Nice re-offer. Plays well, gets harder higher levels. Thanks guys.

Regarding corrupt files - if you use a download accelerator, try turning it off; for some arcane reason on some sites they will corrupt downloads.

Someone mentioned odd spelling in the game ...check the folders, one is "sistem". Perhaps they're endorsing phonetic spelling.

#4 Works fine in Vista.

Not as good as its sequel, but not bad. Both remind me of the recently offered, and similarly named, "Sawoid" (but how many ways can you disguise the same basic format?). I have a love/hate relationship with such games - enjoy playing them but they are infuriating (invariably that big honking mega-weapon drops down one side of the screen while your ball/saw/whatever drops down the other side).

There is no "anytime" save but apparently the "suspend" option does the same, when you return there's an option to "continue".

One oddity I noticed, possibly singular to my system, is that I must click slightly below a menu item to activate it; clicking directly on it does nothing (I actually reinstalled twice, thinking the game wasn't responding).

.......................Moderator Comment.........................

Hi jgf,

Try going into compatibility mode, and adjust the video settings. This may fix the collison mesh problem

Thank you very much. I appreciate the response. Have a great weekend.

Is there an "uninstall" someplace, please? This game is OK, but I prefer playing the Egyptoid 2 that I already have, from time to time. Thank you.

.......................Moderator Comment.........................

Hi Subhadhra,

I usually post details of how to unistall giveaways, but neglected to today. Most giveaways are free standing, which basically means you have to delete the installed games folder to get rid of the game. the second one is better than the first.

After downloading and extracting, when I run Setup "as administrator", I get the message "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged". I ran 7zip file manager and tested the Setup archive - this gives a dialogue box that shows 52 broken files in the Setup archive. Tried downloading the game again to end up with same results. I am running Windows 8.1, 64 bit. Any advice would be appreciated.
Side Note: I have and can play Mega World Smash - which seems to be a similar game - not sure if from same company or not.

.......................Moderator Comment.........................

Hi Thomas,

Try using a different file archiver to unpack the game. Check the FAQ's section which I've linked to above. You'll find it in the game discussion forums)

Nice to see good old Egyptoid being offered once more: definitely one of my favourite games from GGOTD!

As others have said, this isn't quite your standard Arkanoid clone, because you do need to collect sets of objects, keys, and so on to progress, or to activate some of the better power-ups.

You will also be (hopefully) pleasantly surprised to find that the game will very frequently 'take out' the final lot of bricks/jars/whatever on each layout by itself, saving the usual Arkanoid game tedium of aiming for those last one or two bricks — WONDERFUL idea in my opinion!

That also (IMHO) makes this a great game for the younger ones because they won't get so easily bored with it. :D They will also enjoy some of the better bonuses/power-ups which sweep down the screen obliterating a great deal of everything in their path! (Well, I know I enjoy that, anyway [cough].)

Despite a few puzzling English spellings on the help screens, this is a lovely little time-waster and one which will certainly keep you hooked and give you that 'heck, I'll just play ONE more level before I quit' feeling that the best Arkanoids all have in common.

So all in all, if you're thinking 'do I really need another Arkanoid game?' or if you usually find Arkanoids dull, then please do download this one and try it: I think you'll find this one a little different!

.......................Moderator Comment.........................

Hi Cad,

Thanks for the feedback

:)

Lots of fun to play, and the levels gradually become harder as you go along. Plenty of replay value, too. Have tried Egyptoid on Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1. It works fine on all of them. Recommended.

Very fun indeed; downloaded this one a few years back and still take it out for a spin once in a while. Worth the download; was hoping this was an update. lol

:)

I've seen this game giveaway several times but never downloaded it as I thought I had breakout burnout from the 1990's. Well, I'm glad I installed it today. It's a nice little break from my usual thinking games. It installed easily and fast in my Win7/64 system. One thing I did find to be a problem with it when I got to level 5, however, is when the ball got caught in one of those continuous loops and hit the same unbreakable blocks over and over. I waited several minutes thinking the game would kick the ball over a bit and let the game continue (like my older games did), but it never happened. Maybe I just had to wait a bit longer but being my impatient self I just aborted the game and started all over again. I still think it's a good game and am keeping it in my computer. I might even get the sequel. Thanks GGOTD and Star Ashes.

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


Loved Breakouts ever since the first one. got a very large collection of the things. would love to see one that combined the best of the best.

Thank you for your feedback.

You should try Shatter or Ricochet infinity. The latter is 7 years old, but the community are still adding levels on a weekly basis. there are thousands of free levels avaialble; all of which can be added to the game directly from in game. Still looks amazing even for a 7 year old game.

