The game is Ok. I don't think it progresses slowly enough, and some of the beginning levels are really hard. I like that you can go back and do a level again, but I do not like that you lose the money you have earned at the end of each stage. There are a few glitches that are annoying at times, but not too bad. Overall, it is fun, but there have been better ones.


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


Thank you for your feedback

This was cute and fun and I like the personality on the dancers. It's too hard though. You need to be able to go back and repeat difficult levels for more money and upgrades. Your money gets reset when you redo a level - it almost seems like a bug. The game got too hard near the end and I couldn't even get to Expert rating in the 4th studio. I was nowhere near buying all the cosmetic upgrades, which was disappointing.


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

Thank you for your feedback laney

My only real objection, if you do poorly the first time through a level, and don't earn enough to buy what you need for the next level, even if you go back and master the level, the next level does not reflect the money from the time you mastered it, only the poor amount from the first time, which makes going back to master a level next to pointless. Otherwise, decent game.

Usually I kinda hate time-management-games. Still downloaded because I needed distraction and it sounded quite cute. Now it's the first game of this kind that I've enjoyed and played through! Only disappointing thing is the missing winning animation or anything like that in the end. At least I didn't get any information on how the background story ended (like "yeah, we won the competition" or something), maybe that's a bug, I was really surprised it just ended.
But it's still nice and you can replay any level at any time, I liked that.

A follow-up to my comment above (#13). I eventually was able to set the game into windowed mode from full screen and the cursor came up then.


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

:)

Games got good music and graphics! Time management
isn't one of my things, but other members of the
family might enjoy the game! Thanks Alawar AND gotd!

It's great. Can't really add anything but agree with positive reviews above. Thumbs up!

Only played through 1.5. Not particularly hard, though there's certainly some challenge to it. Of course, I didn't get master on every level, so take that with grain of salt. However, I didn't care, either, which tells you that mastering this particular set of gameplay features didn't grab me all that much.
It's better explained than some of the time managements that we've had here, but still some stuff you can only get through trial and error. Like the fact that you usually have to click on or near the dance/fitness pad. Clicking too high on the dancer doesn't seem to work, although did seem to me that u can click on the money. Nice change of venue - dance studio - over more typical restauraunt. Little tidbits of dance history info add nice touch. Like her mumbling lessons too. :) Also, guess you have to watch the machines and prep them when your not doing anything, but haven't mastered that yet.
Southwood doesn't seem to have fallen into some of the other traps that some of these other developers of TM games that Alawar's given away have fallen into recently. Such as putting too much unnecessary detail into a game or - as Dale rightly said - ramping up the difficulty too quick. Two guys wanting to dance next to each other - LOL - but I guess it does add some strategy.
One big mistake, though, decor purchases aren't explained. Do they do me any good to purchase, or is it all for my benefit? Developer should take example of Jane's Hotel series and explain the benefit of all purchases. Or clearly say they're only for visual variety for the player and have no strategic value.
This game not a bad ratrace like some others, but - in early stages at least - mastering it doesn't grab me all that much. Therefore, mild recommendation. Lots of potential, though. Will keep in case it becomes more intersting as you progress. Thanks, Alawar, Southwood, and GGOTD.


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Thankyou for your feedback watcher

downloaded and installed, after clicking on the game icon the screen briefly flickers and doesn't open the game. Game won't initiate :-(

nice game for a while but like all alawars my widescreen is useless since i get those annoying black bars on the side. kind of fake full screen if you ask me.

Nicely implemented time management game. Many of these games simply ramp-up the speed at which you have to perform to win. This one adds a few elements of strategy: color matching; which characters to place next to which, etc., which make the game more of a challenge.


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Thank you for yor feedback Dale

TMs = fav computer games (besides mmo's lol) thanks alawar :)

Have installed for both myself, and my daughter, as loved the previous time management game. Both installations went fine, great graphics, and fun to play. Thanks. :)

My granddaughter will love this- I am not fond of time management games. I hope you offer Brickshooter Egypt again, as mine was accidentally deleted by my grandson and it is one of my favorite games to de-stress with after a long day! So glad this site is here and viable I love it!!

