "plot" anyway, it is usually just a device to tie together the HOG sections. Alawar, like Playrix, has always offered fun, well-crafted games that are light on resources; and fun is the only reason for games. Thumbs up from me.

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

:)

I usually like HOGs and I do like Alawar products so I am going to download this. I almost never have the music and sound effects turned on so the comments for or against them does not bother me. Beergas - I no longer have a membership with BigFish either, but, I do get regular emails from them and if I want to buy a game I wait until their 50 or 60% off offers come out (50% this weekend) mostly because I got a game from here and wanted others in the series, like the FishDom family of games. Also, I will be getting a new computer soon and the GGOTD games will not transfer so I will replace my favorites from BigFish. Have you tried the mosaic type games they have there? I have all the World Mosaic and Fantasy Mosaic games (bought at half price, of course.

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

I'd like to see more of the Mosaic games here. :)

I really enjoy these HOG's.. so I am happy with this. It downloaded fine on my WIN 7 64 bit and the graphics and all look really nice. It is intriguing.

Thank you Alawar and GOTD for the nice giveaway..

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

:)

I don't find I have to "turn off" my antivirus to download, I just turn off the real-time protection, and if you have good firewall protection, which I do with a router and Comodo's product, plus Malwarebyte Anti-Malware for good measure, none of which need to be disabled, I feel like the short time to install the game has not been an issue.

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

:)

Thanks for game for those who can still take this genre. Agree that HOG is getting real stale, now with these repeating scenes. As I scanned the pics show here my thought was "I've been here, didn't I just play this game?".
Couple recent HOG has same kind of exterior shots around cafe, gas station, etc. Novel spooky theme but same old, same old is a pass for me.

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

I cancelled my Big Fish account about 5 years ago due to the number of HOG's being released there. They had a policy of releasing a game every day. I ended up with several months worth of keys that I didn't want to use as virtually every game released for several months was a HOG and I couldn't see any new releases i liked (the other genre that was very popular at the time was Time Management, which incidentally was the only other genre I found tedious). Back then I counted over a thousand of the things on BFG's books and yet they are still being released regularily.

Just take a look at the number of free ones you can get from places like MyPlaycity (at least 250).... Ah well, each to their own.

The walk through menu is fantastic. I haven't had to use it yet, but it is nice to know it is there. I do wonder why on the second search of the trunk, the items that were taken on the first search are there. I notice this in other HOGs. I also would like to be able to have the option of keeping the inventory open all the time. Those are just suggestions from a less than novice.

I love the graphics in the game. The music doesn't distract from the game itself. It is just an underlying aspect of it. I would definitely replay this game.

Overall, I just love the game. Thanks to Alawar for another good game. Thanks Stephen for your review and to GGOTD for offering this as a freebie. It's been a good weekend.

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

Glad you have enjoy this weekends games. :)

This is a great hidden object game with a good story line and game play. Thank you.

Oh! A SPOOOOOOKY Game! Do I want to play a CREEEEEPY game today? I'm going to have to think think think about that one.

I HONESTLY (not dishonestly) don't like going through the same scenes over and over and over and over repeatedly for infinity or until the game just ends. It's like DEJA VU. It's like DEJA VU. Wait. Are the game makers really that lazy or are they just lazy? Wait.

I've always wondered why "Stephen the White Rabbit" is the only monitor on GOTD who will actually talk. Why are "Bob the Chicken Boy" and "Erick, Erick, My Name Is Erick" both so quiet?

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

I'd like to know that as well :?:

The only other moderator of comments I know of who used to leave comments on the main site is BuBBY, though he's been super busy elsewhere over the last few years, so I've not seen him reply for along time. The giveaway team also sometimes reply to queries on the main site, but that seems a rare occurance these days as well :)

Great games this weekend. Thank you!!!

Oh and by the way, I did try recently to update drivers, but they're all up to date.

Thanks again for your efforts :)

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

Ah okay. did you use the Driver program we got via the main site a few weeks ago? That is quite a useful program for keeping your drivers updated, especially as any that need updating can updated at the click of a single mouse button :)

Hi, thanks so much for replying so soon.

I reinstalled the game and just played an hour of it with sound. Great game!

However, after exiting the game just now, I opened it again to make sure sound is still working and there was no audio, so I exited and tried again and I have sound again. So it's an intermittent thing.

