Not bad - works fine for me under Vista.

Prefer DX-ball 2 though

XP SP2 MCE, installed w/o a problem...

when started, it first said my video card wouldn't support fullscreen, & asked if i'd like to start in windowed mode... : (

after closing & restarting, it ran fine fullscreen... : )

the 300AD "quirky" games are among my favorite on GGOTD...the horror mode screams & clanks are, to me, funny...maybe after playing longer, i'll consider turning down the volume as others have suggested...lol...

thank you 300AD, & GGOTD for "introducing" us...

Something is sadly missing in ArcaMania. I played four or five levels and never could get excited about the game. Even with the novel (to me) change of shape selections one has for the game bat, I could not find anything in ArcaMania to get me excited. One aspect I especially disliked about this arcanoid clone is the "bonus" that paralyzes the movement of the bat. I just can't see the purpose of this game feature.

I've been playing Egyptobol for at least an hour a day for several weeks. While Egyptobol has its quirks it has remained interesting for me to play anytime I have a few minutes to hone my game skills. One of the quirks that frequently shows up in Egyptobol is the game cheats. If the gameplay gets fast enough or there are enough bonuses floating by on the screen, the game itself decides what the game player ends up with as the last bonus rolls off the bottom of the screen. Usually the game player ends up with nothing but the basic game bat to continue playing that round of the game. I find that the fact that the game cheats adds interest to playing a round that otherwise might become boring after seeing the same playing field hundreds of times. ArcaMania just shows the same bricks breaking with little variety. I found that it got boring after just eight minutes of gameplay.

Bigun

I suggest you do not install this game . It worked once but I could not get my compuer back on after quitting the game. Gave it another shot made my screen go blank had to restart my computer so I deleted it.

Having practically no experience with breakout type games, I'm having difficulty getting my feet wet with this. Right now, I can't get passed the first regular and horror screens. The problem I'm having is that the vertical bar "ball" that I'm seeing on these two levels blinks in and out, often going invisible when it nears the paddle and only reappearing at the last second. Is this normal? It may be considered a challenge, but I don't consider a game that gives me a headache a challenge I want to fool with. Maybe I need to install OpenGL. Vista Home Premium.

So, currently, my testing is a work in progress. I can, however, confirm the game is completely portable.

I first thought on reading 'retro graphics' that this wouldn't be worth downloading, but later decided to give it a try.

I'm VERY glad that I did. It is extremely challenging, requiring intense concentration and extremely quick reactions and reaction time.

Perhaps some of the critics find it TOO demanding for them to play! It is an excellent game and a great deal of fun!

I tried it, but every time it tried to activate it said "Fatal error: key is invalid.
It didn't want to install all the way.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm downloading it now. I have Vista, so I'll see if it works! :D
Hope to have fun . . .

I actually enjoyed a lot of the other games provided by 300AD (Especially Troll and Kingmania), so I enjoyed this game too. :)

Had to uninstall. Would not run on my pentium 2, 332MHZ laptop. All I got was the loading screen and the game never stated. I even downloaded openGL, But the game still wold not run. Oh well!

Moderator Comment:

Have you tried some of the alternatives? :)

WOW. Loaded fine on my computer, till I played it. Vista user here. At the end of the game it asked for my name and then Windows said it found a problem and will look for a solution. WTF....I didn't know it had a problem.

So went to the website and downloaded ArcaMania 2 Retro for free. Played beautiful. Also downloaded Crystal Cave Christmas Treasure for free. Great game.

Might even have a go at Westbang, also for free. :)

Thanks for the answer - I will uninstall it and try whatever pleases me in one of the next days - was worth the try.

Game plays perfectly on my XP unit....thanks very kindly for this free game - It's a fun game that i will play now and again until i get it beat.... ^_^
Warmest Regards...
Jeff

Sweet! They need to giveaway need for speed hot pursuit 2 or something maybe more fun.... But hey! It is woo hoo free! So it will entertain me until the next game giveaway (hopefully)


Moderator Comment:

It would be brilliant seeing some of the earlier games such as Hot Pursuit 2, but the problem would lie in download bandwidth. There are thousands of community members downloding these games. (you'd never guess from the number of comments we see each week or the votes cast). The servers wouldn't be able to cope with so many downloading over a 1 day period and many wouldn't get the games downloaded.

