Dangit!! I wish these were available for a few more days, just missed this one. I kinda wanted to try it out too.

Install and plays fine on Win 7 x64. Really fun and addicting. Like the several different powerups and downs. Also has other vehicles besides your own, which makes for enemies, something not always found in a breakout style game. Only thing I could possibly ask for is more realistic graphics, sounds, explosions, etc. They aren't bad for the style of game, it's just the only thing I can think to improve it. I've been playin a lot of next gen games and have just got spoiled on really intense graphics.

I installed just fine on XP sp3, 32 bit.
The only thing I didn't like about this game was that very often the ball goes right through my bat, but only when it comes straight at it.
I haven't gotten to the second level yet, so the difficulty is just fine for me, and I am using the easy level.
Thanks for another great game, GGOTD!

On another note, the thumbs rating system is not working. Also, after the giveaway is over, I cannot see all the comments, only the first few. I know there have been quite a few changes initiated and removed, but some of the regular functions of the site don't seem to be working correctly for the last few weeks.

Since the requirements did not specifically mention Windows 7, I ran it on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, in XP Pro SP3 compatibility mode (not the virtual PC XP mode). It ran without issue, so I did not try it in another mode.

Suggestions:
1.) The game needs either a widescreen option of various 16:9/16:10 standard resolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution), or preferably, a dynamic resolution.
2.) It also has a lockout on the mouse pointer when in windowed mode, disallowing you to move the mouse outside of thegame's window without alt tabbing first.

If those items were corrected I would buy this game without hesitation.

I tried to install on a Dell 1020 Netbook / Win7 32bit Starter and received the following error..
Init SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING -
! Error ! D3DCREATE_SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING -
! Error ! STOP init game Engin -



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

The error message usually means you need to reinstall directX which you can get from Microsoft.

Nice game. I enjoy it and thank you

Installed and seems to run fine on Windows XP SP3. A little hard to play but will probably be able to get used to it. Thanks GOTD. If possible on the games side would like to see a RPG like Fate sometime if possible


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


Fate was being given away last week. You just had to visit the developers facebook page to get the reg code. I'm not sure whether the offer is still valid though. You can check out the post in the forums:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/7584

With Game giveaways most of the downloads aren't lost revenue, as most of us haven't seen the games before anyway, let alone to consider buying them.

I would say game giveaways give the game publishing company exposure to a much larger audience, who might then consider buying other games by the developer. Rake-in-the-Grass are a good example, their give away games have been great and definitely make people look at their other games.

Also, some people who like a game giveaway might well consider buying it if their OS goes down and they'd otherwise lose the game!



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

Yes, that's true. I was looking at it from a different perspective. I've bought all the games I've got from the giveaway project that I really liked. :) (Most I'd already purchased).

Why is it that after downloading and opening the package i never succeed in connecting with the game giveaway site. It begins searching after the start of Set up and shortly after says connection failed. All this has been tried out when the game is well in the availability time frame . What is going on ? Are certain countries excluded from these giveaways ?


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

Hi Robert, sorry it's taken me so long to answer. I took a nap and it lasted longer than
I'd expected. Now it's after 3am here in the UK and I shouldn't be here, but wanted to make sure I'd answered any queries like yours before the giveaway ends.

I've had that problem many times. The way I've fixed it is to reboot my modem and routers. If that doesn't work, it could be a corrupted cookie, so you'll need to go clear your internet cache out. If you still use internet explorer right click on the internet icon and select internet properties. This opens up a small window that allows you to delete all past browing history as well as internet cookies. If you are using Firefox, I've forgotten how to do it so you'll have to google it. :)

If none of the above work it could be your firewall that's stopping it. I hope one of these suggestions works. :)

Cool game. Works fine on my Vista 32 bit. Thanks GGOTD!

I had this game installed on windows XP and now, I've installed it on Windows 7. The game runs smoothly on both OSes.

I have to agree with some of the comments about the game being a little hard. Even on easy setting I could not get past the first few levels. Also it did not return my desktop wallpaper to my selected resolution when I exited. Still I like the game and I love the fact that the game side is back. Thank you to the GGAOTD team for your efforts. Thank you to the publisher, Stars Ashes, for the offering. And thank you to the moderator for your great reviews and tips.

Mr. Rabbit, your sentence below seems incomplete. complete the very last line in your review, please
Another problem for me was the bat. It was mounted on two arms that took it
took it where when why how? no punctuations or words to complete your thoughts. it just ends abruptly.