Looks like I'll just have to work with what I've got. But thanks for the screenshot, I'll keep an eye on my headphones in there :)

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

I'd still reconsider updating all of your audio drivers. it's really not that hard and generally worth getting the latest drivers.:)

Thanks for two HOG/mystery games this weekend, GGOTD! This one took forever to download even though I came super early in the morning, but installed and plays just fine on Win 8.1. Nice look, music, etc. and although I've only started, seems just challenging enough without being impossible and having to overuse hints. Haven't come across any puzzles yet, though (you know, those little challenges where you have to solve a puzzle to go further or obtain something), and I'm hoping to find some in this game. Still haven't finished yesterday's game, so I have a nice fun week ahead :).

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

:)

Don't want to turn off my antivirus program just to install these games... :-(

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

Hi Mad Ollie, there has never been a game givaway infected with malware. The giveaway team throughly check all games to be downloaded. The Themida based setup.gcd may be seen as a threat by your antimalware suite, but it's entirely safe. you'd only be turning it off for the short time you are installing the game. Once it's installed you turn your antimalware application back on. Ever since the gcd file was introduced a few years ago many community members have had problems installing these games, I've never seen any reports of a community member turning off their malware suite to install the game then have become infected. Everyone who has done this has reported the game installed and everything was fine. There really is no risk, but I must qualify this by saying you do so at your own risk.

It would be a shame to miss out on such a decent game when there really is no risk :)

I'll let you into a secret, I've rarely used any antimalware for years and apart from a small happening about 3 years ago after installing a giveaway from the main site (the giveaway team had checked the files, but the adware that was packaged was new and none of the better anti malware suites had seen it yet, so it got through the giveaways rigorous testing), I've kept my computer clean of infections. This is because I only visit sites I'm familair with, or which have been recommended by friends that I trust. I only buy games from specific distributors and never download free games from sites I don't know. My computer boots up in less than 30 seconds (39 seconds if I'm doing a Ctrl, Alt Delete and I've booted up in less than 24 seconds when I've done a clean install of windows), and my computer has run smoothly since my last format. I usually format at least once a year, partly due to my habit of installing loads of giveaways from the main site. When my boot up times fall below 30 seconds (due to programs running in Start up) I initially remove them from Start Up, but eventually decide to clear my main drive of everything (I'll export some of the registration details from the registy of programs I intend to continue using (I usually purchase licences of giveaways i use frequently) then clear my main hardrive (an SSD) and reinstall the operating system. I've done this ever since I purchased a copy of windows 3.1 back in the late 80's). I do sometimes install a free anti malware program that's being given away here or via BitsduJour, but usually find they reduce my boot up times significantly, so end up deleting them

Thank you Whiterabbit! Do you think this game is too scary for an 8 year old?

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

Hi Samantha, It really depends on the individual. I know my daughter would love this whereas my son would have been scared (he has some odd phobias such as a phobia of cobwebs, even images of them - he wont play games with any hint of a cobweb). I'd certainly recommend supervision while playing, then you can assess how your child reacts. If there are any signs of being scared, turn the game off immediately and get them involved in something else to distract them from the game. The sooner you do this, the better. :)

I don't want to register to post in the help forum. So I'm putting my problem here.

I have no sound. Can anyone help with this? Install went fine, I have the shortcut to play on my desktop. I've activated the game as well. I have usb headphone. Just tried a youtube video and sound works fine.

Thanks.

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


Hi Holly, try updating your sound drivers. You can find out which manufacturer you need to download from by opening the Direct X diagnostics panel (type dxdiag in the search field) and click on the sound tabs. You may find 2, 3 or more of these depending on how many audio devices you have connected or installed on your computer' (I see five sound tabs via my diagnostics panel); for example on mine I find RTKVD64.sys, ctaud2k.sys, USBAUDIO.sys. (a couple are doubled up) You may (or will) find different file names. Use these as key words to search for drivers for those devices. Google is the best search engine to use for such searches.

It may be that the volume has been turned down for that specific game. Go to the task bar and right click on the speaker symbol and open up the Volume Mixer; which looks something like the following (I'm using my volume mixer as an example, your's will look different depending on what you have running on your computer. You should see todays game assuming you have it running. If not, turn the game on then Alt Tab to move it to the task bar temporarily):

This small application enables you to turn off various sound sources. I'm running a recently released game called Mad Max, plus for the sake of clarity I've temporarily booted up today's game so that you can see what it looks like. It's a simple window that lists all sound outputs that are running on my computer at this time. There should be a separate slider control for each sound source, which becasue you can't hear any sound may be set to zero. If this is the case, it's almost certain, the reason why you can't hear anything in game but can when you play a You Tube video you can.