I installed it on two different computers:

1) old 1.6gh p4 with 512 RAM and XP. Was in the process of starting up for about 5 minutes when I put it out of its misery.

2) new(er) core 2 duo 2.5gh 8gigs ram and win 7 enterprise x64. Doesn't work here at all.

So, I'll rummage around for the original archanoid and play it instead if I can figure out how to install it on a machine with no floppy.

Moderator comment:

Hi DocSid,
You don't need a floppy, you can download the original arkanoid by Taito from Abandonia.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/265/Arkanoid.html

You'll also find more early releases such as Arkanoid II - Revenge of Doh at the bottom of the page, plus Turoid, Electronoid, Blockout and Klax. There are so many Arkanoids you can get for free. Also try the following, Theres twelve pages with at least 15 on each page making a total of 180 free arkanoids, many of which are very good. You'll find Jardanians that was mentioned earlier today as well as most of the ones (apart from the Gametop ones) I mentioned in my first comment:

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

W.R.

I am running XP with an external USB video card to support a second monitor. When I ran this game, it changed my video settings, and completely screwed up my second monitor. When trying to exit the game, escape key did not work - had to run task manager to kill it.
Had to reboot after exiting the game in order to get my video settings back. Uninstalling right now.

Don't often see the bickering here as you do on the main GOTD page. Overflow from GOTD I guess.

This game is ok. I had Arcamania 2 but somehow it got corrupted so I had to delete it. Don't know if I will use this one or not.

This is a good old-style breakout game. It has the floating objects ("monsters") that deflect the ball, and the graphics -- while good -- are comparable to those older games. The sound can become a little annoying after a while, but I just turned it down. The ball can get to moving too fast after getting the speed-up bonus. I like the fact that you can select several different modes from the icons it places on the Start Menu, such as "Windowed" and "32-bit".

IMO it is fun to play for a while, but too out-dated to buy. Thanks to the developers and GGAOTD for offering it today!

I find this to be one of the better arkanoid clones I've played, and considering it's free, what do you have to lose? I love the sound effects! Why does a game have to sound like a space battle all the time to have good sound? I love the paddle reversal penalty mode that someone else said they hated! This is good family fun! Thanks!

Hi Anthea; the game certainly wasn't designed for Win7. You could try installoing the OpenGL file that I mention in my first post. thugh do a restore point forst. That may fix the problem. (Just a suggestion though). you may b better off trying one of the at least 20 arkanoids i've linked to elsewhere. Most are at least the same if not better quality than todays game giveaway. :)

To Randy, The reason Operation Flashpoint appears so slow is you're almost playing in real time. If you have a mission to blow up a SAM site 2 Km away, you have to walk (or run) to the spot (at least in the early stages of the game - there are vehicles provided sometimes, so it's not all humping with your kit, lol).
When playing Operation Flashpoint it takes me back to when I used to go out on military excercises; it's that realistic. All I need now is the wind blowing on my face, the smell of cordite when I fire off a few rounds. I wondeer if they will do smell o visoon one day, lol. Plus it's a squad based game ( a bonus as far as I'm concerned) so yo're controlling three other guys and sometimes two squads. It reminds me a little of Full Spectrum Warrior and it's sequel Ten hammers (did you see my post in the forums a fortnight ago? you can get Full Spectrum Warrior for free - see week 59 posts). unlike Call of Duty : Modern Warfare, where you can take loads of hits before you die, if you don't keep your head down your dead. If you get even a minor wound you have to bandage it up. The pace is certainly slower, but only because you have to plan your moves and act as though you were really in a live situation. Call of Duty is basically a run and gun game. Once yu've played the single player campaign out, it's lost its replayability. Operation Flashpoint is an open world game. you can explore countless square miles of land if you wish. The graphics are as good as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. They are actually hard to compare because they are too different. I like them both, but know I'll be playing Operation Flashpoint long after my Call of Duty gathers dust on the book shelves. :) I'd definitely recommend buying it.