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

Thanks for pointing that out. I fell asleep at the keyboard early this morning. I also didn't bother to proof read the review, so obviously missed that glaring omission. :)

Games are so scarce these days and not sure why that is. I am appreciative of all the software that GAOTD gives to us. You offered us Be a King earlier this year. Can you get Be a King II since it has been released?


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

There has been a massive reduction in the price of games over the last few years; that and the global; economic crisis and the fact that several gaming houses have closed down has made it very difficult for the game giveaway owners to find any games. When there is a game there are several thousand downloads which could be regarded as lost revenue to the game developers as the sum they get is minimal as far as I know (don't know figures).

Works very well on Win7 64, no compatibility probs at all, very nice variety of arkenoid game, definite thumbs up from me.

thumb up on vista

Ok install Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit. Ran right off using defaults, didn't change anything. One thing some might try is when creating a
shortcut icon to use Send to Desktop option rather than Create shortcut in Explorer. A little thing but find prgs run better.
Game itself is fun in the breakout genre. Helps to have a darkened room rather than with sunny daylight since can get tricky. I guess the 'save' function only kicks in after completing a full level (6 of those show) since winning a game & exiting to desktop requires replay of that game and those within level.
Nice graphics, nothing annoying for me but then I'm forgiving of this
genre. So 8/10 considering what it is.

#1, Whiterabbit
Stars Ashes, the developer who also created

One more: Last Galaxy Hero (3x, last time Nov 29th 2008)


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

Of course they did. I checked their site but was too tired to add anything else to the review this morning. :) Thanks for reminding me.

@11 Running Vista64 here and I had to drop the compatibility all the way down to Windows2k, but it did run.

Solid Ark clone, however, I don't play these with mouse I prefer keyboard control for these games. I could not find that as an option.

Unfortunately on my Windows XP computer I get this error on starting the game. I have DirectX 9 installed.

---------------------------
SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING was not initialise!
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
DirectX 8 Device was not initialize
---------------------------
DirectX 8 error
---------------------------
OK

If anyone can help I would appreciate it.


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

Reinstall DX9.0 which you can get from Microsoft. This should fix the problem. If not try updating your video drivers as well. If you aren't sure how to do this go to the start menu and click on the run command. Type in dxdiag then click on okay. This brings up the DX diagnostics panel. from here you can see what graphics chip you have. It'll probably be either a NVidia Chip or ATI, though there are others avaiulable. Find the address of the chip manufacturers home site via Google and download the latest drivers for your card. Both NVidia and ATI have a simple process for doing this.

Another great review from WhiteRabbit that I have to admit is bettered by Dan's. Yes, between the two you can see there difference between someone that has played a multitude of these and someone that plays more casually. I am happy; after what feels like a long absence, to see a game again on the the site. No, the game is not the most desirable, high tech, or high dollar of games (i.e. definitely not a Ricochet Forever) , BUT I think it is a good game that offers the potential for a serious time waster when you have that awkward time that is too long to play the more involved ones, but you don't want to play another hand of solitaire.

I agree with Dan that it is a bit annoying that after you are dead you have to go through all the screens/menus to start over and would suggest that Stars Ashes add a simple 'do you want to play again' or 'start over' yes or no to let you begin again without going through all this. I understand why WR doesn't give this a 1-10 mark (knowing this mas amount of these he has or plays), but still would be curious to know where he would rank it among all of those.

Over all a decent game that I will keep for those in between times and/or when I just want to bust some bricks and not put too much serious thought into it. I suggest each downloads it and give it a try yourself as your own personal skill level will decide for you how great it is.

Works in 3D confirmed! NICE!

dieses Spiel habe ich schon einmal heruntergeladen und zwar free.Da fragt man sich fürwas die 4.99 gut sind ?

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

Translated using Google:

downloaded this game before, and although one wonders free.Da fürwas are 4.99 good?

DOESN'T EVEN RUN in windows 7 32 bit........so thumbs down!


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

Have you tried playing it in compatability mode or if you have the Pro or Ultimate editions in the virtual XP mode? The game is quite a few years old so wan't built for Win 7. It may play on some Win 7 machines; it's possible that it's the way you have your OS set up that's the problem (I'm only brainstorming ideas here not saying there is anything wrong)

Muito bom o jogo.
No meu Windows Vista 32 bits funcionou ok.
Não precisa digitar nenhuma chave para registrar.
É só instalar o jogo com o PC conectado na internet e começar a jogar.

It's the same company who made Incinerate right? Start menu is identical. Incinerate works very well with the 3D Vision kit!

I'll give this one a try, should be the same...

Very good. A little faster than most of these types.