Another way to find out what drivers you may need to update go to the device manager, which you should be able to find in the control panel. I usually use the old XP control panel interface a si find it easier to find what I'm looking for, but that seems to have been excluded in Win 10 (if it's still present, I've not found it yet :) ). You should be able to find the device manager by typing Device Manager into the Start Menus search field. Once the Device Manager is open, click on the Audio Inputs and Outputs. You should see a list of audio devices that looks something like the following, (yours will look different depending on what audio devices you have installed on your computer):

Check each device to see if it's working properly (when you open a device from this list it will default to the general tab where you can find whether the device is working properly), then click on the driver tab (see image below) to see which driver is required for that particular sound device. Make a list of all the different drivers then Google them to get the latest drivers for that device. Try and get them from the device manufacturer (highly recommended) rather than secondary suppliers, though it's not essential. Most drivers are found in windows system folders. Check the folder first to see if you can see them there. Hopefully the driver will come packaged as an executable, so it will automatically be placed in the correct folder, but they don't always come as an executable, in which case you will need to place them manually. It's important that you locate where the driver should be placed. If you aren't sure, Google it.

Good luck, I hope the above solves your audio problem.


:)

Win 10 Home. 64 bit. Downloaded and played beautiful. No problems at all. I remember this game. I got this from BigFish a couple of years ago. Happy to play it again. There was the bit where you have to download the icon to play from. Easy.

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


:)

Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood, is a hidden object game, and a very good one. I had no trouble installing it on a Win 7 32-bit system. The hidden objects are very well hidden, but can be found. The game is entertaining but perhaps not for small children. The game is quite spooky, and the bad guy is extremely creepy.

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


:)

Alawar has a good track record for making and / or publishing good kinda morbid moody games. Everything from the look/idea to the sound/music to the way the engine works, the hint queue, it's like you're playing a work of art. Granted you keep playing them and it has this manufactured look/feel to it as well, as if a team of 15-20 individuals make these releases like conveyor belts, but they do it so effectively, efficiently, and it has to be a lot of work localizing them in different languages and distributing them to certain sites free and pay in order to turn a profit, but they do it with speed/grace and they do it well. There is still a charming aspect to each one of these I play and though there are examples of this genre by other companies I'd call my favorite, I still think as a whole Alawar is my favorite as a publisher just because of the hard work and production they put in each one.

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


Thank you for your feedback Jarkydrapedoor (unusual name). :)

BigFish reviews and walk-through, in case Rabbit is busy. :)

http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/walkthrough/cruel-games-red-riding-hood-walkthrough/

http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/7467/cruel-games-red-riding-hood/

Looks like another decent HOG. Thanks Alawar and GAOTD.

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


Thanks Laurelnev, I had included them, but it's usful to see them separated from a large bulk of writing as some community members do not read my reviews. :)

Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood:

Installation:

Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood downloads as a 627 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me document that contains the terms and conditions and a wrapped dual activation and set up module and a security set up file (setup.gcd). Just for the newcomers amongst today’s users that means the game will be registered once it’s gone through the set up process, so there’s no registering the game with an activation code.


C:\Games\CruelGamesRedRidingHood_Game



Sometimes I've found the installation path shows the previous game I installed from this site, so to be sure you don't install the game inside a previous game, check the installation path when you start the installation. You can usually find where it's supposed to go by looking in the read me file that comes with the download. To stop this happening, clear your cache. There is no shortcut installed, so you will have to create one yourself. The installed game is 656MB in size

Introduction:

Everyone loves fairytales. But an innocent tale turned into a nightmare when some maniac kidnapped young girl’s fiance, playing the role of a Big Bad Wolf. The main character is forced to follow the criminal, collecting the clues and solving the puzzles. Help the brave lady save her beloved in a gorgeous game Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood! This Hidden Object adventure is simply brilliant: you will be cast away by a twisted story, visiting gloomy locations, such as an old cemetery. Are you ready to explore dark graves and step into a deserted chapel? The maniac will follow you step by step, you have to be cunning enough to trick the dangerous man. Learn what will be the end of this frightful fairytale in the game Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood!

