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Ashtons: Family Resort Giveaway
$19.95
EXPIRED

Game Giveaway of the day — Ashtons: Family Resort

Ashtons: Family Resort is a new exciting game from Realore Studios! Build your own tourist business! Camping on a lake shore, skiing in Alps, hot safari in Kenya, diving in Pacific ocean – tourists are so exited about it! Variety of upgrades, additional services and colorful locations! Provide the best service ever! Become a winner of a unique Resort Contest!
$19.95 EXPIRED
User rating: 329 50 comments

Ashtons: Family Resort was available as a giveaway on June 28, 2009!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$5.00
free today
Crazy Desert Car is an exciting game in the arcade genre.

Ashtons: Family Resort is a new exciting game from Realore Studios!

Build your own tourist business! Camping on a lake shore, skiing in Alps, hot safari in Kenya, diving in Pacific ocean – tourists are so exited about it! Variety of upgrades, additional services and colorful locations! Provide the best service ever! Become a winner of a unique Resort Contest!

System Requirements:

Windows 2000/XP/Vista; Celeron 1.5GHz and later; DirectX 7.0 and later; 512 MB RAM

Publisher:

Xing Interactive

Homepage:

http://www.realore.com/games/ashtonsfamilyresort/

File Size:

44.2 MB

Price:

$19.95

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Comments on Ashtons: Family Resort

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#50

great your blog,thanks

Reply   |   Comment by Andreea  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#49

This was not a bad game overall - mechanics worked out well, graphics were satisfying, sound wasn't repetitive/terrible.

The main dissatisfaction I had with the game was that each level was scripted from start to finish. If you for some reason had to restart the level, you would notice each customers request coming at the same time. Another problem with having the levels scripted so heavily (as has been already noted) is that if you simply click on each action as it comes in, you will always get "expert" which turns this time-management game into a simple "keep-clicking" setup.
In Jane's Hotel (which is the most impressive time-management I've played) many of the tasks you have to complete take different amounts of time so that you have to choose when to complete certain tasks like vacuuming. If you try to vacuum each room as soon as it empties in JH, you will have the other customers complaining because vacuuming takes so long, so you have to choose when to do time-intensive tasks.

Other, smaller problems I noticed in this game:

There was no point in bothering to find Sammy (the dog) in each level, nor was there a spot on the map to tell you if you'd found Sammy on that level or not.
On some of the levels, Sammy was even hidden behind the upgrades that
you buy so that it was almost luck to find him (Switzerland - upgraded houses, Island - upgraded bar)

The mini-game for upgrading your house was rather boring. When I first started playing the game I made efforts to be smart in how I matched tiles, but by the time I even got halfway into the game I was clicking randomly without even bothering to look. Maybe you could add a penalty for mis-clicking, make more interesting boards to play on, or make there be multiple requirements for an upgrade (paint AND money, etc.)

The lack of things for the guy to do in the game. Since the gal in the game has so many jobs to do (including cleaning, which takes awhile) oftentimes my guy would just end up standing around waiting while the customers got angrier and angrier. It also became a little annoying (but understandable) that the characters couldn't take over each others jobs if the other one was very busy.

All in all, this was a diverting time-management game, not too shabby in the way it worked, but it got a little repetitive/easy to beat. I'd give it ***/5 for solid gameplay with a lot of repetition.

Reply   |   Comment by Kulian  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#48

Nice, mindless game. But, has anybody run across my problem and found a fix for it? Specifically, the cursor/pointer is a large, magnified square. I can play the game, but it does make it difficult, especially when I get to the "bonus" game. Maybe it's my machine?

Reply   |   Comment by buckus  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#47

Sorry about the Email folks. I'm just a volunteer, so have nothing to do with the actual running of the giveaways. I just post reviews and try to help. All I can suggest is for you to check here every Saturday and sunday. A new game is posted at midnight on the Friday and midnight on the Saturday Pacific time, or 8am, Saturday and 8am ?Sunday GMT. I've never relied upon the Email. Apart from the fact that it never comes on time, it's more hassle to open up my Email client to check for my emails than it is to open up the Game giveaway page.