Let me know what you think in the forums when you've played it for a while.

Another game I reckon is better than Call of Duty is Armed Assault II (which was 50% off the other week) that was released around May this year. It has some interesting modes of play; graphics similar to Operation Flashpoint and realistic missions.

W.R.

p.s.

I just tried to run it and the retro version on my vista machine and both failed miserably. So it looks like it's for XP only.

First and foremost, thank you GGAOTD for returning to the weekend game give aways. Every time I read peoples less than cordial negative comments I cringe that they will ruin it for the rest of us who anxiously await what will be offered next and it will stop you from continuing to bring these FREE games to us. If someone found a problem with a game loading properly or messing up, freezing, etc. I would welcome the comment. If it is a game you just didn't care for because it was lame, a simple "not my kind of game" would be sufficient.

Stephen (Whiterabbit),

Glad to read your comments about the new Call of Duty game and Operation Flashpoint. I just received my copy of COD yesterday but haven't yet installed it. I mostly play single player, I'm too old and slow to play online. :) I bought COD from Amazon and got a $20 gift card for another game. Thanks to your comment about Operation Flashpoint I think I will use my card for this game. My son had gotten Operation Flashpoint for his Xbox but he said it was a little too slow moving him. Sounds like my kind of game.

Did not run on Vista. If it does, it takes more than 2 minutes to load.

The grafic is blinking under Win7 - is this normal or does the game just not work under it?

I agree with you Dadof3, Jardinains is a good freebie. you'll find a link to the download page via the free games synopsis:

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

As for posting the list of cons. Usually my reviews only cover the pros; i rarely add a list of cons, but I felt this game justified a list because there were several; however, if you consider that when this game was originally released most other games also used password protection to gain access to levels and mouse control was rare. In fact the original ArcaMania didn't have mouse control. It was oly addedin one of the updates later.

Ricochet infinity is probably the best arkanoid ever made so far, though there are some neqrly as good such as Reaxxion and Acky's XP Breakout. The latter looks rather dated now, but the game play combines the best of most arkanoids, and adds a load more to the mix. I think what makes Infinity so good is the addition of a levels editor (which all but the first ricochet have) plus the in game link to the thousands of custom made levels. A few other 2D arkanoids I'd recommend over most are Hyperballoid 2 which also has a levels editor (as does Acky's XP Breakout) and finally Action Ball 2 and Breakquest, which unfortunately don't have a levels editor; however the variety of levels in Breakquest are amazing and the power ups can be configured to suit your game play. And in Actionball 2 you can buy upgrades to your power-ups.

Thanks for your comments, Whiterabbit. To list the cons first and forget to list the pros indicates (at least to me) that this version isn't worth downloading. And with what you wrote, I would have to agree (although I'm not going to vote thumbs up or down because I'm not going to download it).
IMHO, I think the best all-around arkanoid game that I've ever played is Ricochet Infinity. Not too long ago (was it last week?), GGOTD gave away Ricochet Xtreme. While it is a good one, Infinity is far better! Some of you may be turned off by the cost - $10 - but everytime I sit down and play it for a while, I feel like it was one of the best investments I've ever made in a game!
If you're looking for a different kind of arkanoid, one that will make you grin and get irked at the same time, try Jardinains. First, it's free, second, you can get it at downloads.com, and third, my kids love it almost as much as I do.

Hi Zealotron, your right Arcamania 2 is not free , but it's not on offer today, so you wouldn't expect it to be. On the other hand the retro version is (ArcaMania 2: Retro) ; despite there being only 20 levels in the ArcaMania 2 Retro version, I still think it's much better than the original that's being given away today, which has 60 levels and is free provided you install it within the next 24 hours. It will not revert back to a demo after the 24 hour period as is implied above. There's no seperate activation module today, just a dual setup and activation module. Once it's registered (by clicking on the file provided in the download) you can play it from a flash drive and swap it around from machine to machine. i.e. it's free standing.

Some may find the sound effects distracting or even appalling, but I do think for the second version it adds to the wacky nature of that game. The visual effects in the second version are much better than in the one were getting for free today (if you like psychedelic things you’ll love ArcaMania 2 Retro which uses the same effects as in ArcaMania 2, and which was last given away back in August 2008.