Reference accessed HERE 13th Sept 2015


If you miss today's game you can get it for free 24/7 from Gametop HERE. There's also a walkthrough HERE

The Game:

Looking for a version of Little Red Riding Hood that’s not quite as kid-oriented? Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood spins the tale anew in the form of a hidden object game, setting it in a modern day world with a twisted madman who spends his time kidnapping people and forcing them to act out versions of classic fairytales. It’s dark, often disturbing, and maybe just the thing for a quiet night when you’re ready to scare yourself half to death.

A young woman in red comes home to a dark house one night and is greeted by the ominous voice of Maniac the Storyteller, an apt name if we’ve ever heard one. He has kidnapped her fiancé Kevin and stashed him at the old cemetery, challenging the woman to find him before it’s too late. She’s going to have to play this demented little game if she wants Kevin back, taking on the role of Red Riding Hood and traveling to a series of isolated locations in the middle of the night. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a big bad wolf prowling around, too!

Red Riding Hood alternates areas of exploration with frequent hidden object diversions, allowing you to collect important items both by spotting them on the map as well as by finishing hidden object scenes. Progress forward will be frequently halted by puzzles, most of which are fairly straightforward to complete, especially with the game’s quick-charge hint system. Statue with a missing head? Easy. Locked door with the keys just out of reach? Not a problem. Biker dude needs a leather jacket? Uh, ok! Often, once you set the pieces together, you’ll complete a mini-game to solve the puzzle once and for all. Then it’s on to more creepy places!

Red Riding Hood almost seems to purposefully walk the middle of the road when it comes to content and design, never taking any chances on gameplay, puzzle construction, or even how hidden object scenes are carried out. It’s technically competent and never trips you up with awkward interface choices or unusual navigation, but there are absolutely no surprises to be found. No multi-part hidden objects, no creative item manipulation to solve puzzles. It’s simply a hidden object game, which can be good or bad depending on what you’re in the mood for.

Retreading old locations is one of the gameplay sins Red Riding Hood commits, and not only will you visit the same areas more than once, you’ll swear each new location is just a remix of the previous one. It can’t be easy to diversify locations in a game that takes place outside of a cemetery, but you can never shake the sense of sameness that settles over you after half an hour.

One thing that does stand out in Cruel Games is the story. It’s not particularly original or even very well told, but its core concept is pretty disturbing. Not the kind of disturbing that features zombies leaping out from freshly dug graves; the kind that can wiggle into your brain and become increasingly frightening the more you think about it. A demented madman is stalking a woman, complete with cameras in her house and speakers so he can talk to her whenever he feels like it. Not cool, Maniac the Storyteller. Not cool.

Red Riding Hood is only five chapters long; a bit short even by modern hidden object standards. But when a game sticks this close to established genre patterns, it really doesn’t need to go on any longer. The story has quite a bit of creep value, the settings are well-illustrated if a bit unimaginative, and the interface is snappy and quite easy to use. But every other aspect of the game, from puzzles to repeated mini-games, is almost exactly what you’d find in the other hidden object game on the market.


Reference accessed HERE 13th Sept 2015

Other reviews and Walkthroughs:
You can read Big Fish community members short reviews HERE and you'll find a walkthrough HERE









Video - spoiler alert:

You can see a video of game play HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE,



Game System Requirements:

Windows /XP/Vista/7
Processor 1.6 Ghz or better
1 Gb RAM
DirectX 9.0

Scoring:

I've included new categories to reduce the the scoring bias that is inevitable when a single person is scoring a game. The following score i've added 1 to each category due to my dislike of this genre to hopefully attenuate the bias i have against this genre.

Game play ------- 7.5
Graphics ------- 8
Audio ------- 7
Replayability ------- 7
Originality ------- 7
Fun Factor ------- 7



Total = 43.5 out of 60 which equals 7.25 out of 10.









------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Problems:


If you have any problems installing or getting today's game to work please go HERE for help. I've posted most 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 doesn’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at a later date. Unfortunately if your problem is actually downloading it, once the giveaway deadline is reached you will no longer be able to download the game unless you've already started downloading it before the cut-off. 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 the grace period lasts for up to 1 hour. Apart from the above instances; i.e. already installed, but having problems running the game, (with the possibility of receiving help from the community via the giveawayoftheday game discussion forum); or still downloading after the cut off period, but within the 1 hour grace period, or registering within an hour of the cut-off period. Once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done to get the game (unless its available from one of the free game sites) until the game is given away again (though that isn't always guaranteed).