Most games tend to be repeated now, so hopefully you'll see it here again.

To Komal - If Fatal Hearts was a free game I'd be able to post loads of links for you; unfortunately it's a commercial game and I couldn't find any special offers anywhere for it. Though the price did seem to vary from site to site from anywhere between £19.99 to the cheapest I found it at $9.99, which is a bargain if you consider the game a good one.

:)

Regards

Whiterabbit - I hope everyone is having a marvellous week. :)

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#46

I'd have to agree with watcher13 in post #15.

My little daughter enjoys this game, but even she gets bored with it and goes for another in a short time. It is ideal for VERY young, or developmentally challenged players. Still, for them to grow and benefit from this game, it should be revised to allow for the player to have more of an impact with their decisions.

Reply   |   Comment by Jeannie  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#45

hey people can anyone tell me where can i find fatal hearts for free ??!!

Reply   |   Comment by komal  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#44

Nicole, you are not the only one for sure.
I have received the email only Monday, 8.04 a.m. (local time), yours 3.04 a.m.
And I am sorry WhiteRabbit, but this time it looks like the problem is on the sender.
However, GGOTD, welcome back! I am sure you will continue the great job.

Reply   |   Comment by JJ - Portugal  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#43

ARRGH! I missed it. this game sounded good. Can we put it back on?

Reply   |   Comment by Sam  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#42

how come when I went on this site yesterday it did not show this and why did I get the email today for it to be given away today.

Reply   |   Comment by tammy  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#41

Hi Nicole, If all you were seeing on Sunday is Saturday's game sometimes, the cookies stored on your computer can interfere. I can't explain why, but I know from past experience when trying to post a review and all I g]got was the previous days game showing. I didcovered that by cleaning out the internet cache the problem stopped. If you're not sure how to do this, you can clean out temporary files and the internet cache by right clicking on the internet icon and selecting internet properties. From the window that appears (in Internet Explorer) you can clean up several things including the cache and temporary folders. If you use firefox you have to go to tools and select internet properties from there.

Unfortunately it's not possible to give it away for just a small group. hopefully sometime in the future it will be given away again.

Sorry you missed the giveaway.

regrds

Whiterabbit

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#40

I read your previous comments about not relying on the email, but when I tried to just access the site, all day and evening yesterday, to see if there was a game, all I kept seeing was Saturday's giveaway. I'll try it next time. Is it possible to just offer it today for those of us who received the email today?

Reply   |   Comment by Nicole  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#39

I am wondering why I just received the email for this game, this morning at 3:04 AM? Judging from the amount of comments, I am probably not the only one. This is totally not fair!!!

Reply   |   Comment by Nicole  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#38

My stupid server didn't send this e-mail to me until 3:30 AM on the 29th. Oh the joys of living in the outback of the US. I've enjoyed the others, however.

Reply   |   Comment by Andrea Bowden  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#37

I installed the game and it worked great untill the next day. I need to reinstall the program as the main exe.file seems to be gone. I have all the files but the main one. How can I repAIR THE GAME?

Reply   |   Comment by Alive  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#36

Wow, something is wrong here. I got the email notice on this game at 12:04am June 29th! Came to the site to get it and found out it was yesterdays game! Maybe you can send out your emails a little earlier?
:(

Info from reply:
-------Original Message-------

From: Game Giveaway of the Day
Date: 06/29/09 00:04:26
To: @hotmail.com
Subject: Game Giveaway of the Day

Reply   |   Comment by Stephanie Kinslow  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#35

Aston's family resort came out on Sunday but did nt show up in my e-mail till Monday. These are the type of games that i love. Will it be displayed again?

Reply   |   Comment by doris elliott  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#34

I too did not receive the notification email until 12:04 am on 6/29. I only check this site if I get a notification email, since GGOTD skips weekends, and sometimes runs the same game for Sat and Sun. I am really disappointed as I would have loved to play this game.