I have had this game for sometime. Have reached the end. It's available for free on gametop.com. for free. To get any where in this game you need to save it when the going gets good, so when you lose you can go back to your saved game. Great game.

this is an ok game, has good graphics and all, but you really don't have all that much with the mouse controls, moves to freely to have real control over hitting the saw blade, will take allot of time and practice to master this one

Really nice take on the good old breakout concept.
It's only too bad the game runs so choppy - even on a fast machine and in low resolutions.


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

The game runs smoothly on the two computers I've installed it to so far; one of which is a low grade lap top with only a 2.1 GHz single core cpu and a graphics chip with only 128Mb of RAM and 2Gb of system RAM. Maybe you need to update your graphics drivers or try downloading the version from Gametop (see the link in my post @ #1) to see if that works okay.

You could also check your RAM consumption via the performance tab in your task manager. Maybe you have too many background programs running; check the processes tab and the tool bar next to the clock, if you install a lot of the giveaways from the applications side of the giveaway project you'll be surprised as to how many are placed in the startup men and are therefore running in the background eating up your RAM. These are just suggestions though.

Looks like the thumbs up/down buttons here aren't working. Maybe something's broken on the site, because I could always post before, and I left a message about the screensaver yesterday but it never showed up.

The game's not bad -- but even on the easy setting I found it impossible to get past level 2 in the first few plays, so it just goes to show you the range of abilities they have to design for. I'm too rusty, I guess. :)

There's no installer. It just unpacks wherever you tell it to, creating a Sawoid directory there, and you have to create your own Start Menu or other shortcut yourself. That seems odd when there're free installers around the Web, even for commercial use.

You only get 3 saws, and when you die you have to click through something like 4 screens to finally get back into the game again. That part's really tedious. Also, the text "buttons" you click on are really picky about where you click, too. Apparently only the text itself is active, so if you click in between letters or something it just doesn't register. Annoying.

On an HD monitor (1920x1080) I kept getting an error in Win7 at the next-to-highest resolution setting (something x 824), so I had to set it to the highest setting, a greater res than the monitor supports without scaling (1600x1200).

In general, though, the graphics look good to me and the game seems fun. I'll have to work on it some more. :) Thanks, guys!


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


You're right Dan, I think I expect too much from my games these days. What's easy for one is almost impossible for others. I did find the game quite entertaining when I had the game set on hard and after I'd caught the speed ups. I've purchased virtually every 2D and 3D breakout/arkanoid you can find on the net and becasue of thois have a lot of similar games to compare this game with, so it's hard to say it's brilliant. It's not when you compare it to games like Incrediball, Ricochet Infinity, shatter (recently released on Steam) or Acky's XP Breakout, all of which have something special that makes then stand above the mass of average games.

Most giveaways we've been getting since we went to weekends only have no installer. I've downloaded many demos of the games when possible and all have had installers so I can only assume that it's removed when the games are packaged with the wrapper. I've noticed when these games do come with a seperate activation modul;e we get an exectutable that does install.

You’ll find loads of good freeware arkanoid and breakout alternatives in the forums via the arkanoids thread and the free games synopsis; (some of which are much better than sawoid). I’ve not updated the arkanoid thread for quite some time, so you may find some different ones in the synopsis. You can also find 12 pages of arkanoids, with 15 to a page over at Caiman’s free games web site.

From the links below I recommend Poing, Jardinains, DX Ball, Beatball, Hoowaball, Chak’s Temple, Jarkanoid 2 & 3, Purebreaker 3, Powball, Takamaru, Kuruku, A-ball and most of the other breakouts from Gametop, you’ll probably recognise from previous game giveaways if you’ve been visiting the site since it’s inception; for example A-Ball, whose original name is Nuclear Ball and Geometry Ball, which is Twinzoid. There’s also a couple more that we’ve been given previously such as Egyptoball, Egyptian Ball and Aztec Bricks. All the Gametop games are usually commercial games that are still being sold by many game distributors, but Gametop pay them a retainer to be able to give the games away. As with all Gametop games, your browser opens when you shut the game down, but this is ‘innocuous’. Some of the games will be configured to install toolbars and change your home page if you don’t uncheck the check boxes during the installation wizard, so be sure to watch every step of the installation procedure.


Finally the Czech site below has 15 pages of Arkanoids with 12 per page; there are a lot of freeware ones, with some commercial ones.

Arkanoid thread:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607

Synopsis:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4534

Caimans:

http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/fbreakout.html

Gametop Games:

http://gametop.com/category/breakout.html

Freegame.cz:

http://www.freegame.cz/rub.php?idr=5&ids=11&st=0

I tried it on Easy and it is still fast until I catch some slow down powerups. I like the sparks.

I put it on Hard the first time playing (music on 0 for now) and it is quite fast.

