Giveaway of the Day - Match&Remove (for Windows and Mac)

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

Problems installing, activating and running today’s game:

If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following – for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” Check to see if your internet explorer isn’t offline (thanks to MrSnoozles/Mike and GMMan for that fix). If the previous suggestion doesn’t work go check out previous comments from the last several weeks and look for comments from GMMan and Mike. They have also posted their possible fixes for this problem.

Mike suggests that you check to see if Internet Explorer is offline (even if you use firefox). If it is make sure that it’s online thn try again. I’ve always tried re-booting my modem and/or router with some success, though Mike has said that doing that does nothing. Still, it’s worth a try if all else fails.

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

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember that XP uses DX 9 or earlier only, Vista uses DX 10 or before and Win 7 DX11 or before). Also try updating your graphics drivers. The main two chip manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI both of which offer driver downloads for free. Just go to the respective manufactures home page and you’ll find a link to the driver download page. To find out which graphic card or graphics chip your computer uses type in Dxdiag in the search field (Vista or Win 7) or the run command (XP); this opens up the DirectX diagnostics panel. click on the display tab and look to the left panel. You should easily see what graphics card or chip you are using. (This is required information when selecting the correct download from the developers site).

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Match & Remove:

Installation

The download size is 5.62MB which when installed is 5.09MB. The game unpacks to a dual setup and activation module and a read me file. There is no activation code required as it is automatically activated via the dual activation/setup module. The default installation path is:

C:\Games\

The game works on XP, Vista and Win 7. The game is installed directly into the game folder with no folder of it’s own and there are no shortcuts installed to the desktop or Start menu/Program list and there is no uninstaller. To uninstall just delete the games executable.

Introduction

Match and Remove is an addictive physics-based puzzle game inspired by Red Remover. The aim of the game is to match shapes and to remove them from the playing field with as few clicks as possible. Shapes of the same colour disappear when they touch each other.

Review accessed HERE Nov 18th 2011

Free to play Browser versions

You can try the game via the following links as a browser game:
HERE or HERE

The Game:

The aim of Match & Remove is to clear the whole playing arena of colored shapes/blocks. This is accomplished by clicking on each block or set of blocks as quickly as you can. To score the highest marks you have to remove all blocks in as few mouse clicks as possible and as quickly as possible. Each level has a minimum number of clicks that you must complete the level in otherwise you fail the level and have to start again. you can restart the level at any time via the restart button or play a previous level by selecting it from the levels map. You gain marks for removing all blocks as quickly as possible as well as for fewer mouse clicks. When two blocks or more of the same colour are adjacent to each other one click will remove all of them together. Some bricks are coded to move, so you may need to be quick when adjacent blocks of the same colour are together as once the moving block has moved the other block may fall and no longer be adjacent to the moving block due to it having gravity coded into it’s properties. As you progress through the levels they become progressively more difficult to solve.

The game comes with only 20 levels, however there is an easy to use levels editor included so you can make as many levels as you wish. These can be shared with the community by copying the code that is created when you go to save your newly created level. I’ll post this review in the forums later today. If you do create any levels just post the level code in that thread. If you want to copy the code all you need to do is open up the levels editor then click on the Save/load button then copy the code into the save field then click on the save button. (Simplz)

The game starts in windowed mode, but you can play it in full screen by clicking on the maximize button to the top right of the window. You can also close the game via the close button next to the minimize button. You can turn the music off via the orange button just above the about link in the bottom right of the main menu.

You can access your custom made levels via the custom Level button and see what achievements you’ve earned, for example submiting a high score to the online high score table, beating a custom made level or beating a specific number of levels. It even has one for clicking on the more games link, which is only available via the online browser versions of the game. The more games button has been removed from this version.