Reply   |   Comment by mizliss  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#33

This give away came into my e-mail at 304am this morning 6/29 but at 930am on 6/29 I am unable to download as the time has expired. Anything we can do about getting things posted so we can download at a reasonable time. There is no way that a 6 hour window in the wee hours of the morning are going to allow many people to download, or at least on our side of the world.

Reply   |   Comment by rollsonic  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#32

Bummer. I was busy with other things yesterday. Even though I checked my email several times, my notification didn't come through til 1:04 AM THIS morning after the giveaway was expired. I would have liked this game.

Reply   |   Comment by MontanaGrandmom  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#31

I added gamegiveaway to my google home page. Maybe I won't miss any more! I have got to stop thinking they are on summer vacation!

Reply   |   Comment by Georgia  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#30

The email for this was not sent until 6/29 at 2:04 am. I wanted to download this!

Reply   |   Comment by Georgia  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#29

Hi Rachel, glad you got it sorted. I've just checked the box myself. I've had the same problem occasionally. It's amazing what there is to learn about windows.

To Kathline, sorry I fell asleep earlier so wasn't able to try and help before the giveaway was over. Though looking at the error message you posted, I doubt I could have come up with a solution. :(

To Seaeagle, Ayesha and Oria, I would never rely upon the giveawayoftheday notification Email; otherwise you're likely to lose more games. Sorry you missed it though. The game giveaways start at 00.00 (midnight Friday) Saturday Pacific Time and 00.00 Sunday.

To S, why do you think the game was crappy? Also there was no one else having the same problem as you mention, which may mean your computer could be at fault and not the game .

Regards

Whiterabbit

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#28

same as #26, i have tried this game and liked it, but unfortunally i did not receive the e-mail untill 6/29 at 3:04am, to late to get this game would have loved to had this game.

Reply   |   Comment by Oria  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#27

Oh no, missed this. :( I wanted this one so badly!!!

Reply   |   Comment by Ayesha  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#26

i have tried this game and liked it, but unfortunally i got the mail for this free game a day to late so i was not able to download it

Reply   |   Comment by seaeagle  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#25

Another crappy game that crashes when playing

Reply   |   Comment by S  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#24

Found a solution - and I have XP, not 98 = http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2103/page/2
and used comment by pcbn2u - and it worked!
I use IE8. Maybe this helps somebody else?

Reply   |   Comment by Rachel  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#23

I downloaded the game, installed it and got as far as putting a family in a house... then I would get a FATAL ERROR! each time I tried to play. I thought maybe the file got corrupted during download so I downloaded it again and reinstalled it. Again, I got this FATAL ERROR at the same place. My computer has been updated and has no problem running any application. The following is the FATAL ERROR!! i received.


Exception: Privileged Instruction (code 0xc0000096) at address 00E701DA in thread 240
Module: Exception: Privileged Instruction (code 0xc0000096) at address 00E701DA in thread 240

Logical Address: 5B36BC:0052005C

0012FC4C 00E701DA 0000:00000000 ¼ê
Params: 459F7F60 0012FCD8 00E76C90 00E76E98

0012FC88 0047C5EE 0001:0007B5EE AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 0012FCD8 459F7FA0 00E76C90 0012FCD8

0012FCC8 0047C658 0001:0007B658 AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 0012FCD8 00E75940 0000003D 0000003D

0012FCE4 00475F67 0001:00074F67 AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 00E75940 00E75940 0046563F 00000001

0012FD68 0046550F 0001:0006450F AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 00000001 01DB3FA2 00E75940 77577BBC

0012FD9C 0046B9FC 0001:0006A9FC AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 0012FDAF 00E75940 00E75940 0012FF20

0012FDB0 0046BA37 0001:0006AA37 AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 00E75940 0046BBB2 00000893 00E75940

0012FF20 0046B89C 0001:0006A89C AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 00000002 0055FBB0 00400000 00000000

0012FFC0 00513699 0001:00112699 AshtonsFamilyResort.exe
Params: 00000008 061CDAAC 7FFDF000 061CDA80

0012FFF0 77E87903 0001:00006903 KERNEL32.dll
Params: 0055FC19 00000000 000000C8 00000100

StackWalk failed (error 487)

