Ed,

Hi Ed,

I do think its bad practice as its obvious there are bugs. You'd think the developer would be proud of his work and try to repair any bugs. Sadly they haven't, and it's almost certain that they won't now. It may be that when the game was released it worked on the windows platform that it was designed on. I have hundreds of games that were released when Win 95/98 & XP were the reigning platform; that no longer work for various reasons on later platforms such as Vista/Win 7/8 & 10. However it's more than likely It's because its not worth their time to repair the issues, or they may be working on other games and don't have the time, or maybe even left development behind when it was not as profitable.

From 2008 onward, the cost of developing games (generally) has gone up, but the price of games has over the last decade has literally dropped though the roof; for example pre-2008 you'd be paying $19.99 for all arcade games and $50 for the average AAA game (in real terms taking account of inflation etc that would be almost $40 for arcade games and $100 for AAA games). Post 2008 (after the financial crisis) arcade games dropped in price to around $5 (that's only approx 12% of 2008 prices and AAA games (apart from a few of the really popular games like Battlefield, Total War and Call of Duty franchises) dropped to around $35. Many small developers and some big name developers such as THQ ( Red Faction, Company of Heroes and Warhammer franchises) and 2K (Bioshock franchise) have since gone out of business in the intervening years, partly due to free game sites popping up and the proliferation of indie game bundles where you often get as much as 95% off the usual commercial price of games.

Have you checked the reply I made to Marie, I've suggested a few things he could try to fix the issue?

marie,

Hi Marie, Unfortunately, once the giveaway is over, it's rarely checked by the community. The best thing to do is post the issue in the giveaway forums.

I've created a thread HERE specifically for the purpose. If you haven't already, you will need to register to be able to post in the forums. I've also added it to the general forum pages sticky section, so it will be seen for a few months before I remove it from the sticky section. I hope this helps.

I haven’t had time to read the Steam comments, but you’ll find a thread about the game being bugged HERE. Other possible sources of information may be found HERE. Also check out You Tube videos (if you have time). If you know how far into the game you are, you may be able to find a walk-through video that covers the section you need to see. Again, sorry i can’t be of more help. I’ve not played through the game full myself as i’ve been really busy recently. Actually bought this via Steam when it was released over five years ago (Jan 2014). I remember playing it, but oddly, it says I’ve played it for 0 hours.

Regard Stephen

p.s.

If you don't want to create an account to post, let me know here and I'll post it for you. :)

@Whiterabbit-uk:

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for your reply. Wasn't aware of this Giveaway of the Day Forums. Very helpful indeed!

Warm regards

Marie

Johannes, See my reply to Frank Mohnhaupt, there are fixes.

john strecker, Hi John JB found a fix for this issue, check the comments, Lady Lark also reposted the fix after finfding it from the previous time this was given away.

beergas, JB found a fix for this issue, check the comments, Lady Lark also reposted the fix after finfding it from the previous time this was given away.

Howard Dailey, JB found a fix for this issue, check the comments, Lady Lark also reposted the fix after finfding it from the previous time this was given away.

Done that the first time it was offered already - no change.

ian C, JB found a fix for this issue, check the comments, Lady Lark also reposted the fix after finfding it from the previous time this was given away.

Lady Lark, Thank you for reposting Lady Lark, appreciated.

Lady Lark, Your instructions for the replacement file has only one line, whereas the original post by JB had a lot of lines. Will it work with just the one line you posted?

I do want to add that my game didn't hang today, so I can't tell if the one line fix works or if you need all the lines from JB's post. Just wanted to point out the difference so folks wouldn't be frustrated!

neme, You need all the lines, in my original I found that the GT and LT brackets were confused as BBcode by the forum software, so I had a followup post with the full file.

I reposted my whole solution earlier in this thread (post 14), with the whole file. Read the responses as someone found an even better solution based off my solution.

creeker, It's becasue the size of the game is quite large and more than one person will probably be downloading it at the same time. The more downloading, the slower it will take. I downloaded it before the giveaway started (as I have access via the admin panel, and was getting a 10mbs download from a 30mbs connection.

jb,

Thanks for posting this fix, hopefully it will work for everyone. :)

jb, Works for me. A BIG thanks to you!

jb (and all of the others who face this problem), Seems one looses all golden cards and progress in the journal when doing this 'rebuild trick'.
I tried just copying the sav file to a .savcross file and guess what? It works just as well, only this time it keeps all golden cards and all of the progress in the journal. :D

Mark,

Hi Mark, check through the comments, JB found a fix.

Same thing here, can click on the items untill I will be 99 years old, they do NOT get selected.

Urška, I get the exact same thing on that screen. Nothing selects.

Urška,

See the comment by JB, there is a fix for the issue.

I installed again from the PlayCity website to no avail. It just does not allow any clicks in this scene in the game. I was able to go to other areas in the game and click with no problems. Have come back to this page several times and still no clicking available. I rebooted, to no avail.

If anybody figures this out, please do post. I'll wait to uninstall. Thanks.

Have uninstalled the game. Thank you for all the wonderful games you do share with us that work! Much appreciated.

Sunnie, Hi Sunnie, JB has found a fix for the lock up issue.

Whiterabbit-uk, Thanks. I'm not very computer savvy. Not sure I should play around with this stuff. I might just mess up my computer and can't fix it. I did look for the .sav file, but couldn't find it. I file all my games in my "games" folder I made. I run Win 10 64 bit.

I may try it at some point, as I did enjoy the game. We'll see.

Therese S., I just stooped download, cancel it and start over. Downloaded in 2 minutes then

Unzip and installation (needs to deactivate Avast) took another 10 mins. Now it works fine with Win 10 64-bit.

Frank Mohnhaupt,

Hi Frank, that message usually means that your security has blocked the installation due to the Themida wrapper. That wrapper can also be used to hide malware, so some anti malware suites automatically block it 'just in case' however, the giveaway project has been running since Dec 2006 and they have never given away a game infected with malware due in part to the fact that all downloads are first checked by them using the latest anti-malware suites (not just one). There are three things you can do to get the game to install and register, (well actually 4 or even 5).

1) ... Temporarily turn off your security, install the game then turn your security back on (this is the fastest method),

2) ... White-list all the giveaway files with your security then install,

3) reboot in safe mode with networking, install the game then reboot as normal.

and the fourth, download the game directly from MyPlayCity HERE as that doesn't have the Themida wrapper, but it does contain a folder that contains low level adware and toolbar install files. There is also a fifth, i.e. Steam have the game in their store, but that would cost you £2.79/£3.99/€3.99 HERE.

Failing the above, please check the FAQ's thread over in the game discussion forums HERE in case there are any other fixes. Please do let me know if any of the above worked. Thank you.

Whiterabbit-uk, thanks... I download the game directly from MyPlayCity, that works for me.
Turn off Security software (Avast Antivirus) dont work, same failure.

Frank Mohnhaupt, In Avast!, you need to go into Shields and then switch off Behaviour Shield. ;)
Then everything will install as expected. Sorry for the late reply!