The C-Walk is mainstream now, but for those that don't know the history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crip_Walk

There seem to be a lot of games with custom cursors including this one. Typically I find that the regular cursor is almost invisible and I'm forced to change to the custom cursor (which is fine with me). Unfortunately with this game the cursor is so invisible that it took me about 5 minutes to get to the option screen and even when I changed to a custom cursor it did not help. So the game seems to be unplayable.

The computer is newly built and all drivers are up-to-date. The other possibility is that this game does not play nicely with dual monitors.


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I use a dual monitor setup and had no problems Doc.

Perfect Game for kids. Easy to install only took about 6 minutes total time. Easy to understand and easy to play even for a 60 year old with a cataract in one eye, lol`s. I don`t have any kids around but i can guarantee you they would really enjoy this one. I played several levels to see how it was. Not hard at all, and if i were younger i would enjoy it more. Graphics are good and i would rate this game thumbs up. Alawar always comes through with great games.


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Thank you for your feedback Russ.

Good time management game very good graphics and fun to play.
Thank you.

Thanks.
But for a moment there I thought this is a Dance Learning Game.
Then after reading, it turns out be a Time Management Game for Dance Teachers !!
Anyways, I would love to see if G-GOTD puts up a Dance Learning Game !!

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

Thanks for your feedback ALF, much appreciated. I can't comment about it as I'm not that technically up to speed on the themida issue. I've been lucky with respect to installation; not having had any problems installing any giveaways since it was introduced.

I'd do some reading around, but have had too many other things on my mind over the past several months, so as yet haven't researched the subject at all.

My daughter LOVES games like this one, so I am downloading it for her. Not my style, but she will get hours of fun out of it.
I am very glad that GameGiveAway has survived the recession. Hope you continue to give us great games and survive a LONG time!! Thank you so much!

Hey WhiteRabbit, something is Wrong with your your Voting on top. The Thumbs Up & Down, when you push one they BOTH get the same point ... so when I push Thumbs Up ... it automatically gave it a Thumbs Down also. Weird! Thanks!:)

Best Didimatic replacement I have found is Deals4Downloads. I actually think it might be better. It lists sales from a bunch of places.
http://www.deals4downloads.com
Best place to find indie bundles is IndieGameBundles. They supposedly list all active bundles but I am guessing they don't include Steam.
http://www.indiegamebundles.com/category/active/
Other good places to find great game deals are Pcdddeals (yes 3 d's) and DigitalGameDeals.
http://pcdddeals.com/
http://digitalgamedeals.com/
Sorry, I'm not much for time management games so can't comment on today's game. I just thought I would give everybody a heads up on a possible replacement for didimatic if you thought it was useful.


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

Thanks Eric. ;-) I've posted the above in the forums for future reference. As Didimatic is going offline I've posted the links in the old didimatic thread. I also changed the name of the thread.

No probs, I like this game. Thanx!

@3 To the answer: that is very interesting and makes sense in view of the current recession. I am still delighted that GGOTD still exists. Thanks for your help in finding these free games. It is true that some providers of games have their own free games now. But they are not given on a daily routine, more like a weekly or monthly routine for instance, Alawar and Bgames. Let us hope the recession will not last too long... But I have my doubts on that one.

This game is a good quality game which my teenage daughter is going to enjoy for a long while. Kids these days needs music and dance and love playing this type of games. So, it may not please more grown ups like some of us, but I guess I am the exception.

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Thank you for your feedback Sarah. I think my problem is that i have literally thousands of commercial games plus at least another thousand freeware games on my hard discs, so am spoilt for choice. Of all the games I have those that are timed or require fast reflexes are the ones I tend to avoid (apart from match three's; I love the Luxor series and the Montezuma series of match threes, the times modes in these games are a ctually really generous so I rarely lose a life due to timing out, wheras with TM games i just find them stressful).