EAX:04E3CFC8 EBX:0B6D6628 ECX:04E3CFC8 EDX:00E701B8 ESI:000000B4 EDI:00000320
EIP:00E701DA ESP:0012FBB4 EBP:0012FC4C
CS:001B SS:0023 DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00210202

Windows Ver: NT 5.0 Build 2195
DDraw Ver: 5.3.0000001.0904
DSound Ver: 5.3.0000001.0904

Product: Ashtons: Family Resort
Version: 1.0
Time Loaded: 00:00:56
Fullscreen: Yes
Primary ThreadId: 240

Reply   |   Comment by kathline  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#22

Does anyone know how I can get the game to activiate? Sometime in May? maybe longer - it goes to the activate box and then I get a message about "failure to connect". I have Win 98, older computer - haven't a clue what is on it, vary from 3.1 - 5.0 whatevers per second - VERY SLOW. This download would typically take 4 - 6 hours. I have had this problem before with the other Give Aways and just given up. Has Microsoft downloaded something that is blocking it - because I know they are blocking AUTORUN, but don't know what to remove there either.
Thanks.

Reply   |   Comment by Rachel  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#21

I have played this before, but I wouldn't have paid for it. Only played the first scene, I think - was put off by how sexist it was. He gets to do all the activities and she gets to clean up!

Reply   |   Comment by judalea  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#20

Hi Watcher, if you thought your's were long winded, what must you think of mine, lol. :)

Actually I thought you brought up some excellent points and in no way did I think it was long winded. It was in fact nice to see someone else posting more than a few lines. :) We need more community members like yourself who are willing to note down ideas and corrections that the devlopers can take away and hopefully improve on their games.

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#19

Thanks to Realore and GGAOTD for today's game offering - great to see something different than usual. I do enjoy some TM games and this one was just the right speed for me and my 10 year old niece. The dsl download and setup took under 15 minutes total and works just fine on my Windows XP-3. While you can never please everyone - we thank you again.

Reply   |   Comment by Kim  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#18

Downloaded and installed without any problems at all. Excellent game for kids

Reply   |   Comment by Leanne  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#17

Got so long winded in my review, I forgot to confirm that I tested and, as WR says, it's portable. Also wanted to say I overstated my point about the quality of the English. Mostly, too much is not idiomatic, i.e. not common speech, that it's unlikely that the developer's first language is English.

Still, I'm must tell the developer you need to improve this. For example, these sentences will bring you ridicule from English speakers.:
"This is a family that came to the camping. Click them and remove to any vacant house."

Something like this would be better:
"This family has come to stay at your campground. Click on them and place (or put) them in any vacant cabin." Or "Click on them and show them to any vacant cabin."

Reply   |   Comment by watcher13  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#16

I've been a fan of TM games for years. I play RPGs and Racing games etc on the PS etc, but for the computer it's WoW and TM style games... I'm 30 years old, so this game doesn't just appeal to kids (sorry, some of the comments annoyed me).

I personally am very thankful to recieve this game... not every game appeals to every audience, so please keep that in mind when you complain.

So thank you so very much to GGotD and Realore too..I love a number of your games and am so happy to see more of them ^_^ Much loves ^_^

Reply   |   Comment by Jeania  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#15

The thought process behind this game could be:
1. For children still in the repition/no thought phase of their development, i.e. "Do it again, Daddy".
2. Adults who want mindless action as a brain release, such as many forms of solitaire.

But I think there's a 3rd possibility:
In and effort to knockoff games such as Jane's Hotel, the author got the mechancs right, but misunderstood the game's appeal for adults.
I mean, though games like Jane are mainly repititive motion, there's just enough mind work to keep folks interested. In Jane you have a choice as to what upgrades you'll get, and to a certain extent what order you get them, and so there are different potential routes to get to your destination. And, in all good time management games, there are some subtle choices as to the most efficient order to do things - after all, these are "efficiency" games - that can, at least, keep your brain occupied.