Both ArcaMania 2 and the Retro versions are difficult breakout to play compared to the likes of the Ricochet series and the first ArcaMania version. For those who are new to the project I hope 300 AD will add it to the pot in a few weeks time as it really is much better than the first version despite having the horror mode added in version 1.2, which was an upgrade from the original v1.

As for today’s giveaway, I do think this will only appeal to die-hard arkanoid lovers. The additional games that I’ve suggested in coment # 1 are much better than ArcaMania IMO, but for the next 24 hours, if you download it you've got yourself a free arkanoid, that although not the best, is still a playable effort. ((em)I bought it after buying the second game thinking it would be similar, but also because I tend to collect sets of things) :lol: I’ve hardly played it since because ‘it was’ a little disappointing.

I agree with Xavia's comment about the sound effects especially when playing the horror mode; however I didn't find the standard game too bad sound wise. Please remember this isn't a new game. It was released several years ago and arkanoids have taken a step further with the likes of Ricochet Infinity and Reaxxion to name just a few of the more recent 2D arkanoids.

From the list I posted in comment #1 above, I would definitely recommend Geometry Ball, A-Ball, Scaraball (the latter two are by the same developer Urse Games and are very similar apart from the graphic skin); as well as Egyptian Ball (for the brick physic)s and Aztec Bricks. Then there’s a few freeware arkanoids that I also think deserve your attention, and include Poing, and Beat Ball, both of which have excellent ball physics (you can slice the ball and make it curve around bricks). Then there’s Hoowaball and Wreckerball Dreams, both of which are unusual arkanoid/breakouts. Finally if you want a reasonable 3D arkanoid for free try Mystery Land. You can find download links for all of these free 24/7 games by following the links I’ve provided above in comment #1.

Saving a level during game play:

I forgot to mention in my main review that if you want to finish playing part way through a level just press Esc to bring up the in game menu and click on main menu. When you next play you can start from where you left off; even part way through a level. It is adviseable to complete a level if you can, but if you do decide to finish off the level at a later date remember to try and save while the ball is bouncing up, otherwise you're likely to lose the ball when you restart the game :lol:

I also noticed that the initial installation size of the game was 11Mb, but once you've played the game this increases to 11.8Mb due to the addition of Dat files.

Have a great weekend folks........... Has anyone bought the latest Call of Duty game yet? It’s brilliant, though I prefer Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which has a lot more replayability (for single player at least).

This is by far the worst version of Breakout I've ever played.
This sound effects are way too random and in some cases muffled, your paddle is effected by random falling items and half the time you can't control it. Definitly not a game to spend money on.

If you download this game I suggest playing it with your speakers off.

ArcaMania 2 is not free...only demo version. Tat is why GOTD is so great, totally free for 24 hours

Hi mc2w, I was curious about your comment, re arcamania being put into the start up menu. so I installed the game (I didn't really need to because I already had it installed), but just to check your claim I did and found that it just wasn't true. This game does not insert itself into your start up sequence. :lol:

Hi paradonym,

It is free for the next 24 hours. That is provided you download and install it within this time frame. That's whats meant by a time limited offer. Provided you install it before tomorrow (8am GMT, 3am Eastern time or midnight PST), you'll get a full version game.

"The program is available for $12.95, but it will be free for our visitors as a time-limited offer."

I thought it's a full version?

Here's an addendum to my comment: maybe you should get a licensed, updated version of Multimedia Fusion, and not just try selling off the breakout clone that plays on startup.

Next time just use install maker free if you're not going to pay for it.

http://img.wiflba.com/images/clickteamwot.png

ArcaMania

Today's giveaway is the first in the ArcaMania series. There are two games, the second in the series, (ArcaMania 2 has been given away twice previously, but not today). It’s similar to ArcaMania which we are getting for the first time today, but has more unusual power ups, better art, more unusual sound effects and is much much harder to win than today’s giveaway, which is really just a basic arkanoid with a few unusual bonuses and an update which added ten more levels which the developer gave a horror theme. There is also free version of ArcaMania 2 called ArcaMania 2: Retro. I’ve posted a link below in the 'Similar Games for Free' section.

