P.S.
Darn , I forgot to put in these two in my page/comments/thread summation :

Everyday Jigsaw Puzzle
http://www.kraisoft.com/puzzle-games/everyday-jigsaw/

Jigsaw Puzzle Lite
http://www.kraisoft.com/puzzle-games/jigsaw/


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

Thanks. Better late than never. ;-)

Having a PhD in microbiology as well as an extensive background in Latin studies, I am fascinated by the viri v. viruses debate.

In Latin, viri refers to a specific group of men, such as saying "There are now eight men on the fire brigade." In Latin, a general group of men is where the well-known Latin word, hominum, comes in. A usage of hominum is "Most men are good." A common mistake made by Latin students is incorrectly using hominum where viri is required. Latin "virus," as was noted above, is poison or venom. It would never have a plural in Latin.

I still have several microbiology textbooks, and I have not found "viri" in any of them. These are 1960 era books, thus if there is a change in wording, it would have to be a recent change, and away from "viruses" which is in these books.

To see if there is a change trending, I did a webpage search for "chicken pox viruses" and "chicken pox viri." The former showed about 50,000 search results, while the later, viri, only two entries, both nonacademic. It would seem based on this that the microbiology plural of virus is viruses, although I actually remember that it was always just "virus" when applying it to a quantity of single strain - and it's almost always a quantity.

This reminds be a little of battery v. cell. Someone has a AA cell and insists on calling it a "AA battery." Battery always implies a group. A "12 volt" vehicle battery is a battery because it is a group of six cells. I have a 4.5 volt battery which contains three AAA cells. Of course a battery cannot be bade of batteries, thus the AAA cells are not "batteries." Sadly, this error has propagated itself to ridiculous proportions in the States during the past sixty years.

Finally, I have noted a marked decline in the accuracy of textbooks over the years. In a current university-level physical science text, I have found more than 50 errors thus far, some of which are major errors. Even gifted lecturers make mistakes. The problem is that a student, hearing or reading a mistake, can pick it up as being factual. No one should ever take anything at face value without being able to find other sources.

Questions may be a burden to others, but they need to be asked.


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

Hi Ron, I absolutely agree with you. I know of several words I personally spelled wrongly for many years. I truly believed they were correct and I'm almost certain that was the way I'd been taught to spll them (vacuum was one of them and Egypt was another) I say almost certain becasue we are talking almost 50 years ago since then. Oddly the spelling of both of those words were pointed out to me while I was being observed during my teaching practice when I was training to be a teacher many years ago. I'd been trying to explain astronomical distances to the pupils and had used an example that involved someone being able to walk to the sun. Barring the fact that it was a vacuum, I'd explained that if that person had walked at an average speed of around 4 miles per hour they would have had to start walking around the time when the Pyramids were being constructed in Egypt (can't remember which period). I remember my tutor at the end of the class pointing out my spelling errors and I was quite shocked as I'd always believed my spellings were correct.

I went to university several years after leaving school (did army service first) and started my first degree in 1982.

I was discussing this last night with my online friends seeing as there had been several replies to my original reply to Donna. It may be that it could be a national difference. I studied in the UK. If you studied in the US and used US text books that could explain the reason why you don't see viri. That said, it could also be that (as you pointed out) the professor himself was wrong. If he wasn't aware that Virus was neuter as opposed to male or female he may have followed the Latin rules which would pluralize virus to viri.

I'm quite happy to accept that i was wrong, but still believe that the word could be spelled either way. As I've said several times now, to me the word when spelt viruses just looks too wrong to me. :0

I tried to activate it but it says the give away is over, but the website says there is half an hour left. Seems there is a time confusion between the download and the site. Oh well.

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


Gina I've literally just downloaded the file again this minute after reading your post so it couldn't have been over. Their isn't a regional closing time. The game comes offline at the same time all over the world. So long as you managed to get the zip file downloaded you will have a copy of the game. Read my previous answer to Pheesao's comment and some of my earlier comments just below my review.

The game is already unwrapped, so there's no panic. you will be able to install an the game WILL be registered even after the 24 hour period; that is so long as you managed to download the file. :)

Please let me know whether you managed to sort it.

p.s it went over by at least a minute by my clock. ;-)

We have been trying all day long to get this game to register. The pictures are so beautiful. I even went to the alternative site and downloaded it. I now have 2 copies of the game on the computer and nothing will register. Time is almost up now. Figures, the first good game in a long time that I want, I can't get to register. I have re-started the computer, deleted everything and started over and tried all of the normal tried and true tricks to make a program that doesn't want to register work properly. This one just won't go. I'm running Win 7, and memory is definitely not a problem. Sorry, wish I could have it, but without registration, it's useless to me. Maybe next time?? Keep up the good work; most programs are great and the ones I can't use, others can, so someone always wins on this site. Cool breeze and warm wishes. Pheesao


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

Pheesao, the game wasn't wrapped by the giveaway team so the downloaded and unpacked file you have is a registered set up. There is no activation screen pop up because that is part of the wrapped file, which this is not, so the game you've installed via the set up file is already registered. Look at the set up file and you will see that it isn't the usual orange color with a key on it.

