..................................Moderator comment.....................................

I'm going to be away until early evening, so moderation will be slow today. I'll continue to moderate when I return home.

If today's Time Management game doesn't interest you, check out the end of this review for links to a long list (over 70) of free games of various genres .

Cooking Trip

In Brief

Cooking Trip is a time management game in the tradition of the classic TM game Dinner Dash

Introduction:

Mary and John have set a daunting goal of opening the best restaurant in the world. The only trouble is that effort and university education alone is not enough. They need to learn from the three most famous chefs in the world and study the coveted secrets of the culinary arts. After making a plan, they set off on a long journey full of adventures toward the heights of mastery. Expect colorful locations, lots of characters and dishes and restaurants upgrades. Walk the path to perfection in Cooking Trip.

Edited reference accessed HERE. 13th April 2019

Installation:

Cooking Trip downloads to a 436MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper the set-up file and a read me). The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed if you wish. The installed game is approximately 448 MB in size.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Cooking Trip

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop; the shortcut to the game, plus three others ''Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and a shortcut to a free online game. These latter three shortcuts can be deleted once the game has been installed. The Themida wrapper may alert your security and even block the installation; there are details about this issue in the read me that unpacks from the downloaded zip file.

The Game:

Cooking Trip is a 60 level time management game on the lines of the original Dinner Dash, where you prepare various dishes of food, and learn various recipes from three different world famous master chefs in three different locations, The Meat Restaurant World, The Floating Restaurant World and the Summer Cafe World). The aim is to fulfill various goals such as learning to manage a restaurant, earn specific amounts of money; (each level also has a gold award if you attain a larger sum of money than the primary goal) and to serve customers as fast and effectively as possible to maximize your earnings and to fulfill the goals of the level within a specified time. You are awarded various trophies for completing tasks such as finishing levels on expert mode, using the gramophone, collecting various mechanisms, getting tips, completing objectives etc.

You can follow a tutorial that gives you the basic rules of the game; or, if you are already familiar with this traditional time management genre you can skip the tutorial.

Your first level goal is to earn $200, however if you manage to earn $450, you'll earn a gold star. You start by handing new customers a menu, then after a short wait a icon representing the food they want pops up as a speech bubble next to the customer. This may be a cold food that doesn't require cooking such as an apple that is stored in various containers on one of the counters, or it may be a cooked food such as a steak that you need to order from the chef. You grab that item of food (by clicking on it) either from the containers on the counter or once the chef has prepared the hot order and take it to the customer. After a short pause the customer pays you and depending on how fast you served them, you may also earn a tip. You'll notice a small circular icon next to the customer that starts off as a green smiley face. If the customer has to wait to be served, this slowly changes from a green smiley face to a yellow face and finally to a sad angry red face and this will affect the amount of tip you receive. The better your customers mood, the higher the tip will be. To collect your tips you hover your mouse over the tip. If you fail to do this within a short time the tip will disappear. As you progress through the levels various mechanisms are offered that can help you in your aims and over the sixty levels you will visit three different locations, each with it's own look and recipes.

Whiterabbit-uk 13th April 2019

Conclusion:

A straightforward time management game on the lines of the classic Dinner Dash & Amelie's Cafe games. Cooking Trip is a colorful time management game with 60 levels of increasing mayhem. If you enjoy this genre of casual arcade game then this is probably worth downloading; (personally I avoid them like the plague as I find them tedious and at time stressful). It has all the usual elements such as various cooked foods to server (not very inspiring) and fast foods such as apples, plus you get happy customers, who, if kept waiting become disgruntled customers, earning cash, tips and awards and running around like a blue bottle (can't say the proper phrase due to the inappropriate language) trying to complete the level goals as quickly as possible to achieve the level goals and gold awards. The music was typical TM fare and became tedious listening after a few moments, but this can be rectified by playing your own favorite music and turning down the in game music via the options menu. I'd give this an unbiased 7 out of 10 from me because it has all the elements of a time management game; plus, apart from the locations and story there's nothing new brought to the genre. I only played a level and a bit of this game as I really don't like the genre finding them too repetitive and stressful. That said, with my limited experience of this game there may be some innovations that I've missed. For those who do like TM games, I'd recommend download Cooking Trip and then decide for yourselves whether its worth keeping or not. it's not a large download (436MB), so for those who are on restricted download entitlements you won't lose too much if you decided the game wasn't for you.