Today’s game is an 11.6Mb download and when installed is initially slightly less at 11Mb, but once you've played the game Dat files are created that boost the games size up to 11.8Mb (not very significant when you consider some of the latest games take up over 16Gb of space on a computer. :lol: the default install path is C:\Program files\Arcamania. There is a desktop shortcut but no start menu program shortcut. You’ll find an uninstaller within the installed folder. You can create a start menu program folder and place a game and uninstaller short cut into it by following the instructions that I posted in the forums HERE





Introduction:

ArcaMania is a brick-busting classic arKanoid clone with hi-color graphics, effects, sounds and monsters. You must destroy all bricks while keeping the ball on the screen. Some bricks will give you over 20 special bonuses such as long pad, short pad, terminator ball, fast ball, triple ball etc.

This update includes 10 new horror levels with new graphics, monsters and sounds. You can now play the ArcaMania with mouse etc.

Reference accessed HERE on the 13th Nov 09





The Game:

The game is quite basic with few bells and whistles, but offers some reasonabe game play in the traditional 2D format. You get around 50 levels to work through plus an additional 10 levels in the horror mode, which is accessible by clicking the H key while in the main menu. I’ll deal with the cons before I carry on writing generally about the game;

Cons:

• No mouse control when navigating the game menu’s

• No options to turn off sound effects and or music (apart from the volume control)

• Each level is password protected, so you need to keep a record of your level codes otherwise you’ll have to restart from level 1

• In horror mode there’s a scream that is repeated constantly, which can become very very very annoying after playing for a while.

• There is no multiplayer option (you can play up to four players with ArcaMania 2)


If you’ve read my review of Arcamania 2, you’ll find today’s game similar, though being the first in the series several of the features you find in ArcaMania 2 are missing. The original game lacks the difficulty modes and the graphics are ‘a lot more retro’.

You’ll find a page of useful information via the help buttom which can be found in the main menu, that explains the game controls pictorially (you can also see the help page by following the link to the images I’ve uploaded). To play the game you can use the mouse or the arrow keys. Left and right moves the bat left and right (as you would expect) and the up and down arrow keys or the left and right mouse buttons change the shape of the bat to either a convex or concave shape which can affect the angle of direction of the ball, and allows you to change the direction the ball will travel to. A convex shape, which uses the up arrow or left mouse button creates a larger angle of attack to the concave bat shape ((em>down arrow or right mouse button). The help page also details all the score bonuses and power ups that the game uses. There aren’t quite as many as you get with ArcaMania 2, but there’s still a decent number that includes the usual breakout bonuses such as speed up ball (though the speed up you get with this game has a sting in it’s tail which I’ll let you discover for yourselves), free life, and increase bat size, though when the bat size increases you lose the ability to change the angle of attack because the bat remains straight until the bonus wears off. There are also some unusual ones such as the bat reverser that really confuses me when I play the game, another one that forces, and then locks the bat to the edge of the playing arena for a few seconds and another that causes all the bricks on the playing arena to revert to a white basic brick. There are around 30 different brick types some requiring only one hit to destroy and others needing multiple hits. Different bricks can score different points depending upon how many hits it takes to destroy them. Some levels have indestructible bricks, but when collecting the base power up these are also converted to the basic white bricks which can then be destroyed; though doing this can compromise your score as all the brick values are reduced to 10 points each. There’s a high score table that will record the top ten scores; unfortunately these can’t be reset via the hi-score panel. And a cursory look in the games folder (I have a purchased version from several years ago) doesn’t reveal any configuration file that would allow any tweaking.

Most levels also have ball deflectors of various shapes and sizes (depending upon whether you’re playing the standard game or the later addition called The horror mode). Each deflector deflects the ball in a slightly different way; combinations of different deflectors makes for quite a challenging level for players.