Sawoid looks good so far.

Sawoid was created by Stars Ashes, the developer who also created two other familiar breakouts called Egyptoid and Egyptoid 2, as well as a shooter called Incinerate. All have been given away previously and are now available for free via Gametop, as is today’s game. :) The download size is 14.4Mb and unpacks to a dual setup and activation module and a read me file. There is no activation code required as it is automatically activated through the module. When installed the game expands to 25.2Mb. The default installation path is:

C:\games\Sawoid



RThere is no shortcut installed nor a start menu shortcut. If you're not sure how to create the latter, there's a short tutorial available in the game discussion forums. You'll find it easily as it's in the stickies on the front page of the gaming forum.

Story:

You volunteered to be assigned to the VIOLATOR ship. Your objective is to conduct a raid into enemy territory and destroy the troop supplies. For this particular long-term mission away from the supply ship, the scientists have developed Sawoid, a totally new type of armament not requiring resupplying! Nothing can stand the wrecking Sawoid; however, there is one shortcoming, Sawoid is hard to control!

Good luck, private!

reference accessed http://starsashes.com/sawoid.html 1st July 2010


The Game:

There’s not a lot you can say about a breakout/arkanoid that most community members won’t already know, so I’ll try and keep this short. I’ll describe the features I found in Sawoid before writing a brief conclusion to the game.

End of level laser

The most striking difference between sawoid and most other breakouts is that sawoid doesn’t have a ball; instead it has circular saws. You get three lives to start with, but can easily build these up to several lives as there are a generous number of bonus lives available. Otherwise it’s a typical 3D breakout with average looking graphics. The game has 20 bonuses that include ball and bat changers, additional lives, bombs, a magnet, armour, different types of cannon and four different types of sawoids as well as a few other bonuses.

You can change the games resolution if needed to one of several choices via the options menu. There’s also the usual sound and music sliders, a windowed toggle and the ability to turn on improved lighting. I’ve posted a couple of screenshots to illustrate the difference between the advanced lighting and no lighting.

Advanced Lighting

No Lighting

When you complete a level the level scrolls onto the next level as though you are in a ship. There are three difficulty settings. On medium I found the sawoid was a little too slow for me unless I picked up the speed up bonus a couple of times. You’ll find gun emplacements, and moving ships that fire back at you. When you start a level your ship has 100% armour. If you get hit by the pulse cannons or missiles you’ll lose 5% of your armour by each hit. They fire dual cannons so this can result in a 10% loss depending where you are in relation to the incoming shots; however, there are armour bonuses that are quite common, though most armour bonuses give only 1% armour back.

Thankfully there are three or four different sizes of armour bonus available. There is a damage indicator to the bottom right of the playing area. Some of the gun emplacements and ships are protected from damage when hit from the front. To destroy these you need to use your guns or hit them from behind.

You don’t get unlimited ammo with the guns and lasers, so you need to use these sensibly. I counted about 30 shots, which is ample to do a significant amount of damage to the level in terms of destruction.





When you are left with only a few bricks they are automatically destroyed by powerful lasers. All bonuses apart from new lives are lost when you move on to a new level, though any damage to your ships armour is automatically repaired.

Travelling between levels

Comparison between no lighting and advanced lighting:

Shape of bat

Images:

You can see more images of Sawoid as a slideshow:

http://s571.photobucket.com/albums/ss160/Whiterabbit04/Sawnoid/?albumview=slideshow





Conclusion:

I found the default speed of the sawoid too slow, and therefore too easy to win. (though I have played a lot of breakouts regularily for years so could be considered an expert) However you can pick up speed ups which when set can increase the sawoid speed to a more challenging level. However if you are a novice to this genre of games I’m sure the speed of the sawoid is fine. :) I’m a little biased over giving this game a mark out of ten because Breakouts are one of my favourite arcade genres. Another problem for me was the bat. It was mounted on two arms that took it a significant way into the level. You can see from the images posted that it protrudes about an eighth of the total depth of the playing arena. I rerely lose balls (or in this case saws) when playing breakouts but lost a significant number in this game despite me finding it easy. This occured more often when the saws came at you in an acute angle as it was hard to judge where the saw was in relation to the bat.

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Similar Games available for free:


You'll find loads of Arkanoid/breakouts via the following links:


http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607#post-17584

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4534#post-48404

http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/fbreakout.html (169 games)

You can also download today’s game every day for free http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/sawoid/, though you will get your browser opening every time you shut the game down. Thankfully this is one of the games they have had for quite some time so there’s no tool bar or home page tick boxes to bother with.

http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/sawoid/