I dont really think this is a game ill like, usually i like the games given for free on here, but idk about this one. Also, what happened with yesterdays game?? Why cant we get a game everyday like the normal giveaway of the day, we always have to wait till the weekend for the games :(

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Basically the problem getting games regularly is supply. We used to get games every day until the end of March 2008; about the time the recession hit. Some of the developers who used to contribute no longer exist; whereas others, like Realore have their own giveaway schemes now. Prior to 2008 arcade games retailed at almost $20 each; since then games (both arcade and their larger cousins AAA games) have come down in price big time, You can get arcade games for a quarter of the price they cost four years ago from places like Big Fish Games. There seems to be permanent sales on these days so profit margins have probably been reduced. the average number of community members downloading games from this site can range from 6000 to 24000 downloads depending on the game. That's a lot of potential revenue lost. That said I'm sure some of those that download games from here then return to the developers site and purchase games from them.

Go over to Gamersgate and you'll find over a hundred games reduced significantly. You can pick up one of the developer packs for less than £50 that contains 80 AAA games that previously would have cost you several hundred pounds (around a thousand dollars) or visit Steam for the 24 hour sale, and the midweek and weekend madness sales as well as other sites such as GreenMan gaming. (You can find links to all of these distributors via the Game discussion forums). Games that were released at $50 - $70 can often be seen selling for as little as $10 only months later.

I also think some developers were scared off previously because it was quite easy to crack the wrapped setup file and many games appeared on peer to peer sites within hours of giveaways starting. Since the new security measures have been implemented its become harder to rip these games. Personally I'm surprised the game side of the project survived. Glad it did though.

This is Not a game I would enjoy. So I will forgo the download and installation. 20 Minutes to download a 87MB file on a 60MB/s connection seems a excessively slow connection. For that slow connection I would skip this but since this game is also one of my least favorite styles it makes it that much easier for me to skip the download.

Now if this was a good Shmup, I could live with a slow download like that ;) Anyways I just want to say thank you to GGAOTD and to Alawar for giving away what I am sure is a great game. If not for these developers giving away games I for one would have nothing to do with my free time. So I send a big thank you to both Companies.

I wish I could try this game out but I know I would be like our friend the rabbit and unable to give this game a unbiased and fair review. I just do not have the patience to learn to or to play time management games, they are always rush to do this and rush to do that. Since my hand and eye muscle coordination is at it's best considered mediocre I will skip trying it out. At least I will skip it till they release a time management game that has no timer I will not be able to enjoy it for what it offers. But if they did that then it would not be a time management game.

Man talk about saying allot, to say nothing. I hope everyone is having some fun. Once more I send a big thank you to Alawar for offering it's great games here. But for now this Frog has other things to do

Hops Off....

Signed
Rick Frog


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

Hey Rick, the four day deal over at IndieGameStand is an excellent and colourful shmup called Really Big Sky, which you can purchase for $1 or more (it's a pay what you want deal)


https://indiegamestand.com/


There's just under 42 hours left on this deal before the next game is up. You can still get the previous game which was in effect five separate games called The Geneforge Saga plus Really Big Sky and the next game to come up if you pay $10. Once a deal is ended it reverts to its usual price. Really Big Sky costs around $10 via Gamersgate and the previous deal Geneforge Saga costs around $25 for all five games in the series.


You can see video's for Really Big Sky HERE and HERE

Agree with you totally on this type of TM game. I spent about 30 minutes taking screenshots for the review, but hated playing the game itself. That said there are loads of community members that will love this type of game. I beta tested Beach Party Craze, the first in this series (when I used to beta test for Alawar around three years ago. I stopped beta testing for them shortly after testing Beach Party Craze because they seemed to concentrate on TM games and HOG's my second pet hate (though as with TM games, there are some HOG's I do like) with no Shmups and only one breakout game.