To the right of the playing arena are three boxes that show you which bonuses, if any, are active. When you first pick up a bonus it is brightly lit. As the time runs out the light gradually fades till it’s extinguished. The average time a power-up/bonus lasts is from 10 to 15 seconds. You’ll see what I mean when you first pick up a bonus in game. :lol: If you lose a life the bonuses that were active at the time of death remain active, so beware when you start a new life. For example, if one of the bonuses is a small bat and another the fast ball, you could easily lose another life very quickly. You can only have three bonuses active at any one time. If you pick up any more while three are active they are lost; however this isn’t too common.

An unusual addition to this game is an indicator along the top of the playing arena. This shows your accumulated score plus the value of any bonuses you may catch as well as the name of the bonus.

I’ve taken screen captures of several of the level codes for both the horror mode and the main game mode, so, if you don’t want to see these, don’t check out the screen captures, or at least skim over the ones with the codes. I've also posted a link to a page that lists all the passwords for all the levels for the main game and the horror levels.




Game features:

• 50 original levels

• over 20 bonuses

• advanced aiming with your pad

• about 30 kinds of bricks

• monsters and deflectors

• Additional 10 horror levels added with the v1.2 update


Images:

You can see all the images, including images of several of the password codes that I’ve uploaded on one page HERE, and as a slideshow HERE. You can see the levels much better watching the slideshow as the resolution is higher (800 x 600). Though you can also increase the size of the thumbnail images you get via the first link by using the slider which is to the top right of the screen.

Minimum requirements:

• PC Windows

• 128MB RAM

• OpenGL

.


Conclusion:

The game is fairly basic, but there’s enough decent bonuses plus a few unusual ones, as well as progressively harder levels to make this game a worthwhile download, especially if you like arkanoids. It’s not the best arkanoid I’ve come across, but it’s still worth a 6.5 out of 10 for some quirky game play (though ArcaMania 2 is a lot quirkier) :lol: I’ve posted links to several decent and free arkanoids from Gametop (eleven games in total), plus several freeware versions which can be found via the Arkanoid thread and free games synopsis. If you want all of the ArcaMania level codes you can find them HERE

If you have any problems running this game it may be that you don’t have a OpenGL compliant video card, though it’s more likely you don’t have OpenGL installed. You can download OpenGL HERE.





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Similar Games for Free:

You can get a free version of ArcaMania 2 called ArcaMania 2 Retro. It was created by Mart Williams and Tom Roberts, who were keen ArcaMania 2 fans and was inspired by the old ZX Spectrum computer and some of its games, such as Knight Lore, Pyjamarama, Abu Simbel, Dizzy, plus others. You can download it from 300 AD’s site HERE

There’s also at least 10 commercial quality arkanoids available from Gametop and include A-Ball (better known as Nuclear Ball from Urse games), Sawnoid, Egyptoball, Geometry Ball (aka Twinxoid), Scaraball (aka Gem Ball), Star Ball, Brixout XP, Egyptian Ball, Cosmoball and Aztec Bricks. You can download them all HERE

Please be aware that Gametop are increasingly adding the option to install tool bars and change your home page by default, so you need to watch every step of the installation process to make sure all tick boxes are unchecked. This will ensure a clean install. When closing Gametop games down your browser is opened to Gametops home page, but this is innocuous and nothing to worry about.

You’ll find a thread HERE in the game discussion forums dedicated to arkanoids. There’s quite a few excellent freeware alternatives that are as good or nearly as good as all of the commercial titles being given away by Gametop, and some are actually better (IMO). The following titles are definitely worth a look, Wreckerball Dreams, Poing, Hoowaball, DXBall, Beatball, UltraFlexball 2000, Mystery Land and Deep Ball Defender. There are others, but I didn’t want to swamp you with freebies, lol.

I’d also search the free games synopsis for more arkanoids that have been posted in separate threads such as in the free games project. I’ve been rather remise at updating the arkanoids thread over the last several months. You can find the free games synopsis HERE


Finally there’s a free online version of Ricochet: Lost Worlds which is amongst one of the best 2D arkanoids around. It is a browser version, but from what i've seen of it it has all the functions of the full version game which you can play HERE. you do need flash player to be able to play this game though.


A very big thank you to the game giveaway team for continuing to find developers willing to give their games away and to 300AD for participating in the project. It's very much appreciated by the majority of community members.

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