That's the real issue with this game: everything is programmed for you, specifically the upgrades and the earning of stars for advancement and your warned of almost everything that's about to happen so there are practically no surprises. That's a mistake that I've occassionally observed in non-computer games. That is, a kiss of death for a game is when the game play's itself. No user input is needed. Like solitaire. Here, unless you're very inexperienced with a mouse, there's no chance of not completing a level. I only had to repeat one and being so slow that occassionally driving one thing into the red didn't prevent me from getting expert. (?!?) But why would anyone buy or install a game when they could just take out a deck of cards? Or play solitaire on Windows? Just for this review, I got to Switzerland, but became increasely annoyed as the game essentially dragged me along in a practically pointless fashion to get there. I'm inclined to think this is a kids game with such things as the meaningless nonsense of the dog. In any case, it won't interest even casual gamers, because people like to PLAY games, not watch them play themselves. As for the equally pointless, mechanical match 3s in the irrelevant house building phases, they just PROVE that point.

A quick note about the language issue, which sometimes polarizes people. I doubt this developer's native language is English. I can be sympathetic about that, but, when people criitcize this, it's for the developers own good. If I were to release a game in another language full of mangled sentences, it likely wouldn't sell. It would be seen as an insult. In English, it's seen as sloppiness, but the point is the same. It hurts sales. Interesting note: in the gamezebo forum, one of our regular forum contributors (I'm assuming same person), Sukibabe, said she played the beta and gave the developers a number of grammar corrections, but they only implemented some (It was even worse? Wow!). She's sure it's because they were rushing to get it out. Developer: bad move.

I don't want to discourage this developer. The execution is reasonably good. It depends on the developer's thinking. If the intention is to create a game for YOUNG children, or adults who want to shut their minds off, this game is perfect. For most gamers, however, consider making more upgrades available earlier so the player must make choices as to what to get and in what order. And have more suprises. For example, remove the warnings on the racoon, rabbit, and termites. And get help with the grammer. Post over in our forum, and many of us, me included, would be glad to help.

I dislike giving any game a thumbs down because the beauty of games, unlike utilities, is truly in the eyes of the beholder. I'd rather remain neutral at worst, but if this was meant for adults then it's a miss.

Reply   |   Comment by watcher13  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#14

Hi Adrian, wow that was a long download time. Maybe it was because the bandwidth was being stretched to its limit. There's usually well over a thousand downlods for each game, depending upon which genre it is. Some parts of the day can be quite high in traffic, such as from around 6am Pacific time (2pm GMT or 8am Eastern time) till later in the day. Maybe you was downloading during on of these peak times. I hope it was worth it for you. :)

regards

Whiterabbit.

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#13

Yeah, the game is quite good, but can you make the downloads faster? It has taken me two hours to download, whereas the download 32 mb of mediacoder only took 3 minutes...

Reply   |   Comment by Adrian  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#12

Only people who use improper grammar would find this game to be fun, hard to play and worth saving. Let's face it, its no Sims. Why does it look like the same person commented on several of these comments (By the way they spell)?

Reply   |   Comment by Phil  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#11

I decided this one was more for kids and I'm still trying to finish Jane's Hotel because those games aren't my favorite although the last Jane's Hotel has cute characters in it.

Reply   |   Comment by Diane  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#10

Keep 'em coming!

I love this kind of games!

Reply   |   Comment by F.Misle  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#9

we take people for fools with games like that!

Reply   |   Comment by mercure  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#8

A great game. I also had the trial version and was very happy to see it be the free game of the day. Well worth the download, sp. if you like time management games,

Reply   |   Comment by Gail Brown  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#7

i've played a trial version of this game before. i'm going to enjoy this one. thx ggotd!

Reply   |   Comment by sharon  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#6

Thanks for this,my kids love it,not to difficult and not to fast paced that they get stressed with it.

Reply   |   Comment by judydog  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#5

Hai Everyone,
Plz download it is very nice game ,thanks giveawayoftheday

Reply   |   Comment by Ramees  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#4

I get a CRC error when trying to unzip the setup. If I tell it to keep going anyway I get another error saying the key cannot be decrypted.