Let me know what you see. :)

Downloaded fine, didn't get the activated screen but is playing well. Glad to get this as I lost the Christmas puzzle given away several years ago in a computer crash. Thank you for a good find.


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

No need to worry; the key-master forgot to wrap the setup and activation file, so no activtion screen would appear.

Is it me or did the GGOTD team screw up again and forgot to wrap the setup?


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

Hi GMMan, nope it's definitely not you. :)

For some reason everytime I try to play it, the computer locks up and Microsoft W7x64 shuts the game down. I have uninstalled it and tried to reinstall it, and even used a different puzzle, but it is still freezing up. I don't know what the problem is. I installed Glamour Puzzle when it was offered with out an problems, but for some reason I am having problems with this game.


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

If you still have the previous giveaway, all you need to do is transfer all of the .Box files over from today's giveaway into the Boxes folder in the Glamour Puzzles Boxes folder. Copy over the categories directly (i.e. Animals, Arts, Childs, Cities, GHits, Landsc folders plus the single Euro Tales.box file. Don't bother copying the RGB folder over as it's empty) . All of the puzzles will show up and work properly in the previous game.

The only difference between today's giveaway and Glamour puzzle is the name of the game some minor details of the intro screen (there's a brief image of a cutesy girl in the anime style and the Box files themselves. The layout and menus are exactly the same. You may find some of the images are repeated between puzzles, so just allow them to be overwritten.

Jigsaws! Love them. ;) I'm not going to go into detail as I used to, since WR has this fully covered now. :) This game has a very simple layout, and a nice selection of images.

However, in other jigsaw games, once you click on the piece you want, it sticks to the cursor till you place the piece again, rather than having to physically drag it across the screen. Small point, but (for me) makes for more pleasant play.

Also, the hotkeys did not work for me on my Windows 7 machine.

I've already done 3 of the puzzles in today's giveaway and note that each one takes me around 1/2 hour to complete on difficult.

Thank you GGotD and Fly Games and of course White Wabbit :P
~ Swan


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

Thank you for the feedback Swan. :)

I already had this on an external hard drive but can't use it on my new system so I downloaded it again, this time to my C: drive. I really wish this were stand alone software as I do switch machines. I'd also like to see that as part of the review if possible. There have been a few games that I like but don't know if I can play them on more than one machine.

I do remember disappearing puzzle pieces from before and IIRC they reappear if you go to a different puzzle then come back to the one you had the problem with.


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

I used to mention when a game was free standing, but as the games are not supposed to be installed after the 24 hour period was up I felt it wrong to continue saying whether a game was free standing or not as this would basically be saying 'hey folks you can install this to any computer at any time, even after the giveaway is over'. I hope you understand. all i can say is check each game as you install it to see if it's playable via a flash drive by copying it to one then trying to play it on a different computer.

Thank you so very much for this fun game. It was so very easy to install and the selections offered are awesome! This will save me a lot of money buying jigsaw puzzles which I enjoy solving!! Thanks again ♥♥♥

Treating vīrus as 2nd declension masculine
If vīrus were a masculine second declension term like alumnus, it would be correct to use vīrī as its plural. However, it is not a masculine second declension term, as was explained.
There does exist a Latin word virī, meaning "men" (the plural of vir, a second declension masculine noun), but it has a short i in the first syllable. The difference in vowel quantity is reflected in the different pronunciations of the (Latin-derived) English words virile and viral.
The form vīriī is impossible as a plural of vīrus since we only find the ending -iī in the plural form of masculine and feminine words ending in -ius. For instance, radius is pluralized by removing -us, to isolate the stem radi, and then adding the plural suffix -ī. Thus the -iī ending of the resulting word radiī is not a suffix: it is simply the consequence of adding the actual suffix ī to a stem that has an i as its last letter. An example of this in English is adding the suffix ing to the word ski, resulting in skiing. Vīriī would be the plural form of the putative, nonexistent word vīrius.
[edit]Latin nouns in English
Even if the Latin plural were known, English speakers would not be obliged to use it. Examples of Latin loanwords into English which have regular English plurals in -(e)s include campus, bonus, anus and cancer. These stand beside counterexamples such as radius (radii) and alumnus (alumni). Still other words are commonly used with either one: corpus (corpora, or sometimes corpuses), formula (formulae in technical contexts, formulas in more everyday ones).
As an indication of usage, viruses appears in the official Scrabble words list,[OSW Official Scrabble Words (1989) Chambers] but neither viri nor virii does. Similarly, the spellchecker built into the Mozilla Firefox browser[Mozilla Firefox web browser v3.5.7, 2009, with the standard US-English dictionary] accepts viruses but neither viri nor virii.
Use of the form virii
Usage of virii within Internet communities has met with some resistance, most notably by Tom Christiansen, a figure in the Perl community, who researched the issue and wrote what eventually became referred to in various online discussions as the authoritative essay on the subject,[ Tom Christiansen (17 December 1999). "What's the Plural of 'Virus'?". Rick Moen. Retrieved 29 December 2010 http://www.ofb.net/~jlm/virus.html] favoring viruses instead of virii. The impetus of this discussion was the potential irony that the use of virii could be construed as a claim of superior knowledge of language when in fact more detailed research finds the naive viruses is actually more appropriate.
Biology
In life sciences, "viruses" generally refers to several distinct strains or species of virus. "Virus" is used in the original way as an uncountable mass noun, e.g. "a vial of virus". Individual, physical particles are called "virions" or simply "virus particles".

