Giveaway of the Day - The Sign: Retrieval

I wasn’t able to get a demo of today’s game prior to the giveaway so wont be posting a full review today. The Sign: Retrieval is a typical Hidden Object Game. This was originally given away back in November 2011, though the name has been changed. It was called 20 Days to find Amy, which is also available 24/7 from MyPlayCity HERE. The only difference I can find between the two games is that you could play 20 Days to find amy in windowed mode. (thanks to angel for pointing out we’d had this game previously).

You can see the original giveaway HERE. It received a positive 73% out of 305 votes with 86 comments which can be read HERE.

Installation:

The Sign: Retrieval downloads to a 41.3 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped setup activation file (the orange colored file with the key symbol), plus there’s a setup file with security (setup.gcd) that’s protected from being hacked. This file may case some security software to alert the user to a possible malware attack, but it will be a false positive. The game giveaway team check all game giveaways for malware using several well known anti -malware suites. There has never been a game giveaway infected with malware since the project started back in Dec 2006. The installed game is MB in size.

C:\Games\FlyGames_TheSign

Level completed

Story

No desktop shortcut or start menu/programs shortcut are installed, so make sure you make a note of where the game is being installed to so that you can create one for yourself. Once installed you can delete the giveaway setup files.

I’ve only tested the game on Win 7 this time around, Anyone running Win 8, Vista or XP, please confirm whether this game works Thanks.

The game is a timed HOG with no relaxed mode nor windowed mode. Items are relatively easy to find and there is no penalties for clicking wrongly. I completed a level in less than 25 seconds just clicking randomly. Items are used repeatedly throughout the game. Overall a very easy HOG with simple graphics and a story line running throughout the gaame.

Day 2 Level Selection

Video and Images

I’ve uploaded what screen captures I took which you can see as a slideshow, though I wasn’t able to take in game images without the pause menu appearing. the three in game images you’ll find in the slideshow were copied from Fly Games web site.

You can find a video of game play HERE and a slideshow of around 20 images showing the menus and first stages in the game HERE

System Requirements:

Windows 98/ ME/ XP/ Vista

Pentium III processor

256 Mb RAM

50 Mb hard drive space

32 Mb video memory

minimum DirectX 7

Conclusion:

For me this is just an average Hidden Object game that didn’t stand out from the crowd. The graphics are average, the game play is average and the replayability average, so I’d score it a 5.8 out of 10. I try not to bias my scores based on personal preferences but on experience of other games in the same genre I know that there are much better HOG’s available so have based my scores on those games.

Scoring

Gameplay – 6
Graphics – 6
Audio – 7
Re-playability – 6
Originality – 4

Total = 6.8

Level Image

Story

Suggestions to the Developer:

• Include animated story board rather than just stills

• Include a non-timed mode

• Include various levels of difficulty (by including different times to complete a level)

• Include the ability to earn hints rather than limiting the number used for each day

• Allow unused hints to accumulate from day to day

——————————————————————————————————————

Games, Games, and yet more Games plus Download, Installation & Game play Problems:

If you have any problems installing or getting to work today’s game please go HERE for help.

If you’re looking for something other than today’s game check the didimatic site via THIS link for some brilliant deals.

There are several other deals available from Steam for example Ravaged (free weekend plus 66% off, FTL: Faster Than Light 50% off and today’s 24hr deal is Vikiing: Battle for Asgard. as well as many more from Gamersgate, Gamestop, Greenman Gaming and GOG; all of which you can find via the Didimatic site, which I’ve linked to above (apart from Greenman gaming.

The usual monthly free game from Alawars game box is still Finding Doggy. (You need to install the free Gamebox from Alawar to access the free games, which for newcomers change approximately every month). If that’s not enough, check out the Game Discussion forums HERE for details of other games either free or on deals such as the Indie Game bundles or the four day sales at IndieGameStand.

Check out the Game discussion forums HERE for details of any Indie Game Bundles that are still live.

You’ll find more hidden Object games for free over at MyPlayCity, Gametop and FreeGamePick but please be aware that these sites may add toolbars and home page hijacks to your web browser, but these can be avoided by un-checking the appropriate boxes during installation. Also when you close any of their games down, your browser is opened and directed to the sites home page. This is innocuous so don’t worry. Closing the page ends any connection and nothing is downloaded.

========================================================

A Request for help:

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

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

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

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

========================================================

Doesn’t keep it’s settings. So I had to delete the damn music files because I couldn’t lower the damn volume. The sound effects volume also doesn’t work. Has no relax mode. Game play is as usual, not bad but the other negatives made me delete it.