Reply   |   Comment by Cheryl  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#3

This game may appeal to 2 groups of people. The 1st being children 7-9ish. The 2nd group people like me yhat get a expert score the 1st 20 levels and get totally frustrated with how hard the last 5 are. That said I didn't enjoy it. I'd like a TM where I could reall manage my time. I even have a idea for one, CALL BF and tell them to stop the presses!

Reply   |   Comment by peaceandout  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#2

The game unzips itself into a new folder, just like yesterdays giveaway, works fine under vista 32 bit, the game play to me seems a mix between diner dash and tycoon games, another good game to kill some time with, thanks GGOTD!

Reply   |   Comment by ThunderBolt  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#1

Ashtons Family Resort:

Today's game from Realore is a 44.2Mb download that once unzipped and installed expands to 46Mb. There is no shortcut placed on the desktop, but you will find one in the start menus applications list. you can either send a shortcut from the Start menu shortcut to the desktop by using the send to command (by right clicking on the shortcut in the start menu), or going directly to the installed games folder, which by default is installed to:

C:\Games\Ashton's Family Resort

The game can be installed to a flash drive or once installed copied to a Cd and played directly from there if you wish. That is to sy the game is free standing and installs few keys into the registry.



Ashtons: Family Resort is a new exciting game from Realore Studios! Build your own tourist business! Camping on a lake shore, skiing in Alps, hot safari in Kenya, diving in the Pacific Ocean – tourists are so exited about it! The variety of upgrades, additional services and colorful locations! Provide the best service ever! Become a winner of a unique Resort Contest!



Reference: http://www.realore.com/games/ashtonsfamilyresort/ accessed 26th June 09


Here’s a summary of what the developer says about this game:

Features:

• 54 different colorful levels! - Agreed
• Fascinating mini-games! - No way
• Morning/day/evening changing! - Agreed
• The guests smile or frown depending on your actions! - Agreed, but so what, lol
• You can create your own unique design by choosing colors and furniture you like! Agreed, but not very exciting.




Today’s game is another time management game, somewhat similar to Jane’s Hotel which we received for free just before the game giveaway project team went on leave in April, except in this game you spend the time out doors, having barbeques, playing basket ball and eating ice cream, or just lounging around. It looks like both games were developed by the same author, or they used the same resources to create the games, because the characters and in fact the whole visual style of both games is remarkably similar to (i.e. visually Ashton’s Family Resort looks very much like Jane’s Hotel, though I thought Janes Hotel was far better. So, unfortunately, if you liked Jane’s Hotel you may be a little disappointed with this one. That said there are some good points about the game, for example, the graphics are colourful and the game is child friendly. My eight year old daughter was able to cope admirably with the games speed.

Each level is split up into an introduction which gives you a hint about one of the jobs you will have to carry out, for example, clean the houses, shoo away the raccoons and hare’s or serve ice-cream and barbeque food. Apart from the first level, where you start the game with the just the basics; every other level has a new upgrade introduced to the game, this may be a better house, improved parking facilities, or additional amenities added to the outdoor area of the holiday resort. These improvements should bring in more revenue, which is then spent on more improvements. The more cash you earn the more amenities you can purchase at the end of a level, though in actual fact, there’s never ever any problems buying what’s available, with change usually being left out of what you’ve earned. This can lead to some complacency further into the game, though if you go too slowly, you can ‘fail’ a level and have to retake it.

At the end of a level you are awarded standards of excellence. If you fail to get the gold standard, you can always return and try to do better if you wish. You can replay any level once it’s been completed. Money is cumulative, but every so often you may be asked to donate the remainder of what money you have left to charity, so it’s a good idea if you spend as much as possible. Most turns you only have a choice of one or sometimes two upgrade. The game is divided up into four areas, the first one starts in the US where you have to complete around 12 levels before the Ashton family expands into Europe where they move to a ski resort in Switzerland with another 12 or so levels. From there they go to Kenya for safari style resort before finding their way to the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

There was mention of fascinating mini games in addition to the normal game play, over on the developers site, however while playing the first six levels of this game (the demo ran out before I could play more levels, due in part to taking a ridiculous number of screen captures). I only saw one mini game which was a ‘very’ poor excuse for a match three game. You can see images of the mini games that are played at the end of each level via the screen captures (there’s around 80 of them showing all phases of the game). These games earned points which were spend on upgrading your property, with the addition of garden features, paths, extended garages etc. I was ‘definitely’ not impressed with the poor quality and playability of these mini games.