:)

Excellent game, both this and Egyptoid2. Wonderful gameplay. Highly recommended.

J'ai téléchargé le jeu Egyptoid et ensuite j'ai utilisé "WINRAR" pour décompresser le fichier au format ZIP.Ensuite, lorsque je lance setup.exe,il apparait la fenetre suivante:winrar self-extracting archive,destination folder:C:\Users\ordinateur1\Downloads\Egyptoid et ensuite j'appuie sur le bouton "extract"et une fois que j'ai appuyé sur le bouton "extract" il apparait le message suivant:Extracting files to C:_Users\ordinateur1\Downloads\Egyptoid folder
The archive is either in unknown format or damaged.

I downloaded and beat this when it was offered here some time back. If you like breakout/arkanoid type games, this is a good one. Certainly worth the price of admission. :)

What, no version for Windows Vista!?!
That I just don't understand! :-(

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

It should work on all versions of windows from Win 98 to Win 8 (it may eve work on Win 95) I've tested it on XP, Vista, win 7 and 8.1 and it's worked on all of them. I did get an initial glitch on Win 8.1, but restarting the game cured that. I've posted details of possible fixes if you are having problems. Otherwise, go visit the FAQ's thread in the giveawayoftheday game discussion forums.

You'll find the FAQ's thread HERE

I've enjoyed this one enough to keep it when you last offered it, even though I don't play it often, it is just nice to play every now and then. I've never got very far through it as a result, but the game-play is enjoyable and sufficiently interesting to keep it fresh.

THANKS!

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

:)

E X C E L L E N T ! !

In Brief:

Egyptoid is the first in this series of breakout games, there's nothing special about it, but it's still a nice example of a 3D breakout game with crisp graphics and loads of powerups.

Installation:

The download size is 19.3Mb and once installed is 16.3Mb. The downloaded zip file unpacks to a read me that states the terms and conditions as well as a dual activation and set up file, which for those new to the game giveaway project means the game is automatically registered once the game is installed.. By default the game installs to:

C:\Games\Egyptoid_game\Egyptoid.exe

There is no shortcut installed to the desktop or Start menu, so make sure you make a note of where the game installs to so that you can create a shortcut once the game has installed. You can choose to install it anywhere by changing the install path during the installation wiozards progress. The version we are getting today is v1.101 which is the same as previously given away last year. The installed game is 16.9MB in size.

The game plays on Win XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8.1. The last time this was given away I wasn't able to get it to work on my Win 8 machine the first time I tried. All I got was a black screen and had to Ctrl, Alt, Del to escape; however, on rebooting my computer I found the game worked okay, though It did hesitate to start with a black screen for a second or two. Now it works perfectly.

Introduction

Egyptoid is a perfect blend of classic Arkanoid with the magic of Egypt. Traveling through 72 never-the-same levels, your objective will be to destroy various patterns of blocks by bouncing the ball. In doing this, you must keep an eye out for bonuses that can speed up or down the paddle, give an extra life, extend the paddle or make it magnetic. Featuring 8 spectacular worlds, 17 types of bonuses, Egyptoid is bursting with arcade fun!

Reference accessed HERE 5th Dec 08


Egyptoid has been given away several times now, and has remained a firm favorite throughout that time with above average positive votes (that is, considering it’s been given away seven times previously). This was given away 8th September last year where it received a very good 86% positive votes out of 330 votes with 20 comments.. Prior to that it was given away Jan 2012, where it received a positive 82% of votes out of 375 votes with 34 comments; then again, October 2011 where it received a positive 80% of 350 votes with 81 comments and again earlier that year back in March 2011 where it received a positive 76% out of 372 votes with 59 comments, then previously in Feb 07 when it received one of the highest positive ratings a game giveaway has ever received at 94% out of 203 votes (was 95% out of 195 earlier this year); only 12 community members voted thumbs down for this game (10 earlier this year). (Personally I don’t think it deserved such a high percentage because there have been much better arkanoids given away since the project started, IMO). There were 66 comments of which comment #33 by Game Seeker is probably the most useful to read; then it was given away again back in February 2008 where it received a decent positive 89% of 360 votes and 62 comments, and Dec 08 where it received a positive 68% of 667 votes. You can see all the comments made about this game via the following links. I’ve also included a link to Lockett’s forum review:

Feb 07
Feb 08
Dec 08
March 11
Oct 11
Jan 2012
Sept 13


You’ll find a review by Lockett (a former reviewer on this site from several years ago) HERE

The Game:

This is a decent 3D arkanoid; though I wouldn’t place it in my top 20 list of arkanoids. Compared to some breakouts Egyptoid actually requires some skill to progress through the various temples of which there are eight because to destroy most bricks on some levels you have to make skill shots to be able to progress. Each temple comprises of eight levels, and to progress from one temple to the next you have to complete all levels within that temple. Besides the 64 temple levels there are also 8 secret levels that can only be opened by collecting special keys that look similar to the other symbols that you collect to unlock the magical powers. Once you've completed a temple stage you can return to it at any time, though you still have to start from the beginning of the Stage. All arkanoid fans will probably like this one despite the power ups being nothing special; except for the symbols that you have to collect that unlocks magic powers and secret levels. The ball physics allows for good control. So if you’re skilled with ball and bat you should play on the more difficult settings of which there are three, otherwise you'll find the game too easy and acrue loads of lives.