As for the game, ty GGOTD
as for viri or virii or virusses
The English plural of virus is viruses.[A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1950) H. W. Fowler, Oxford University Press] In most speaking communities this is non-controversial and speakers would not attempt to use the non-standard plural in -i. However, in computer enthusiast circles in the late 20th century and early 21st, the non-standard viri form (sometimes even virii) was well-attested, generally in the context of computer viruses.
While the number of users employing these non-standard plural forms of virus was always a proportionally small percentage of the English-speaking population, the variation was notable because it coincided with the growth of the Internet, a medium on which users of viri were over-represented. As the distribution of Internet users shifted to be more representative of the population as a whole during the 2000s, the non-standard forms saw decline in usage. A tendency towards prescriptivism in the computer enthusiast community, combined with the growing awareness that viri and virii are not etymologically supported plural forms, also played a part.
Nonetheless, the question of what the Latin plural of virus would have been turns out not to be straightforward, as no plural form is attested in extant Latin literature. Furthermore, its unusual status as a neuter noun ending in -us apparently not of Greek origin obscures its morphology, making guesses about how it should have been declined difficult.

Mass noun in Latin
The Latin word vīrus (the ī indicates a long i) means "poison; venom", denoting the venom of a snake. This Latin word is probably related to the Greek ἰός (ios) meaning "venom" or "rust" and the Sanskrit word visham meaning "toxic, poison".[Chambers's Etymological Dictionary Enlarged Edition 1931]
Since vīrus in antiquity denoted something uncountable, it was a mass noun. Mass nouns — such as air, rice, and helpfulness in English — pluralize only under special circumstances, hence the non-existence of plural forms in the texts.[June 1999 issue of ASM News by the American Society for Microbiology]
It is unclear how a plural might have been formed under Latin grammar if the word had acquired a meaning requiring a plural form. In Latin vīrus is generally regarded as a neuter of the second declension, but neuter second declension nouns ending in -us (rather than -um) are so rare that there are no recorded plurals. Plural neuter nouns of other declensions always end in -a (in the nominative, accusative and vocative), but even if we were to apply this rule to vīrus, it would be conjecture whether this should give us vīra, vīrua, or something else. There simply is no known plural for this word in Classical Latin.
In Neo-Latin, a plural form is necessary in order to express the modern concept of ‘viruses’. Dictionaries such as Whitaker's Words therefore treat it as a second-declension noun with the following fairly ordinary forms:
nominative: (singular)vīrus (plural)vīra
vocative: vīrus/vīre vīra
accusative: vīrus vīra
genitive: vīrī vīrōrum
dative: vīrō vīrīs
ablative: vīrō vīrīs

as you see it's not that simple and you where both kind of right and kind of wrong



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

Thanks for the feedback I agree, both are right. But it wasn't just the computer enthusiast circles that viri was used. It was also used while i was studying for my first degree by the microbilogists that lectured me. As it was associated with a sciene and not in general usage it may not be found in most general dictionaries. This would have a knock on effect when researching the subject via the internet.

anyway, I do concede that Viruses has become acceptable; but as already said earlier, it looks wrong to me. ;-) :)

The game crashed on me when I tried to bring up one of the menus.

This game lacks a lot of what makes for a good jigsaw puzzle game. The best I've ever tried was Puzzle Master, which has now seems to have become Jigsaw Galore. You can find it at BigFish, and right now they have it on for only $2.99. It allows full control over everything and you can make up your own. Try the demo and you can see everything that Family Puzzle lacks.


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

Thanks for the feedback Patrick. :)

I downloaded this game for my wife she really enjoys puzzle games thank you.
For the people saying they would like to load their own photos into a puzzle; krai soft puzzle of the day, gives you the ability to do this they have the option to buy or get a free puzzle every friday, my wife also likes that site. thanks again, Mike from Wash.


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

Thanks Mike. I think someone mentioned Kraisoft previously. You can also get two reasonable arkanoids from them called Warkanoid and Warkanoid 2 (I think there may be a third as well). :)

RE #25 - Thanks for the suggestion, but already running widescreen, 1600 x 900, resolution can't go any higher (size set to small-100% so magnification isn't at play either). Was seeing the entire screen, border with ugly graphics and all, so don't know where it could have gone. The piece was place cleanly in the corner of the ghost image. Thinking back it disappeared after I clicked the B button to display the border pieces then clicked the B button again to turn off the display of border pieces. When it was back to "normal" view the piece was gone. And the hint saying there were no hints instead pointing out the piece suggests bug to me. :-)


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

Yes you could be right. As I said similar problems have been reported by a few users; but not a significant number wen you consider thousands of users have downloaded the three puzzles combined.

I would suggest posting the problem in the game discussion forums. Maybe someone will come up with an answer some time over the coming days or weeks. It will be more visible in the forums once this giveaway ends in about 8 ours time.

Very nice game. I like this puzzle.

Please state the version numbers on the Giveaway Page please. Can anyone tell me what the version number is of the game given away today??

Thanks in Advance.

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


According to the properties there is no previous version. The actual game does not show what the version number is so I assume this is the first release.

b.t.w. why do you keep changing your name and email? This site has got a good standing with the search engines and won't spam your email like some sites would. The only email you are likely to get is if you request notification of the giveaways?

Agree with other posters about the music and sounds needing an off option (did rename the MP3 files to stop the music but had to mute the sound to stop the background sounds), and the background graphics being annoying. Also experienced the moving/jumping puzzle issue.

Did run into a bug -- playing the first puzzle (building, lighthouse, palm trees) -- placed the four corner pieces and the lower right piece disappeared! Completed the entire puzzle thinking maybe it would reappear, it never did so wasn't able to actually finish. Tried moving/searching all around, displaying just border pieces, it never reappeared. Even tried using the hint feature to see if it could find it, it didn't.

Win7 64 bit, 14GB RAM, all software and drivers are up-to-date.


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

Hi Deb, there is a possibility that it could have moved offscreen? Changing the resolution to a higher on would reveal the piece if it had just moved out of site. A few users have previously reported this when the others in this series were given away some months ago. Even though its an annoyance having to change the resolution, it only takes 10 or so seconds to accomplish you can then change it back once your done. :)

Thank you Fly Games and GGOTD - - I love jigsaw puzzles. Also thanks to you, too, White Rabbit, for your listing of Alternate Games. I really appreciate ALL you guys!

I have been playing Family Puzzle for over an hour (at least) and am really enjoying it--more than I expected to. The music really is horrible, but them I always turn off the music on games, so I followed WR's link and just deleted the music files. I was afraid that I wouldn't get the sound affects, but those work just fine.

It would be nice if the puzzle didn't jump every time a piece locked in place. That is really my only complaint so far. While adding my own photos would be nice, that's not a necessity for me.

Thank you for another great game!


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


Thank you for your feedback Jackie.

A basic jigsaw puzzle. Thanks Fly Games, GGOTD and Whiterabbit, especially for the tips. I moved all the Box files from Glamour over to this. Also, created an XMusic folder and moved the 2 music files over to that as I prefer the game without them but wanted to keep them just in case. I agree with your whole-heartedly about Infinity Puzzle. That was my favorite jigsaw game but I lost it in a crash.


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

Thanks JBoy, I've just checked Alawars version of Infinite puzzle and I'm sure it's been upgraded, but in this case it really looks like they've removed some of the benefits of the original, and instead have upgraded the menu's. I've still got my copy as it factor.

#5 Amanda said all I was wanting to say.

I like jigsaw puzzle games but this series has a several annoying problems: The background -- current color makes it too hard to see where need to yet place the sky or grass pieces as blank look like have already been filled in. Logo pattern on the playing field -- interfiears with the ghost picture, please remove it.

Worst is the jumping of the entire picture, even when supposed to be locked.

Arrange needs to make better use of space. No need to have pieces under puzzle when there is space around available. Spend too much time manaually moving to see them

Really needs an "Are you sure" confirmation on "scatter" command. Thought it would re arrange the pieces but took the entire puzzle apart but left the solved percentage where it was (on glamour puzzle - assuming same this one)


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

Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated. :)

I have not tried this one today, but I do have the one mentioned in the post above. Now what would be extremely nice for me is if one was able to zoom in and out. That way one can build those 1000 piece puzzles. Now the pieces are too small to see the details (when you have so many pieces)This applies to all the jigsaw games I have tried over the years. Anything out there that does have a zoom? Or a way I can zoom?

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

Hi Meisie, I'm sure Infinite Jigsaw puzzle has a zoom function. I can't find my copy at the moment. I have just installed the demo from Alawer but they have now added the Babylon toolbar to the install wizard. If you opt out of the toolbar it automatically checks another box that says Store my search settings for easy reverting later. That does not sound very promising to me. Thankfully you can decline, but I nearly missed that button as it's a very light grey and almost invisible. The next window then tries to get you to install their own client which thankfully you can still decline.


I've just checked the game and it does not have zoom. To be honest it looks like the game has been updated since I played the version I have. I'll have to dig it out to confirm whether this is the case. In the mean time I'll have to check out the ones referenced by the community. ;-)

Nice pictures to play with, but I wish there were no visual or audio special effects as they are quite annoying... a simple click would suffice. However I got rid of the music altogether by changing the extension of the files in the "C:\Games\Familly Puzzle\MUSIC" directory to something not recognized, e.g. ".mp3v".

@5 - Amanda: Although I agree will all your comments, you couldn't rotate pieces using L-click to rotate counter-clockwise... you need the L-click to move the pieces around! ;)


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

Thank you for your feedback.

@ 4 and 13. Viri is the correct plural of virus - in Latin. Viruses is the correct plural in everyday English. Choose your language!

Interesting - this is something I did not know:
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plural_of_virus


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

Thanks Kevin, I've already read the article you referenced. I still maintain that we used the term viri when I was studying Microbilogy at university. The reference you have quoted above is not peer reviewed so for me does not hold any weight. That said, it would seem that both versions are acceptable these days. If, as the article quotes, virus is a neuter (as opposed to male & female), then it very well could be that the 'i' which is usually added to words ending in 'us' when using the plural has been succeeded by the use 'es' but it just seems wrong to me. I'm no expert in English language but I still bow to my professors use of the ''i instead of the 'es'.

I supposed the fact that we are not talking biological material any longer but code written to hijack or do other harm could mean I'm totally wrong, but I don't accept that myself. :)

I think the game that #14 is referring to is by Tibo software @ http://www.tibosoftware.com/. However on the Big Fish Game site it's on sale for $2.99. I bought the version 1 of Tibo's jigsaw puzzle 10 years ago in August, and it's the best Jigsaw software I've seen so far. You can see more pictures @ http://www.tibosoftware.com/jigsaw-puzzle.htm.

I moved the mp3's out of the music folder, added a Buddy Holly tune (did not change the name), and it played. Excellent. I only wish we could add our own images to the box.

@ MOD/Stephen ,

I would suggest that you take a look at "Jigs@w Puzzle 2" at Big Fish Games : http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/1334/jigswpuzzle2/index.html

You can setup your own puzzles completely , import pictures , add music , control number of pieces (down to four - or as many as you would like for kids) . And after you have setup puzzle you can then just right click on puzzle and modify puzzle properties.

Description from their website :
Jigs@w Puzzle 2 is a truly realistic jigsaw puzzle game which has everything you need to create and play your own great-looking puzzles. The game provides a very comfortable puzzling environment and superb graphics. You can create your own puzzles from your pictures or movies with optional background music. Also you can customize your puzzle by choosing the piece size and shape. Once you complete a puzzle, you can exhibit it in your own 3D gallery!

50 prebuilt quality puzzles.
Add background music.
Change puzzle difficulty.

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

I hope that this puzzles you enough ;-)
And , yes ofcourse you are right that plural for virus is viri (or similar depending on language).


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

Thanks for the heads up on another decent puzzle game C.J.

@ 4 - Donna. I must agree with Stephen. It is common practice to pluralize words that end in us, as he correctly does. As for bology - that discipline, I am unaware of. ; )

Nice puzzle game/GiveAway , but as others have pointed out then it needs more user options.
Sound and music options/control is a must on all types of games (I personally typically turns of all music as the first thing when a game starts the first time as most of it drives me crazy having to listen to all the time)
Also I would very much like to be able to use own pictures for basis of puzzle and can only support to give the game the ability to have custom music and sound also.

Apart from that then I would like to suggest a button on which to click to move all pieces of puzzles away from under what have already been put together and out into "free space"/the open....



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

Thank you for your feedback

il gioco funziona per circa 30 secondi poi smette di funzionare decisamente pollice giu


..............................Moderatore commento..........................


Il gioco funziona su tutti i computer ho installato, anche 7 ore in omaggio ci sono stati più di tremila membri della comunità scaricato questo gioco, con una sola (che è) commentando di non farlo funzionare .. Ciò implicherebbe c'è qualcosa di possibilmente sbagliato con il computer o il modo di configurarlo, piuttosto che con il gioco. Forse ha bisogno di un driver o l'aggiornamento potrebbe essere necessario per giocare il gioco in una risoluzione diversa rispetto al gioco?

Free Alternative (although it does have a purchase button)

Jigsaw Mania 2 13 ( http://www.softwaregeek.com/download/jigsaw_mania.html )

Jigsaw Mania is a jigsaw puzzle game for the PC. As well as including over 600 high quality puzzles, Jigsaw Mania can also create puzzles easily from any picture with a wide range of options such as altering the number of pieces and changing the piece shape/size.

In addition to this, Jigsaw Mania allows you to 'Gift-wrap' jigsaw puzzles into self-contained executable files which you can then email to someone who doesn't have Jigsaw Mania. So for example, you could create a puzzle from a holiday snap, gift-wrap it and then email it automatically to a friend or family member. Jigsaw Mania makes the whole process simple and easy to understand.

With over 600 puzzles included plus the ability to make and send your own, Jigsaw Mania offers an outstanding set of features, and endless hours of enjoyment for your entire family.
Jigsaw Mania is a completely free software. You can free download and use it as long as you like.

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

Thank you......The one Copmom uses when she sends me jigsaws (from http://www.brainsbreaker.com/ ) also does the same.Though it's not free.

Installed Fine, but never got a message saying it was activated. So I do not know if it is activated or not.


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


The executable and activation module hasn't been wrapped for some reason? Please read the comment above that I posted for Allan

Also don,t get the activation pop up.

I installed as usual, but didn't get the sent to the web page that says you have successfully activated the game. Is the game unactivated?

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

Not sure? Leave the game running for an hour. If it's not activated then it will stop working because the demo only lasts an hour. Or try re-installing it.

Addendum;

Actually just re-checked the downloaded zip file. When unpacking you are getting the unwrapped version of the giveaway, which means it won't be time restricted. Whether this is an error by the giveaway team, or a mistake I don't know. Hopefully one of the key-masters will be able to clarify this soon. In the meantime, you won't get any message if it's in this unwrapped form but it will still be registered.

Hello
Thank you very much for the game, I love Jigsaws. I have installed the game but it didn't activate on Game.giveaway. The game is playable, I hope it won't cause any trouble later on.

Btw, it just works fine on Win7 64bit.

Quick and easy install on Vista 64-bit.

I'm going bullet points today, no time for flowing paragraphs! In no particular order:

- Even though the puzzle was locked in place (once all border pieces were connected), it would still slide around when I put in a new piece.

- Would like to see options to change background from default, things like a wood texture, or felt, or solid colors, or other simple designs.

- Remove the logo pattern from the default background, and those two objects at the corners. They take up space on the board and make it harder to find pieces.

- It would also be cool to have music options. I don't mind the current music and don't care that it loops, but have option to choose between energetic music, peaceful music and maybe a few other types.

- I don't really like the sound effect you hear when you match pieces, doesn't really go with the game. A simple clicking sound would be fine.

- On the menu when scrolling through images, automatically show when one's been completed and the time, rather than showing a "warning" popup after choosing it. Auto-showing completed images and their times makes it kind of trophy-like.

- I like the minimize button, and as with all full-screen games, would love to see the computer time displayed somewhere while playing.

- Would prefer to rotate pieces with one click of the mouse, L-click to rotate counter-clockwise and R-click to rotate clockwise, rather than double-clicking to rotate in one direction, and R-clicking to bring up a rotate menu. Don't like the rotate menu or all the double clicking.

- On the "select skill level" screen, remember previous settings.

- In addition to a slider bar for the ghost image transparency, add click buttons to also adjust transparency. The slider wasn't terribly precise.

- I had no idea what "show hint" was doing at first, took a few hints to figure it out. Maybe a slightly more obvious hint system.

- Have a shortcut key to show the full image preview.

- Have option to save work and quit, or have option to continue where you left off *or* start over when re-joining.

- Have option to import your own images to do as puzzles.

I think that's all I had. I like the game, it looks really nice and simple. The images are really good for puzzles. Everything works well, but could do with a few more options, listed above.

For $7 I think it's a good deal and a keeper. Would give it 8/10.



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

Thank you for your excellent feedback Amanda :)

It's unfortunate that fly games stopped selling the original puzzle in this series which had the ability to import any BMP, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIFF, JPEG, GIF images and also had a better control for choosing the difficulty of the puzzle; that was a slider that varied from 20 pieces to over a thousand pieces, making the puzzle ideal for all ages from around 6 to 106 and beyond. You were also able to choose between several different puzzle piece styles. Which this series of puzzles lacks. You can still get that puzzle called Infinite Jigsaw Puzzle from Alawar:

http://www.alawar.com/game/infinitejigsawpuzzle/

To see how much the game costs you now have to download the demo They (Alawar) have been trying to push their Alawar unlimited for the past year in which you pay a yearly subscription to be able to play all of their games for as long as you are subscribed. Once you stop paying you can no longer access the games (Not my cup of tea). I don't know of any other developer/distributor that sells this puzzle.

Hey, minor detail: the plural of virus is NOT NOT NOT 'viri'. It's viruses. Look it up if you don't believe me.....

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

Actually you are wrong Donna I studied for and gained bology degrees to Batchelors and Masters degree level so should know. The correct word for the plural of virus is 'viri' not 'viruses'. You may see it written as such elsewhere but it it incorrect despite what spell checkers may say. Please check a scientific dictionary (preferably a biological or microbiological one) and not a standard English dictionary and you will see that I am correct.

Thanks for this game, like the Glamour one it works very nice and you can make it as difficult as you like to.

The only 2 (minor) disadvantages which are not solved yet in this version:
- in difficult mode is the ghost picture bigger than the solved puzzle.
- to pin the puzzle there is a nice paperclip available, but that doesn't really work as the puzzle is moving around when you put a new piece in.

In the whole thumbs up.


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

Thank you for your feedback :)

A couple of users have reported that Avast has blocked them from entering Fly's website; possibly due to a hacked site. The game giveaway team have had games from Fly Games for over four years now and there has never been a problem with fly games. It's probably a false positive, but in case it is not, please use caution if you decide to visit the developers web site.

Today's game has been thoroughly checked for viri and is totally clean, so please don't think that because the site may have a problem that today's game is also a problem.

Also note that it is the free version of avast that is throwing up these warnings.

Also note that despite many warnings from a few users over the several years that the game giveaway has been giving games away there has never been an instance where a game has been infected. The giveaway team use several different anti virus programs oto test each game given away here to ensure the safety of the game before putting it up for download.



Family Puzzle:

Today's game is a 21.8Mb download that installs to C:\Games by default, though this may differ on some systems. You may find it tries to install to the previous gveaway location, so during installation its a good idea to keep an eye open for where its being installed to. (To stop this happening clean out your internet cache). The installed game is 23.2Mb in size.

You'll also need to create a shortcut because none are created when the game is installed. The game is basically the same as previous jigsaws apart from new images (though there are some repeats). The game works on my win 7 and XP computers. Not had time to test it on Vista yet. The following is the developers introduction.

An exciting jigsaw puzzle game based on a mosaic that the player has to put together from numerous image fragments of different shapes.

Family puzzles are one of the most accessible types of entertainment that help develop logic, attention and memory. The game features a great number of puzzle types and modifications, different shapes of puzzle pieces and a large collection of images. The goal of the game is always the same - putting together an image from multiple pieces. The difficulty of a specific puzzle is defined by the image underlying it, but the most important criterion is the number of elements. The higher it is, the more difficult it is to put the puzzle together. Try using real paintings, images and complex landscapes. Large puzzles are a serious challenge and take considerable time to complete. Apart from that, the game enables the most experienced players to add an element of extra complexity - piece rotation. At the beginning of each level, puzzles are mixed and rotated at different angles. Anyone willing to forget about boring daily routines for a short while will find this game a real gem. Assemble puzzles with nice music playing in the background and enjoy the process. All family members will like Glamour Puzzles - in fact, you can play it together. The more friends and family members are involved, the faster you will achieve success. You can start right now by downloading the game for free!


Reference accessed HERE on the 22nd Jan 2010

The Game:


Once the game has been started you have to scroll through the images to select what you want. There is no facility to add new images via the games GUI, (see conclusion below as this appears to contradict what the features say) and it seems like you can’t add images manually as all the images found in the games installed folder are of a format called .box which I’d never heard of before until getting the first jigsaw puzzle last month. Once you’ve chosen the image you wish to create a puzzle with you select the difficulty level. There are three of those; Easy, Medium and Hard. The easy puzzles can probably be completed in 10 to 20 minutes, or even faster if you utilize the ghost image which is an exact fit to the puzzle image (see the second image of Tower Bridge below). You can further increase the difficulty by allowing all pieces to rotate; once this is done you can start solving the puzzle. There are several buttons that allow you to perform certain functions such as creating a ghost image within the puzzle area that gives you a framework to build your jigsaw; this can be made to look more solid or virtually disappear altogether, depending upon how easy you want to make the puzzle. There’s also a preview button that brings up an image to the top left of the playing area. This has three settings, the first being a small thumbnail and the final setting (number 3) fills about a third of the screen. You can show hints which will drag a piece of jigsaw to the correct location on the board, but then will spring back, so you have to watch where it is going otherwise you may lose the position, especially on the more difficult settings. There is a counter to tell you how many hints you’ve taken. There’s also a B key that makes the central pieces disappear so that all you can see are the border pieces.

Small Puzzle

If you want to leave a puzzle part done and start a new one you can do so and then return to the partially finished puzzle at a later date. Apart from the in game buttons there are several keyboard shortcuts which I’ve detailed below.




Useful keyboard keys:

F10…………………………Boss Key
Ctrl + A………………….Select All pieces
Ctrl + S………………….Select All Border
Ctrl + D………………….Select All unsolved
Esc………………………….Back to game menu

Medium Puzzle

Large Puzzle

Features:



• 220 built-in levels

• 3 difficulty levels

• Easy Creation of custom levels

• Various puzzle shapes

• Classic rotation of puzzle pieces

• Interactive hints


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Problems with the game?:

If you have trouble getting the game to work try downloading the demo from the developers site HERE





Images:

You can see around 80 images from today’s jigsaw puzzle as a slideshow HERE or all on one page yy clicking the Grid button to the bottom right of the screen just above the thumbnail filmstrip. There’s a slider to the top right that enlarges the images a little.

Here's a few of the images you'll find in game:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:


Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

Processor 500 Mhz or better

64 Mb RAM

25 Mb of hard drive space

3D video card with8 Mb of video memory


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Music:

If you don't like the intro or in game music you can easily change it for any of your MP3 collection. There is no file conversion needed because the file used by the developer is also MP3.

If you've installed the game to its default location you should find the music files by following the path:

C:\games\puzzle\Family Puzzle\MUSIC (this path may be different depending upon where you installed last weeks game; however the last part of the path is the same (i.e. Family Puzzle\Music)

You should rename the files you are using to replace the original to the same names as the originals otherwise they might not be recognized; that said, someone reported in a previous giveaway that you didn’t need to change the names?


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Conclusion:

I’ve used the demo of Family Puzzle downloaded from fly games to write up today’s game giveaway review; however, there seems to be some discrepancies between the demo and the main features that the developer says this puzzle has. From the list given above which was copied from the developers page for this game there are supposed to be over 200 images, which there wasn’t when I checked through the images. Also there’s supposed to be a selection of jigsaw shapes and the ability to create custom images. The demo looked exactly like the previous puzzles we’ve had over the last month, including at least half of the images being repeated. I will have to check the full version when its available in several hours from now to see if it was just the demo limitation.


(Edit - the demo was totally different to the full version game, however, most of what I concluded earlier this morning stands. There are a large number of images to puzzle over; more than in previous games. I've updated the images I posted to reflect what the full version has as well as changed some of the images I posted in this review)



The main disappointments with this game was the often annoying habit of the pieces to jump slightly out of place when you locked a couple of pieces together and the ability to change the number of pieces from very few, which would be ideal for children to thousands for the die hard jigsaw fan. Despite these omissions I still think the game is worth 7 out of 10.







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Alternative Games:


There are hundreds of jigsaw puzzles available for free via the internet for example from Caiman Games (which thankfully has been back online for some time now). There you will find just over a hundred different Jigsaw puzzle games all of which are free.

Thanks to Naomi who suggested we visit Jigzone two years ago. You can find loads of free jigsaw puzzles:

http://www.jigzone.com/

Copmom suggested http://www.brainsbreaker.com/. It’s not free, but you can create puzzles that you can send onto friends as copmom does. The program is actually very good with the ability to create puzzles with many more pieces than today’s game. Also you can upload your own images and use different interlocking pieces plus other features such as sharing the resultant jigsaws with friends and family . These can be distributed as executables without the need for the actual game (Thanks for sending me all of those puzzles over the past three or four years Copmon, they have always been appreciated).


You can see my comments for the other jigsaws given away a few years ago by following the links below:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/Christmas-puzzles/#comments

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/glamour-puzzle/#comments

The only difference between today’s game and both of the above are the images found within the games and the GUI, which has a color change. Otherwise each of the three Jigsaw puzzles given away is basically the same game. I personally think it sad that they no longer sell the infinite jigsaw puzzle. And suspect it may be a tactical move to maximize profits ( then again I may be wrong). The game had everything these puzzles offer plus more besides. (i.e. the ability to add your own images, different puzzle shapes and the ability to change the number of puzzle pieces from several up to around 1400 using a slider so you could choose any number within that range


The game originally given away by Fly games called Infinite Jigsaw appears to no longer be available from Fly Games, but Alawar games still sell it. The format is very similar to todays game except you have more control over the game, with the ability to add images of your own as well as several other differences.

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If you have any problems installing today's game please go HERE for help.





A Request for helpl>:

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.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

Got something called Glamour Puzzle, maybe even from this site. The layouts are identical, the pictures used as puzzles different. The only criticism I have is that the graphical effects when you match 2 fitting pieces are exaggerated. Otherwise a great puzzle game, with lots of configs - number of pieces, rotated or not. Thumbs up from me.


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

Yes, Glamour Puzzle is from the same serie.s You can actually combine the images from either puzzle to create a larger collection in just one puzzle by moving the .box files from the Boxes folder