I’m not going to describe in detail the mechanics of the game, instead I’ve posted a large number of images and a few videos of game play below for you to peruse. The images include all the menus and show the various stages you follow to progress to each level and in my opinion are much bette option than me writing reams and reams.

I have included link to a decent review from Gamezebo that I think is worth reading, especially if you’re not too sure about downloading this time management game. (it is likely to put you off, lol. Gamezebo is one of the better game review sites and certainly puts the game in its place, receiving quite a poor review.

Reviews worth Reading:

http://www.gamezebo.com/games/ashtons-family-resort/review



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Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPvneO4K5bQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czbYGNOpqxI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxO8fQsqWJk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku6gJ4IDDvw


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Images


All on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Ashtons%20Family%20Resort/?albumview=grid


As a Slideshow:


http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Ashtons%20Family%20Resort/?albumview=slideshow


Googled images:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=ashtons+family+resort&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=


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Requirements:

• Celeron 1.5GHz and later
• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• DirectX 7.0 and later
• 512 MB RAM





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Conclusion:

I found that this time management game lacked depth and everything became predictable very quickly, plus it was far too easy to attain the gold standard award. I reached gold standard for each level despite loads of interruptions while I was taking notes and capturing screenshots for the review.

When I compare it to other time management games such as Farm Frenzy 2, which I found really interesting to play and was always left with a feeling of wanting to come back for more (and even bought a sequel because I wanted even more), I very much doubt I’d buy a sequel to this, let alone complete the game itself. (just my own personal preference though). The game had no oomph to it at all, and IMO would probably make a good introductory game for newcomers to the genre or for the younger child. It’s definitely not a challenging game, which I've found most other time management games I've played are.

The mini game that I played while checking out this game was appalling, and I really didn't see the point in adding it to the game. I only hope that there are some better mini games (as implied on the developers site) later in the game. The points you got for completing the minigame were spent on improvements to your home. This could just as well have been an additional reward for finishing the level, rather than to pad out the game with such a poor quality mini game. The match three game seemed pointless because there was no time to beat, and all you had to do was repeatedly click on the tiles to capture groups of 3 or more, until you’d attained a specific target. Once that was accomplished, your home was upgraded with the addition of some improvement such as a pathway, garage extension or a redecoration job; and there was no risk of losing any of the games. The character customisation was also rather tame, with you having the ability to change the colour of both characters upper and lower garments. There are several colours to choose from. But that was it. No different clothing styles or fashion accessories, nor any feature changes such as color of eyes or skin. It seemed to me that the developer has cobbled together a game using several ideas with the intention of trying to make it interesting and packed full of features. Unfortunately all the features are lame and add nothing to the basic game. With all that said, I couldn't justify giving it more than 5 out of 10 for game play.


I’d like to thank the giveaway team for continuing with the game giveaway project despite the difficulties they are facing finding newer games and also to the owners of Realore games for being the longest serving distributor/game developer to give games away here.


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Other Information:

If you find the in game music uninspiring, you can always change it for something more appropriate, or even better, for something you really like. Who knows, it may even improved the playability, lol. The four music tracks which can be found via the path quoted below:

C:\GAMES\AshtonsFamilyResort\Music

are all in the ogg format, (which can be played using WinAmp), so you will require an audio converter to convert your favorite MP3 or WMA files to the same format. If you've not downloaded one from the giveaway project over the last few years, you can get one for free from the giveaway freeware library:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/cat/Audio_Video_Audio_Encoders_Converters/

Once you've converted the music, you will need to rename the tracks to one of the four tracks you are replacing. I suggest you create a restore point before you proceed with any changes and also make a back up of the original music, just in case you wish to revert back to the original later.

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Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit aka Stephen  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
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