It's worth checking the giveaway game discussion forums the day before the giveaways go live to see if we are getting a large sized file; this is especially important for those who have slow connections and even more so if the game is popular. We can have up to forty thousand (40 000) community members downloading over the 24 hour period, with the bulk of community members downloading in the first 12 hours of the giveaway going live, there is always a massive strain on the giveaway servers. The bigger the file size, the more community members will be downloading at any one time. Because the bandwidth is shared equally amongst all community members, downloads can become excrucatingly slow, so if you do have a slow connection, its important to start your download as early as possible to avoid disappointment. Because these games are free, the giveaway owners cannot invest in more bandwidth without compromising the whole project, so we have to be satisfied with what we have at present.

I hope the above goes some way in expalining why we sometimes have really slow downloads.


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. Today's game is available from MPC HERE. " rel="nofollow">HERE. I've not checked the other free game sites.

If you do download any games from MyPlayCity, Gametop or the other free game sites please '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 these free game sites 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 do download a game from any of these sites you do so at your own risk. We cannot be held responsible for problems arising from an installation. :)

For now I won't be recommending you download games from Jenkat Games. They have changed the way you get games from their site. Diane has posted information about this over in the game discussion forums. If I have time or remember, I'll link to it. TooMyk Games are now safe to download from. They have removed the games that were suspect and have cleaned up their act. As always, you download from those free game sites at your own risk. The giveaway site is the safest site I know of where you can get free software and games. The only disadvantages with downloading from here is you have to download and install within the day of the giveaway (apart from the instances mentioned above and if and when you upgrade or buy a new computer legally you aren't allowed to transfer games given away previously, unless they are being given away on the day you upgrade, or if you've purchased a licence. :)







You just have to look at the sites track record since the game giveaway site was created back in December 2006. Zero games given away have been infected with malware, there are no toolbars installed, nor home pages hijacked or browsers changed. There is one slght annoyance, but that only occurs if a community member isn't paying attention when the final window pops up after installing a giveaway. That is the software Informer installation. some community members have complained that they were given no choice in its installation. That is not true; when the final window pops up, there are two buttons, one asking if you want software informer installed and the button to close the giveaway window down. Some community members have clicked on the wrong button, probably because they weren't paying attention. Thankfully software Informer is a genuine application, that can easily be uninstalled by the usual means. It's actually a useful piece of software, especially if you have a lot of applications running on your computer. Basically the program will list the programs that need updating, or programs that have available updates. They wont be automatically installed (thus cancelling many giveaway registrations); you have to click on individual buttons to update each program/application. :D

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Games, Games, and yet more Games:





There are 497 games on sale over on Steam this week, ranging from 10% to 90% off, there's also There's a free weekend on Saints Row Franchise and X-Com Enemy unknown, both a lot of fun and IMO well worth the effort of downloading as you get unlimited access to all parts of both games until the cut off. both are also on excellent deals. Play free until Sunday 1pm PST.


There's a publishers weekend sale from Bandai Namco entertainment™, with many AAA titles heavily discounted, here's an opperunity to buy some excellent AAA games cheaply. You'll find DARK SOULS™ II: Scholar of the First Sin, DARK SOULS™: Prepare To Die™ Edition, DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE, Project CARS, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM Revolution, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 3 Full Burst, Tales of Zestiria, ENSLAVED™: Odyssey to the West™ Premium Edition, Ace Combat Assault Horizon - Enhanced Edition, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX+ All You Can Eat Edition Bundle, Star Trek, DeadCore, GoD Factory: Wingmen, Ridge Racer Unbounded Bundle, Hexodius, Platformines, PAC-MAN MUSEUM™, PAC-MAN™ and the Ghostly Adventures, Beware Planet Earth, Inversion™, MUD Motocross World Championship and Professional Lumberjack 2015 in the Namco sale.

You can find a full list of all sale items HERE.



You'll also find some excellent deals over on the following Game sites.

GreenManGaming
Gamersgate Summer Sale
GOG (DRM free games)
Gamestop
GameFly (soon to be sold off)

Greenmangaming have a VOUCHER CODE: SAVE23-WITHGM-GSEP15 that will give you 23% off virtually any game in their catalogue, including pre orders. I buy most of my AAA games from GMG as i can get them much cheaper than Steam. most games come with a Steam key. The voucher above is valid until midnight on the 14th Sept

I've removed the Desura link because the owners are bankrupt and there has been no activity on the site in a couple of weeks. If you own any games via Desura I advise downloading all of the drm free games you have on that platform before the site is taken down. The owners also own the Indie Royale bundle site. If you purchased any Indie Royale bundles you can still access your account and download all of the drm free games, and if you still have unredeemed Steam keys i'd make a note of them now as the site could close at any time. (It is still live despite the owners being bankrupt simply becasue the server they rent will have been paid for a specific period. when the time to pay more rent arrives the site will probably disappear unless some enterprising person takes the site over. It's been mentioned on this comments section that the Desura downloads are no longer accessible. I've not had time to check, but will as soon a si'm able to confirm whether this is true.




