Thank you to all who took the time to post feedback about last weeks games and congratulations to the hundred lucky community members who won a key for the Chicken Assassins game. :)

Please only post comments about the game being given away today; other comments either not appropriate, or not about the game may be deleted; however a little light banter among community members and with the moderator to keep this a friendly place to visit will be allowed, and will be judged by the moderator as to whether it is suitable or not to be left.

I am posting this in light of the massive increase in negative comments, inappropriate comments and spam that have occurred over the past several months since the site was updated and in particular since the site started to give away games from the Steam world. I truly believe that if we get lots of decent feedback about the games we get here, more developers will be happy to give away their games. Seeing lots of complaints instead of feedback about the game will not persuade developers to give their games away for free. So please bear this in mind when posting your comments. Negative feedback about the game is welcomed as that can also be very constructive for developers, however, complaining about the way the site is operating or problems about downloading or installing the games should be directed to the giveawayoftheday contact form which I've linked to HERE, alternatively, if the problem is game related and it is late in the day (I can't moderate 24 hours a day), please also post your issue in the forums where you may get a response from the community. Often, such problems are related to your computers set up. i.e. your security may block the installation (for example quite a few game giveaways I've installed have been blocked by my copy of Zemana Anti-malware suite) Also please read the moderation policy which can be found HERE and/or the FAQ's thread HERE

Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit

In Brief

A standard time management game.

Suggestions:

Whether you like or dislike Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit please give some feedback about your opinion of the game, for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, and how it could be improved from your point of view. If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why. What improvements would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality?

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE.

Installation:

The game downloads to a 132 MB zip file that unzips to four files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper, the set up file and a read me). Those with multiple hard drives are able to save games on any drive they wish. The newly installed game is 137 MB in size. The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed by the user if you prefer:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Amelie's Cafe - Holiday Spirit

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop. three of which can be safely deleted (Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and shortcuts to a free online game which vary each week). Also, if you don't like icons installed to the quick launch task bar, make sure you uncheck the box when the additional tasks window appears (after the Select Start Menu Folder window)

Introduction:

Welcome to Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit! Would you like to earn money to make your Christmas holidays happy, pleasant and full of fun? If yes, then you should immediately take part in this nice activity. New visitors are coming every minute and there is no place for rest now. Be fast, careful and polite with those who visit this or that café to earn money and get nice gifts. Serve the customers and pay attention to the people who're already waiting for your help. Your task is to attract more and more clients, so do your best serving people and making their rest comfortable. Let them all feel the atmosphere of Christmas and Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit. As your cooks are ready with all those salads, chicken and mashed potatoes you should rush to the kitchen and carry the dishes to the customers. You'll need energy to cope with the difficulties of this job. Try to serve as many visitors as you can to get high scores and wonderful gifts. Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will provide you with bright emotions while you pass levels and mini-games with realistic details and capturing game play. Accomplish your goals in each of 50 levels and become a real specialist in the field of holiday's preparation. You'll definitely enjoy this game and spend hours of playing surrounded with bright graphics and nice music. Download this game right now and learn what Santa has in store for you! Perhaps your Christmas stocking is already full of gifts! Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit is all about this!

Reference accessed HERE. 2016

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit to work please visit the problems section, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE

The Game:

How many Amelie’s cafes have you already managed? Have you tried Amelie's Cafe: Summer Time or Amelie's Cafe: Halloween? If you’re Amelie’s fan you can enjoy the well-known story-line decorated according to the Christmas playing Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit. And if you’re a new comer, welcome to the Amelie’s world! Taking into account that Alawar Games has already cut its teeth on the café theme, the new release will disappoint neither experienced players, nor the newbies.

As usual to in all the games of Amelie’s Café series, you’ll help the heroine do everything from serving customers to decorating the cafe in order to bring new customers in. The only thing that differs from the previous games is that all the decorations will correspond with the Christmas. What is the Holiday Spirit means to you? And for Amelie it means the workers wearing Santa’s hats, X-mas trees, gifts and many other things that will be clear to you while making progress through the game.

You’ve been playing time-management games for so often that you doubt that Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will be challenging for you? No problem! You just have to choose Santa Mode. Santa Mode is an advanced difficulty mode in which customers arrive earlier and lose patience faster. Players who beat this mode earn a commemorate mark. Don’t even ask me what it goes about – I spent too much time managing that so hardly I’d give away this secret for free.

Amelie's Cafe the Holiday Spirit starts as every time management game does, Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit will make you move as fast as you can and decide on quickly. If you succeed in that, you’ll be provided with the upgrades. You may either renovate the café’s interior or make your workers work harder or neater. By the way the amount of the cookers will increase and if you think, that this will make your task easier, you are mistaken. At the very beginning you are supposed to serve smashed potato, turkey and salad or a combination of two of the mentioned dishes. Then a girl cooking a kind of muffin appears. And then you have to serve candies. And then… But Amelie is still the only one to serve!

At the bottom of your screen there is a special line where the images of coins, brushes and candy canes arrive. If you click any of them it disappears, and the rest three of a kind that makes 3 in a raw improve your current situation. Three brushes in a raw make all the tables of your workers clean in a moment. Three candy canes in a raw make all your visitors happy and pleased even if you’re delaying their order (that is my favorite, by the way). And tree coins in a raw make your tips bigger.

The name of the game Holiday Spirit describes it perfect. I believe that it creates the proper mood for the winter holidays. Combining both the spirit and action it might be a great choice for a December evening!

Edited reference accessed HERE. Reviewed on Gamemile 24th Dec 2010.

Other Reviews, Videos and a Slideshow of images showing the How to Play pages:

You can see community reviews of Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit HERE and more information in the Big fish forums HERE

if you want to see some game play you can see some videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. You can also see a slideshow of almost 60 images HERE

Conclusion:

I haven't played this version of amelia's Cafe long enough, nor tried all modes to justify a conclusion. From the short time I played, it seems basically the same as previous versions of the game (Amelie's Cafe, Amelie's Cafe: Summer Time and Amelie's Cafe: Halloween) with the addition of the Santa mode

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit minus the usual MPC checkboxes and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case Steam keys.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

If today's game was not to your liking, you may find other games either free or for less than the price of a cup of coffee (from your favorite coffee house) via the 'Weekly Roundup of Game Deals' thread which I've posted a link to above, or HERE.

The latest free game over on Origin is still the old classic Dungeon Keeper. You can get it HERE and see a couple of videos of game play HERE and HERE Please note that you do require the Origin game platform to be able to download and install the game.

Assassins Creed III is still available as part of Ubisofts 30th anniversary celebrations. Last weekends deals included all the games already given away since earlier this year, but it was time limited and has now ended. For Assassins Creed III (an open world medieval first person/third person action/adventure game you do require a free Ubisoft account and the free uPlay client installed to get the game, which you will find HERE.