Videos of Cooking Trip:

You can see several in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play today's giveaway please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback; for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, or how it could be improved. If you don't like the genre at all, please explain why and if any, what improvements would change your mind? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience, thank you. If you wish to post a review or comment about the game later, you can access the comments section by going to the game giveaways home page, then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review. Alternatively, you can google the name of the game and include Gamegiveawayoftheday in the search. This should give you a list of links to whenever this game was given away.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity HERE. You can also get the Collectors edition of cooking Trip free from MyPlayCity HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it HERE via Game Fools for $2.99

Problems getting the game to work:

If you're having problems installing or activating or getting Cooking Trip to work please visit the FAQ's Thread HERE and read through the communities comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted, for example, a common issue seen since the Themida wrapper was introduced three years ago is that some community members installation of the game are blocked by their security because Themida code has been known to hide malware, (usually an error message is flagged for example 'The executable is corrupted' even though in reality it is not); so as a precaution some anti malware programs will block and even delete the suspect installation files even though the files (i.e. the setup, read me and setup.gcd files are actually totally free from malware. This issue can be solved either by rebooting your computer in safe mode with networking or a quicker method is to temporarily turn off your security software to allow the installation. You could also try white-listing the setup.gcd file. In the almost 12 years this game giveaway site has been operating there has 'never' been a game given away that was infected with malware.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, you have a game to offer the community, or are unable to download the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve you can do so HERE

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Cooking Trip and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Cooking Trip doesn't doesn't interest you, but you still hanker for something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, heavily discounted (up to 95%) indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but most of the links still take you to the latest deals).

The rest of the information that used to be posted in the game review can be found in the forums HERE. Finally, check out Delenns threads for details of other free games and offers; she often updates with the latest deals from Indie Gala, the Humble Store and others HERE; plus other community members sometimes post details of free games elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (current deals are usually on the first page of the game discussion forums).

The free game over at Epic Games is now The Witness; a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles; (sells for £29.99/$39.99/€36.99/₽699). From the 18th of April Transistor (sells for £15.46/$19.99/€16.79/₽435) is available free HERE; a sci-fi-themed action RPG where you discover the world of transistors; from the creators of Bastion. Indie Gala have removed some of the games that were available last week and added new ones to their free games list. There are at least 20 free games available via their recently added showcase section that include full games, pre release demos and games in α and β states. Genres represented include point and click , adventure, RPG, simulation, shmup's, strategy and casual games (most recent first) i.e. The Fan (a point and click adventure) Survivalist (a huge open-world Role Playing Game), Galactic Missile Defense - ( an endless leader-board-based shooter and tower defense game, where you must protect Earth from the invading Martians), Siluman Project - (An RPG Maker game where the purpose of the game is to defeat monster girls bosses and reach the ending based on what action do you do), Five Nations - (A futuristic real-time strategy game that follows the events of a mind-bending opera of space about the survival of humanity), False ReBirth - (Another RPG Maker game - A psychological, story-focused game about the last remaining human), GOR - Gorilla Office Rampage - (Top down action game - play as a monkey and you smash stuff), Home is where Chip is - (Casual simulation), Age of Fear: The Free World - (introduction to the series' tried-and-true gameplay, focusing on non-linear exploration and combat in an Open World style), Die Legende von Saya: Befehl aus der Dunkelheit - (aka The Legend of Saya: Command from the Dark) - (Action adventure RPG), What Never Was, The Last Humans: Awakening, Childhood, Dunwell, Safe Not Safe (Be a safe-cracker in a sci-fi world of near future), Hi Hotel, Bugs Must Die (a fast-paced modern retro top-down shooter ), Cuadradito y Circulito (a casual adventure), Hellino (a basic side scrolling Helicopter simulation), Hovership Havoc (Hovership Havoc is a pre release demo of a twin-stick shooter with 3rd person boss battles)and Wake Up (an adventure game that lets you explore dreams with tricky puzzles and horrors), or you can find them all HERE. Finally, there are some excellent bargains on sale via Steam HERE.

for those of you who don't mind or like Steam, they offer over 120 free games ranging from platformers, visual novels, tower defense, arena shooters, space shooters and simulation, plus other sim games, puzzle games, battle royale, role playing games, real time strategy, first and third person shooters, clicker and dungeon crawlers to name some of the genres offered. The following are just some of the games that caught my eye while I was perusing the collection There are nine pages of free games starting from HERE I recommend the following (notan exhaustive list as there are so many others to choose from):

Apex Legends (a free-to-play Battle Royale game where contenders from across the Frontier team up to battle for glory, fame, and fortune), Path of Exile (Action RPG with hack and slash elements and character customisation), Star Trek Online (command your own starship and crew, explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before), Paladins® (A free-to-play fantasy team-based shooter weilding guns and magic), ArchAge (a free-to-play fantasy-sandbox MMORPG), Warface: Blackout (a free-to-play MMO first person shooter from the creators of Far Cry and Crysis), Art of War: Red Tides (a multiplayer strategy game), Warframe (a cooperative free-to-play third person online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world), Star Conflict (Play as an elite pilot in an action-packed, massively multiplayer space simulation), Atlas Reactor (a turn based strategy shooter), Hard Light Vector (a first-person action platformer where you traverse an alien environment), 天际起源 The Ark of Horizon (a Battle Royale game. with multidimensional battlegrounds - sea, air and land), Auf Abwegen (on the wrong path) (a narrative driven mini-puzzle-platformer), ManaRocks (an online strategy card game), HYPERFIGHT Max Battle (a fighting game where every hit is lethal, and every win counts), Magic Mouse (an action-adventure top-down dungeon crawl set in a fantasy world), Ultimate Logic Puzzle Collection (over 50 types of logic puzzles), Hades' Star (a unique space strategy game where thousands of players participate in one shared galaxy), Swarm Simulator: Evolution (a strategic, incremental, idle, clicker game), World War II: TCG (a collectible card game where you create your own Army Deck with Tanks, Infantry, Aircrafts, Ships, Submarines and Structures), Moe! Ninja Girls ( an anime visual novel game that contains the perfect blend of reality and out-of-the-ordinary), Rise of Legions (a hybrid of MOBA, tower defense and deckbuilding. Play solo or bring a friend for co-op, collect cards, build your deck and crush your enemies), Marble Combat (a physics based multiplayer game for 2 - 8 people. Players compete as magical marbles racing and fighting to dominate capture points and collect power ups), Comet Crasher (soar, shoot and dodge - but don't stop moving. Fall down at breakneck speeds in this fast-paced platformer filled with chaos and explosions), Supraball (play football in first person view and develop your own tactics and tricks. Play with up to 9 of your friends or join alone), Idle Space Raider (you are one of the station guards and need to patrol space. Complete missions and raids, upgrade ship and station to increase your power), White Dove 白雀 ( a puzzle game with mild horror elements, Chinese language only), Breathe Peace World (visit a VR storybook world and learn how to relax), Becalm (fancy a relaxing drift through magical waters? Enjoy this seafaring voyage in search of the sunset), King Rabbit (a puzzle-platformer sandbox), Idle Wizard (RPG/Idle hybrid about becoming the most powerful wizard there is. Pick a class, get a pet, configure and improve your character in a miriad ways), Black Survival / 黑色幸存者 (a Real-Time Survival Game, where you must survive by any means out of 10 competitors in a deserted island), Fovos VR (a post-apocalyptic horror, rail shooter for the HTC Vive), Dimension Of Gameth (a turn-based RPG board-game), Its Simple, SHOOT (a minimalist top down 2D waveshooter), The Walsingham Files - Chapter 1 (an episodic mystery-adventure game series made with RPG Maker), Wasteland Survival (a survival game in a post apocalypse wasteland), Drunken Wrestlers 2 (a funny physics-based multiplayer fighting game with Steam Workshop support), BLOCKADE Classic (a first person shooter in an editable procedural cubic world), VTB Basketball League VR (play in VR as a basketball player in the VTB united league- Russian language only), Sin Slayers (an RPG with roguelike elements set in a dark fantasy world), Exosphere (a climbing game where you shoot, jump & bounce your way into the outer layer of the atmosphere), Alice in Stardom (a 3 hour long visual novel about Alice entering a top idol competition) and finally Infinite Art Museum (a virtual reality museum and archive of art with a growing collection of over 500 original paintings, illustrations and photographs from artists around the world).