Free Game Sites:


MyPlayCity (over a 1000 games to choose from)
Gametop
FreeGamePick



To be honest there are too many game deals around too list them all. Just visit the sites I recommend above and I'm sure you'll find something that suits you for a very decent price. If like me you prefer Steamworks games, many of the above sites also sell steamwork games.

If that's not enough, check out the Game Discussion forums HERE for details of other games either free or on deals such as the Indie Game bundles (there's over 20 of them - If you purchased all of them you'd be paying around $80 for around a thousand dollars worth of games); or check out the four day sales at IndieGameStand. you'll find the indie bundles thread HERE. The thread is outdated, but all of the links will still take you to the latest bundles.






The latest IndieGameStand game is called The Defenders: The Second Wave:

Fight the ghosts through 50 waves of growing danger. Play as a powerful wizard, a mighty warrior, or a strategic builder to stop the ghost invasion. Evolve your character in the direction you want. Survive until dawn, or die trying.


The average price stands at $1.78 at the time of writing (11 am GMT). The deal ends Tueday 15th Sept 2015 5am (GMT) You will need a Steam account to play this game as there is no DRM free version.



The latest DIG game is iBomber Attack

The legendary iBomber series returns but this time it's time to ATTACK! Jump into your tank and get ready to blast your way around Europe and defeat the enemy in this visceral tour of destruction! With 24 missions full of explosive action to go at, iBomber Attack is a dose of high-octane entertainment that you won't be able to put down. From destroying Navel dockyards, airfields and secret bases to gunning down legions of flame-throwing soldiers, this is 24 levels of non-stop, high caliber, action. Earn 'Victory Points' and collect gold to power-up your tank with Bombs, Bunker Busters, Mini-Guns, Flame Throwers, Rockets, Airstrike's, Supply Drops & Super Boost's. Dripping with the quality gameplay, visuals and sounds that made the original iBomber games so loved, iBomber Attacks ensures the legend lives on!

Key Features:

- Tanktastic action
- Super smooth game-play
- 24 action packed missions
- Amazingly detailed graphics
- Collect Gold to buy Power-Ups
- Win Victory Points for upgrades
- Huge levels to explore and destroy
- The satisfaction of blowing everything up!


Pay £0.99 for the game or you can get two keys if you pay more than the average of $1.01 (at the time of writing ). One key to share with a friend or family member perhaps? You'll find that deal HERE. There is also five bundles of several games that'll cost you less than $1.50 each HERE (DIG Bundles 37, 38, 39 & 40 plus Re-BUNDLE 8). You get Steam keys for all of these games . The single game deal ends just after midnight Monday 14th and will be replaced with a new game; (details haven't been posted yet)

Most of the bundles available retail for around $5 give or take a few dollars (apart from the Daily Indie bundles that only cost $1.49 for six games), but you can pay as little as a dollar for some. There are some excellent bundles out at the moment. Check out the following:

Groupees (5 bundles)
Indie Gala (? bundles)
Humble bundle (2 Bundles)
Indie Royale (this bundle is no longer live)
Bundle Bandits (0 bundles)
Blink Bundle (0 bundles)
Play Injector (0 bundle)
Get Loaded (0 bundles)
Games Rage (0 bundles)
Flying bundle (0 bundles)

The free game from Origin has changed to Zuma's Revenge the sequel to the excellent Luxor style marble popping match 3 game. This is one of the better Marble poppers. Check it out HERE.


You do need a free Origin account and install the Origin client to get these free games. Once you've installed the Origin client and signed into your account select 'On the house' from the 'Free Games' drop down menu. Then select download now. The game will then be registered to your Origin account permanently.


If you like Breakouts, something unpresedented has happened the other day, two breakouts were released on Steam at the same time, both are decent games though still under developement via Steams early access project.

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A Request for help:

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 what your reasons were 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, and a big thank you to immanitas games for sharing and to the game giveaway team for getting these games.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen