Giveaway of the Day - Mad Shapes

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

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

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

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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Installation:

The game downloads to a 7.5Mb zip file that unpacks to a read me and dual activation and setup file. The game install’s to the following path by default, but you can change the path during the installation wizard if you wish:

C:\Games

As with all Wheemplay games the games executable is installed directly into the games folder with no associated files. You will need to create your own shortcut for the game. It works on XP, Vista and Win 7. To uninstall just delete the installed executable. There are no registry files associated with the game so you won’t be able to uninstal using windows own uninstaller.

Problems installing or activating:

If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following – for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” If this happens try re-booting your modem and/or router, failing that reboot your computer or clear out the internet cache, in particular the cookies for the game giveawayoftheday then re-try.

Introduction:

Grab items, collect crystals and avoid touching bad guys! Submit highscore and get awards!

Features

• Cool puzzles about funny faces!

• Unlimited addictive levels with different approaches

• Achievements and highscores

• Highscores and awards

Reference accessed HERE Dec 25th 2010

This image was captured from the browser version of the game. The downloadable version we get has all of the levels unlocked at the start of the game

Video:

If you get stuck there are Walkthroughs available for all 25 levels which can be seen via two video’s HERE you can also find both videos on you tube:

Levels 1-13:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJFEZgmm-5Q

Levls 14-25:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcfZbfob4vc

There is now a Mad shapes 2 with 30 levels which you can see via the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_F1e2YFIpw

Images:

You can see a slideshow of about 15 images HERE. These show the first several levels, plus level selection screen and main menu.

The Game:

Mad shapes is a simple flash based physics game where you have to match colored shapes using the environment and various power ups to move the objects together. There are only 25 levels available, but they should keep you occupied for an hour or so (dependng upon how quick you are at solving the puzzles and whether you are aiming to get a high score to upload to the developers high score tables. I was able to upload my high score at any level when playing the browser game, but it appears to be locked in the downloadable version. As you would expect with any puzzle game, the puzzles get progressively harder as you progress; that said, I found them very easy and powered through several levels in a matter of minutes.

The aim of the game is to match colored shapes with their corresponding colored shape that you’ll find somewhere in the level. The objects you have to match appear one at a time over the mouse pointer so make sure you select the correct match otherwise you’ll need to restart the level via the button to the left of the playing area. you can restart a level at any time and replay any levels as many times as you wish. To complete most levels you’ll need to use the various power ups such as ‘speed up’s’ and ‘gravity changers’ to complete the level. Each level is timed to count backwards from 100 seconds, in increments of 0.1 seconds (you’ll see the counter whizzing down from 1000). The quicker you solve the puzzle the more points you will get.

The game is very colorful with non-descript music which can be turned off via the level selection screen. When first starting the game you’ll find that you can play any of the 25 levels in any order you wish because they are all unlocked. Once you’ve completed a level there is an indicator next to the level numer in the levels section that shows you which levels you’ve played. If you play the free browser versions of this game only the first 5 levels are unlocked. Every time you complete a level a new level will be unlocked.

There are two videos available that cover walkthroughs for all the levels. Unfortunately you have to watch up to 13 different solutions to find your own because there isn’t any individual walkthroughs.

Conclusion:

Although you can play this game online at a multitude of browser game sites (just Google Play MadShapes), the advantage of downloading today’s gamegiveaway rather than playing it via a browser is that you can play it offline at any time, play it in full screen or avoid any possibility of pop-ups and malware from rougue sites.

Despite the sparcity of levels, the game is well suited as a fill in game when you need a short break from work or other larger more complex games. The levels are easy enough for children to play, yet challenging enough to give any adult a few minutes of distraction.
Score:

Game play – 7
Graphics – 7
Music – 5
Replayability – 4

Overall Score 23 out of 40 which equates to 5.75 out of 10 (basically a very ordinary game), but still IMO worth downloading.

suggestions:

1) … Include a levels editor (25 level’s is just not enough)
2) … Combine all of your flash games into a single compendium of arcade games.
3) … Add different backgrounds to the game
4) … Linked to the above – create different stages with different environments
5) … Include achievements and awards
6) … At least double the number of levels

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Alternative Games:

There’s a free arcade game available weekly from Sandlot games. Alawar games have a montly freebie, but you need to download their gamebox to access the freebie. Several members of the giveaway community post free games over in the giveaway forums (which is accessible from the link at the top of this page just below the gamegiveaway header – just click on forums). There’s a thread posted in the stickies called Free Games Synopsis where you’ll find links to around 2000 free games (all of which have been checked for malware and safe sites), plus check the Games Discussion forums. We post free games on a weekly basis (sometimes daily). MyPlayCity are still increasing their library of free games, with new additions almost weekly.

If you are willing to pay for your games there are a multitude of games on sale from Steam, Impulse, Direct 2 Drive and Gamersgate. For example you can get the latest Civilization game, which was released earlier this year for a little over £10 (approx $15) or Clice Barkers Jericho from Codemasters, a really good immersive action horror game for only £1.74 (approx $3).

Has Wheemplay ever made a game that was bad? I can’t find one

…………………..Moderator comment…………………….

I’ve found virtually all of their games very playable. The only downside for me is those games that don’t come with a levels editor tend to be quite short. but then again they only cost 99cents each. I reckon combining all of their games into a single compendium of games would create a very good arcade game that would sell via all of the big game distributors