In Brief:

Dancing Craze is the fourth in a series of craze games (e.g. Beach Party Craze, Fashion Craze and Pet Show craze). Basically Dance Craze is a Time Management game interdispersed with a smattering of mini games sprinkled amongst the main games 40 levels. You'll find four different locations each of 10 levels.

Installation:




downloads to a 86.4 MB zip file (took over 20 minutes to download on a 60MB broadband connection) and unpacks to a read me doc with the terms and conditions and instructions

The game installs to C:\Games\DancingCrazeGame by default and is 167MB in size once unpacked. There are shortcut installed to bother the desktop and the start menu/programs list; their is also an uninstaller unless you're using programs like Revo. You can select your own installation path if you wish. :)



I’ve not tested it on all my computers. Most are offline at the moment awaiting various repairs. It works on a Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit and a Win 7 Pro 64 bit and a Vista 32 bit laptop.




Introduction:

You're going to Hollywood, baby! Open a dance studio and teach your clients a range of slick moves as you prepare for the biggest variety show Tinseltown has ever seen. Serve cool drinks and hot towels as your customers work up a sweat C-Walking; purchase a variety of upgrades to keep everyone happy as they wait their turn to Breakdance; and hire a fitness trainer and a masseur so you can focus on each client's Hip Hop moves.
Each level is a celebration of good times as you beat mini-games, win trophies and use each client's unique traits to earn the money you need. Can you train enough dancers before the day of the big premiere? Available as a free download, Dancing Craze truly is a time management game with a twist!

Reference accessed HERE 12th Oct 2012

The Game:

Time Managment games are one of my least liked arcade genres. There are only a few that i enjoy playing such as the Farm Frenzy games. Consequently I didn't think I'd give this a fair review so have posted a copy of Gamezebo's review below:

In Dancing Craze the player leads Maria through 40 levels spread over four different dance studios. For each service Maria performs you earn money, which you need to reach the goal of any level. Those services include delivering smoothies, soda drinks, towels, or helping customers individually to learn dancing. Smoothies can be prepared by clicking the correct type of glass, a fruit, and then the smoothie machine. Other machines have to be refilled after a certain time. Some customers might also wish to get a massage, or to work out on a fitness pad, but only if you already offer these stations in the current studio.

How much you earn depends on a lot of factors, which makes gameplay deeper than that of your average time management title and allows comparisons to Playfirst’s dash series. The patience of your customers indicates how much they will pay, which is shown by the number of hearts attached to each customer. Furthermore, you can chain as many actions as you want to in advance, and chaining the same actions - for example, delivering beverages or collecting cash - will increase the amount of money you earn from that action regularly.


The most welcome introduction is without a doubt the ability of color-matching. For each customer whose clothes’ colors match the color of the dance pad you put him or her on, you will earn money according to the multiplier attached to that pad. This can earn you huge amounts of money, but also complicates gameplay, since it is always a fine line between color-matching and customers losing patience while waiting for the appropriate pad.

The charm of Dancing Craze lies mainly with the various dancers, who each perform one particular dance style with smooth animations and realistically drawn figures. Each type of dancer has his or her own personality, too. Not only do they differ in patience, but they partly affect customers dancing next to them. The wave-dancer for example is so impatient that he even decreases patience of nearby dancers. C-walk dancers on the other hand don’t mind noise, so they are the perfect fit for wave dancers. Of course those types are basically similar to those in dash games, but the inclusion of certain characters really suits Dancing Craze absolutely well, so we were pretty happy with this feature.

The upgrade system of the game is also varied and motivating, although variety is lacking from studio to studio. Upgrades include decorations and improvements for machines and staff. You can upgrade towel and beverage machines so that they offer more units at once, increase Maria’s speed, add more dancing pads, or purchase a radio that will increase the patience of customers waiting in line. All these upgrades are neither spectacular nor overly innovative, but they work in the sphere of this genre. Nevertheless it would have been nice to have some diversity in the different studios, because as it is, you are creating the same studio again and again.