The following is an example of a code created by saving a custom level.

eNplzUsKgDAMBFAPNEjzadJmV/QeXsR7eF1rcVGUwCwew2S5Wgv2DBGFKVI/PrsJF1CVyfZgymCjASMfFPI/KpUvttBU+xueJrcQcbi/PQGDViOzI93UayBa

Images & Video:

You can see a slideshow of about 20 images from the game showing most of the levels a couple of images of the levels editor plus menus HERE

Walkthrough – (Videos):

You can see walkthroughs of all levels via a videos (Levels 1-20) HERE

Conclusion:

Another easy to play game from Wheemplay. These games are great for filling in a few minutes here and there; though, IMO can become a little tedious If you play for more than a few minutes at a time. They are great for coffee breaks or when you’re trying to decide what other AAA game you’re going to play next. Still for free you can’t complain. All Wheemplay games are available to play for free 24/7 on various browser game sites. The main advantage of having your own copy is you don’t get the adverts.

Scoring:

Gameplay – 6
Graphics – 5
Audio – 4
Relayability – 6 (due to the levels editor)
Originality – 4

Total score out of 10 = 5 though I’d personally ignore all but the game play scores and give it 6 out of 10

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Alternative Games both freeware and commercial:

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The free games project that a few of us run over in the forums has yet more excellent freeware games. Go check out the last several weeks postings that includes Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, Mr Cleaner an excellent and graphically rich Sokoban game, Push Push Penguin, Dizzy, the Lost Island and a couple of Shmups called Darius Gaiden and Vacant Ark, both excellent Japanese space shooters (the Japanese have a knack for these games). Over the last week the following have been posted; Karoshi Factory & Karoshi 2.0 both of which are adult themed puzzle platformers, a puzzle shooter called Dread Lock, a marble rolling game called The Big Sea and we’ve even revisited some old favourites such as the original Elder Scrolls games Arena and Daggerfall in conjunction with last week’s release of the fifth Elder Scrolls game Skyrim, which by the way is fabulous and is probably going to beat Call of duty: Modern Warfare 3 to the Game of the Year title despite having no multiplayer option. You can find all of these games over in the Games Discussion forums on the front page HERE. Unfortunately Caiman games have still not re-opened their download servers; I’ll will let you know when they are open. There are several other free games sites all of which have the potential to include tool bars and home page hijacks for example Gametop and FreeGamePick to name just a couple. (I’ve removed MyPlayCity {MPC} from my lists as they now ‘force’ you to install an Ask toolbar if you decide to play the game even if you uncheck the boxes to say you don’t want them and every time you open your browser an ask browser also opens. It’s a pity MPC have changed their policy w.r.t. toolbars and home page hijacking becasue they have a fantastic collection of free arcade games. If you don’t mind those inconviniences then MPC is still worth visiting)

Steam has some deals on this weekend. There’s 75 % off the Super Meat Boy Anniversary Bundle that contains 10 excellent indie games (Super Meat Boy, Aquaria, Gish, Half Life 2, VVVVVV, World of Goo, Machinarium, Braid, BIT.TRIP RUNNER, BIT.TRIP BEAT), you can also purchase most of the games from the bundle seperately for 50% off each. There’s 50% off the latest Bejewelled game called Bejewelled 3 and 75% off the Magika bundle (that is Magika and all the DLC) with a free weekend that allows you to play the complete game with no obligation to purchase. Todays 24 hour deal (at least untl 6pm in the UK) is a strategy indie game called RUSH. You can find all of the Steam deals HERE. If you visit Didamatic you’ll find every deal going on the main digital download sites (Steam, Impulse, Direct 2 Drive, GOG and Gamersgate); for example Just Cause 2 75% off, And Yet it moves 66% off, Empire Total War 60% off, The Void 66% off, 60% off, Voodoo Dice 60% off, ArmA 2 60% off, Zeit 2 60% off, FIFA 11 50% off, Renegade Ops 50% off, The Ball 75% off, King Arthur: The Role Playing Game 75% off, , RIFT 67% plus many more great deals. You can find Didimatic HERE. I’m sure everyone will find something they like from the above links. not all are free, but all are bargains.

Have a great week folks.

Unfortunately the Mac version does not work under OS X 10.7.2. The icon appears with a circle and slash through it which is normal for applications that are PPC-based. However, this application does not report as being PPC-based; the message when attempting to launch is not that it is an unsupported code base, but that the file is corrupted or damaged. I have tried re-downloading with no success. If the download was corrupt the ZIP file would not unpack correctly. Either this only works on older Mac OS versions or the archived file really is corrupt for some reason.

…………………..Moderator Comment……………………..

Thank you for your feed back.