Decent graphics add to a pleasurable game to play. I purchased this during an arkanoid phase before ths was first given away (I ended up with well over a hundred arkanoid games; oddly, since then, there has only been a handful of arkanoid games released, the best of which are IMO Shatter {2010} and Ricochet Infinity{2007}).

The options menu allows you to adjust sound and music as well as toggle between full screen and windowed mode. You can also select several screen resolutions varying from the lowly 640x480x16 up to 1600x1200x32 and there are also three lighting settings, no light, normal light and advanced light. It appears that some people did have problems with some levels appearing black. This may be down to the type of graphics card you have as well as the default settings (1024x768 32 bit/normal light) If you do get the black screen problem, try changing these setting. Someone posted in the comments section previously that this definitely worked for them. I had the problem, and just restarted the game and it worked. you could also go to properties (by right clicking on the games executable or shortcut and selecting compatibility; check the run as administrator and perhaps change the 'run this program in comptibility mode for........).

See the the FAQ's thread for more details. you'll find it HERE

System Requirements:

• Pentium II 750

• Win 98/2000/XP

• DirectX 8.1

• 128MB MB RAM

• Video: 3D




Images & Reviews:

You can see a slideshow of about 20 images of Egyptoid HERE, plus a page of googled images HERE.

You can see a video of game play HERE.

I posted an earlier version of this review over in the forums. If you need to post any problems after the giveaway is over you can leave comments THERE




Music:

If you don't like the music you can find the games music files in the Data/sounds folder.


C:>Games>Egyptoid_game>Data>Sound>x.WMF

All files are Windows Media files so you may have to use an audio converter to change any music files you wish to exchange the default music with. Make sure if you do this that you back up the original files and rename the replacements to the name of the files you are replacing. You can get freeware audio converters online. Just Google free audio converters. If you visit the main site regularily, you'll probably already have installed an audio converter.

Conclusion:

Today’s arkanoid is worth 7 out of 10 in my opinion. It’s not the best, but good enough for me to have bought it before it was first given away.

To save the game make sure you click on 'suspend game'. This will save your progress to the beginning of any level you may have started, but not finished. I'm sure this game has been updated at some point because I seem to remember not being able to save the game unless you'd completed a full temple; as there is only 8 temples that was an annoyance. If you managed to get Egyptoid 2 previously you’ll find the game play similar though the original has fewer power ups and the graphics aren’t as sharp, plus there are additional elements added to the gaming boards that make Egyptoid 2 more interesting to play.



Scoring:


Game play: 7

Graphics: 7

Audio: 6

Re-playability: 7

Originality: 6

33 out of 50 = 6.6 out of 10

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Problems with the game?:

If you have any problems installing or playing today's game please go to the game discussion forums where you'll find a FAQ's section HERE. It may also be a good idea to post details of any problems you have over in the game discussion forums. You can find the Egyptoid thread HERE (it's not been updated for a few years, so the review may be slightly different to today's). I've included a return link to this comments section over in the game discussion thread. :)

If you see someone's query and are able to answer them, would you please a comment here and in the thread I've linked to HERE because moderation is going to be very sporadic today and queries and answers may not appear for many hours. There's aslo a smaller thread about Egyptoid HERE


Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to help. It's very much appreciated :)

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If today's game doesn't take your fancy then check out the game discussion forums and the free games synopsis. We’ve posted a couple of thousand free games over the last four years, many of which are excellent alternatives to their commercial cousins. You'll also find loads of sale items via the didimatic site HERE, (though there are a couple more sites that list even more games but I've lost the links):








Similar Games available for free

You'll find loads of Arkanoid/breakouts HERE, HERE (Giveaway forums) and HERE (Caimans – almost 200 2D and 3D breakout games)


You can also download today’s game every day for free over at Gametop as well as several others such as A-Ball (which is also known as Nuclear Ball), Geometry Ball, Scaraball, Cosmoball plus others, though you will get your browser opening every time you shut the game down. Thankfully this is one of the games they have had for quite some time so there’s no tool bar or home page tick boxes to bother with, but just in case they've changed it since I last checked make sure when you are installing the game that you watch each step of the installation wizard.



You’ll also find quite a few breakout titles over at MyPlayCity HERE, that now include several of Alawars breakouts such as all of the Strike Ball games (Strikeball, Strikeball 2 and Strikeball 3), as well as one of my early favourites called Actionball Deluxe and it's sequel Actionball 2; oh yeah and not forgetting the second Hyperballoid game, which in my opinion was a big improvement on the original despite the first one having a massive number of levels (over a thousand) with gorgeous graphics called (not surprisingly) Hyperballoid Complete Edition (or if you purchase it from Big fish Hyperballoid Gold edition) - the down side w.r.t. the original, was that even with the speed up power-ups, the ball used to go too slow for me, (however; GMMan did create a speed-up mod for me); there's also previous giveaways (though not Alawar games) such as Egypt Ball and Egyptian Ball as well as several others that you can download for free. I recommend all of the Alawar titles especially Hyperballoid 2 (Which has an editor for making more levels - there may be custom made levels to download via Alawars site, but I've not checked in some time) and the original Actionball Deluxe (the sequel also has upgradeable power-ups) and Strikeball 3 (The third in the series is similar to the earlier Magic Ball games {Magic Ball 2} but with better graphics and power ups that are also upgradeable, plus the game is slightly more challenging than any of the Magic Ball series (which for some reason Alawar decided to change the name from Magic Ball to Smashball Frenzy)). Unfortunately the best (IMO) arkanoid/breakouts such as Ricochet infinity, Acky's XP Breakout, Reaxxion and Shatter are not available for free via any of the free game sites apart from illegal ones. You can purchase Shatter from Steam for £6.99, though during the big sales over the summer and Christmas period and maybe thanksgiving you can get up to 75% off. Both Ricochet infinity and Acky's XP Breakout have editors and for the former thousands (literally well over 60 000) of downloadable levels for free. There are also free level packs for Acky's XP Breakout, but not to the same extent as Ricochet. you download the levels for Ricochet directly from the game and can upload your own creation from the game as well (which probably explains why there are so many - all the levels are graded for game play, graphics etc and get a score of A to D with +'s and -'s (for example B+; though the best of the best are starred as well)



There's over 100 games on sale via Valves Steam client. The weekend deals include 66% off the Star Wars franchise and 66% off Shadowrun Returns. There's 755 off the brilliant Empire Total War (only £4.99 for the game plus all dlc). 75% off Tranformers Fall of Cybertron, 75% off Transformers War for Cybertron, up to 7%% off Activision titles (most of the Call of Duty titles have 255 to 33% off), 66% off The amazing spiderman, 75% off Need for speed: hot Persuit, 75% of Singularity, 75% off Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, 50% off Tony Hawk's Pro skater HD, 50% off Cabela's Big Game Hunter Pro Hunts, 75% off Cabela's African Adventures, 75% off Cabela's Dangerous Hunts75% off Gun, 75% off family guy Back to the Multiverse, 75% off Burnout Paradise: The ultimate Box, 75% off Shift 2 Unleashed, 75% off worms: Clan Wars, 50% off Geometry wars: Retro Evolved, 75% off Eve Online, 75% off Serious Sam complete pack

For more deals check out the latest game available on IndieGameStand HERE. You can pay as much as you want but no less than $1. The present game is called Fatal Theory, an over-the-top, side scrolling beat-'em-up like the ones from the late 1980's and 1990's, but infinitely better. If you pay more than the average which stands at £1.53, you also get the music and a comic related to the game. This deal ends Wednesday morning 5am (GMT)


There's also quite a few decent deals over on Desura, Greenman Gaming as well as other game distributors such as Gamersgate and Gamefly. Finally, you'll also find over 20 indie bundles still live. You'll find details of all the bundles still available over in the Game discussion forums HERE These are the best way to get bargains as you can often get $100 plus worth of games for around $5 or less. (e.g. November/December 2012 THQ sold their entire recent catalogue worth almost $500 for less than $6 and last spring there was a Humble Bundle Origin bundle that included premium games like Battlefield 3 and other top EA games such as Medal of Honor, Dead Space, Crysis 2: Maximum Edition, The Sims 3 etc for around $5).




Please note that if you download any games from the free games sites Gametop, Jenkat Games, FreeGamePick and MyPlayCity you need to watch out for toolbar installations, weird installation configurations, browser changes and home page hijacks. Just un-check the check boxes during installation to avoid these, though sometimes they change their policies and you may still find stuff installed. Downloading from these sites at your own risk.

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A 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

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