Expect the game to last 3 or 4 hours. It's pretty easy to reach the master goal (the game's highest possible achievement) too, and there are no secondary modes to be explored. The awards you can earn are a nice additional motivation, but are becoming a standard feature in games these days.

Reference accessed HERE 12th Oct 2012


Features:

• Beat 40 levels across four locations
• Teach clients nine awesome dances
• Earn Chain and Color Matching bonuses
• Purchase and use over a dozen upgrades
• Decorate your studios to your taste



System Requirements:



Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7; Processor speed: 600 MHz; RAM: 64 MB; Graphics card: 32 MB; DirectX: 8.0


Video & Images:


You can see videos for Dance Craze HERE and HERE

I've uploaded images of Dance Craze to photobucket HERE as a slideshow.

Conclusion:

Dancing Craze is a very solid and entertaining time management title, above average in its genre. The graphics and animations are wonderful, the huge number of upgrades and awards motivating, and the pace of the game is absolutely perfect. That said I think there should have been more levels. 40 levels is more like an extended demo IMO. Also the variety between the four studios was lacking and overall the game was a little too easy to complete especially for Time Management aficionado's


Score:

Overall I'd give this game the following score:
Game play - 7
Graphics - 7
Music - 6
Replayability - 6
Originality - 6
Total = 32 out of 50 which equates to 6.4 out of 10

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Alternative Games almost for Free:
You will find loads more free games posted in the Game Discussion forums, plus there's loads of very cheap bundle deals available at this time. You can check out the bundle deals that are available at the moment over in the forums as well. You can get most the bundles for as little as $1 up to several dollars. there's also a great strategy pack with over $400 worth of games (29 games) for $9.99. Overall there's some excellent games to chose from.

It seems that there's always at least one or two bundles on the go all the time now; what, with the Humble bundles, Indie Royale Bundles, Indie Gala bundles, Groupee Be Mine and Build a bundle bundles, Indie Face Kick be in your Face bundles , Indivania bundles plus others i.e. Elf Squad, Frozenbytes, AGS Bake, Indie Underdog Bundle in a Box, Operation Gratitude, Quadtastic, Indie Fort and Strategy first bundles, not to mention the bundles available over on Steam occasionally.
At the moment Steam have a developers sale with all Focus Home Interactive game that include A Game of Thrones, Blood Bowl, Cities XL, Wargame: European Escalation, Pro cycling Manager 2012, Confrontation, Pendulo Adventure Pack, at between 50% to 755 off (most are 75%). Today's 24hr deal is Steel Storm: Burning Retribution for only £1.99, with 50% off the DLC weapons pack. you can even buy a four pack so that you can play with your friends as there's a co-op mode included. (The four pack is only £5.98).

Alawar has a new monthly game called The Curse of Montezuma an excellent match three game. The Montezuma series is one of the best match three games available (IMO). Of the series I do think this one is the weakest, but it's still an excellent game.

If you've heard of Half Life 2, you'll have heard of Black Mesa. Well a group of modders have been working on a free standing mod for several years that's finally been released. It uses a free version of the Half Life 2 source engine. You'll find details HERE .
Finally, there's a new indie site called IndieGameStand, where every four days a new indie game will be put up. You can purchase it with the 'pay what you want' model (minimum $1). After the four days it goes into the shop where you'll pay the usual price. Today's four day deal is called Really Big Sky. (Really Big Sky is a twin-analogue space shooter for the modern age. Full of bad guys, weird events, co-op multiplay and tributes to the stuff we grew up on. It’s an explosive adventure of a shooter so sit back, connect a controller and play it fullscreen with the best speakers lying around your cottage).

The site I posted a link to in the forums, the Didimatic site is going offline at the end of the month, however there are alternative sites where you can find information about the latest and best deals on all types of downloadable and hard copy games. (Gamersgate, Steam, GreenmanGaming, Gamestop, Gamefly as well as others).

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Problems:

If you have any problems with the game, either installation issues or getting the game to work check out the FAQ's section over in the Game discussion forums. you can find it HERE

Request for Help:

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

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

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

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen