Thanks for finally talking about > Game Giveaway of the Day - Galatron < Liked it!

I bought this game a while back. I had lots of problems getting it to run. Even though my computer is less than 6 months old; it is a mid-high range gaming rig capable of handling very demanding apps. I must say that when I emailed the developer he got back to me right away. But... and this was my other complaint... I was in the middle of several work crises and the link for downloading the game was only good for a short period of time. I just could not put everything aside to deal with ironing out the kinks to get it to run. My impression: it is too buggy. Definitely not ready for prime time!

This game was pretty fun the 1 time that it worked, after waiting longer for it to load than Supereme Commander! Now, it won't load after waiting 5 minutes! It's like the server it's trying to connect to has died. Obviously, this was a nice concept, but the overall execution wasn't up to the task.

A bit late but: the game worked for me. I am running it on Vista. The only thing I changed was to run it as an administrator. The missing dll sounds familiar, I found it on the Internet if it was missing. It may have been missing from a game before this one.

This is the most difficult to control space game I've seen (at least in the beginning). I'm keeping it though.

game installed fine then wold not run
sitis on opening screen then nothing
needed work before being released

I did install this game, but takes 4ever to actually start playing, the load screen takes about 5 minutes and those tooltips are verry annoiyng other than that it works, .... had no ideea how to play it until i pressed all keystrokes on my keyboard. i personally dont like this game .... and for what it does .... it actually take WAAAY to much space on my harddisk and my rams. .... not a good one.

installed the software on vista..
when double clicking on the icon .. running the game
gets stuck in the start up ... doesnot proceed...
have to use Alt+F4 to quit...

The game, when run from the original shortcut can find no java!
The make your own shortcut worked. But, on the one computer the start screen graphics are bad, like dithered wrongly, and the other computer it is fine?
This screen stayed a long time, but finally went thru. When selected Tutorial the game has crashed. The second try and it ran tho.

installed okay.
upon starting the game, froze at charactor screen
Unstalled it, cleaned out registries and did not re-install the game.

a game should be easy to install and work, it installs but doesnt work! i have the latest comp too.

I had no problems running this game. I must admit its quite hard to learn but then its a lot of fun! I play with my brother on 1 computer in skirmish mode and we love it!

Installed fine on Win XP SP3. I changed the desktop shortcut as suggested and launched game. It appears that the long loading time may have to do with textures loading in, because while I was waiting for the first load, the spinning progress cursor that was displayed kept changing into different icons. The game didn't load instantly, but the wait was not overly long as far as I was concerned.

Loaded into the primary display screen on my dual-display system. Ran at 1024x768, with no option to change resolution that I could find.

Played the game for a while. The tutorial made it seem easy to destroy the other ships. Skirmishing was about the same. Career mode was completely different. Multiple shots to destroy the enemy, even right from the start. It seemed the enemy ships had some upgrades that I would have to buy.

Only issue I had with the program was a crash-to-desktop when I tried to delete one of my players.

And I can see where Whiterabbit meant that some people may find this boring. There will be a long path to upgrading, and many battles to get there.

After reading the reviews, I have decided not to install it, BUT I am very anxious to start on the Photo Mosaic. I think that will make a wonderful present blown up to poster size.
Would love to have the old Space Invaders, Age of Japan, Around the World in 80 days, Flight Simulator and Tetris games. A link to any one of these games would be greatly appreciated. Grandkids will be coming shortly, and these are games that I know they like.
Thanks so much for any links that you may have.

It's been a very busy last few days and I'm unable to stay awake any longer to moderate this comments page. I'll try to check any comments that are posted from now before the cut off time, just in case anyone has a sortable problem.

Please don't delete the game until I've found out whether there is a fix becasue despite what a few have said above i do think this game has potential. That said think gravitron is much more fun. :)

I have Emailed the developer and hope that they can let me know of a fix for the problem quoted several times above. I will post any replies I get in the game discussion forums in the appropriate thread (Galatron: A Review) Goodnight!

Tested this game on my Windows 7 x86 and it froze at the character screen.
Uninstalled.
Interesting thing that this game seems to be written in Java but uses Windows libraries (DLLs). Not a very good choice of programming language for a Windows-only application.

All I can say is that this game does not work at all since all as far as I could get is either my screen goes black and stays black or it shows the Glatron Logo and that is as far as it goes.

Now the moderator I understand how you feel since this game was a failure this time, but most of the games that I have gotten from here has actually worked great..

I edited the desktop shortcut to have the “start in” folder set the program's directory "C:\Program Files\Galatron" and game started correctly. Running XP SP 3.



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Thanks for the info John. :lol:

@42: Looks like the game engine is unable to change the resolution properly with both displays active. You'll need to disable one of your displays.

After reading the comments I too decided to pass on this game and go with the the link to Gravitron. However after going to the link up at the top there is no place to get this game either. And reading the posts there showed that other people were also not able to find it.


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I need to go through the synopsis to find all the dead links.

ahh! it seems the developer took the game down for a while due to some prolems with Malware. He's put it back up, but has said use at your own risk. I never had a problem with the download, but do make sure if you try the game that you've created a restore point; test the file for virii and other malware before you install it and as an added measure, if you have a sandbox program such as Sandiebox or Returnil install the game to that first to make sure it's okay. It's well worth the effort IMO. Here's the link to the developers site:

http://xout.blackened-interactive.com/Gravitron/Gravitron.html


I bought the second version after trying the first one. Both games are excellent; though the commercial version has improved graphics and more levels to beat.

this is sad... of all the reviews I've read... they all pretty much state the same: PROBLEMS LOADING & RUNNING game. Someone else said this to, but I'll say it again, with games so few and far between, it'd be nice if the one offered actually worked! :( was really looking forward to a new game!

Just want to give a thanks to whoever the moderator is. You handled yourself really well considering we had a dud game for most of the day, and aptly responded to many of the same types of response. Credit to you and the team and keep up the good work.

I am using multi monitor display adapter with pivot'ed monitor and I am receiving such an error (when running directly the *.jar archive):

C:\Program Files\Galatron>java -jar galatron.jar
initLogger-4
2010-08-01 23:08:20 com.runningpillow.galatron.Game main
INFO: Game started: version-1.0.0
2010-08-01 23:08:22 com.jmex.game.DefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler uncaughtExcept
ion
SEVERE: Main game loop broken by uncaught exception
com.jme.system.JmeException: Bad display mode
at com.jme.system.lwjgl.LWJGLDisplaySystem.selectMode(Unknown Source)
at com.jme.system.lwjgl.LWJGLDisplaySystem.initDisplay(Unknown Source)
at com.jme.system.lwjgl.LWJGLDisplaySystem.createWindow(Unknown Source)
at com.jmex.game.StandardGame.initSystem(Unknown Source)
at com.jmex.game.StandardGame.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)



This should be anyway also repaired...

This works here (Win 7 64-bit) to get the game running: Edit the shortcut to have the "start in" folder set correctly (same folder as the .exe) and you may have to run the game as admin.

How the hell do games and app companies still have problems with Windows 7 and a x64 bit OS, FGS ?
Jesus wept, man - It's 2010, not 1997....

If you're still experiencing issues after that, try deleting the jre folder in the game program folder and directly running galatron.jar. That will use your system's installed Java to run the game.

Now, what I think about the game: Disappointing. First of all, it take ages to load and eats all of your CPU time. And then when I finally get to the second splash screen, I get a barrage of images as my cursor until it finally turned into the loading cursor (I was thinking "WTF" at the time). There is no option for a higher resolution or to play windowed (so the game looks bad on my 22" monitor). The gameplay sucked. In most games you can shoot continuously. This one, a shot every couple of seconds. And what's up with the 3D meshes? Wouldn't 2D settle for a 2D game? It's like if you made everything in World of Goo into 3D but the gameplay is still 2D. (Fact: World of Goo and this game uses the same physics engine.) And I usually lose track of what my ship is.

The first level is sort of unfair. The guy next to you drops a mine, and I was never able to avoid it, so it always blows out my engine. With that, you can't do anything except move in a constant orbit. If you crash, there's debris everywhere. May be useful for knocking out an enemy, but that rarely happens.

The English sucks as accustomed to, but still it only just makes sense. The ESC menu doesn't work for me. And everything's still slow. It also ate up memory (I think it takes around 400MB while running).

BTW, what's up with using Java? I don't have anything against Java games, but wouldn't it be more efficient to have something compiled as native machine code instead of also having to pass it through a separate runtime? I guess this aides in cross-platform support, but it wouldn't be that hard to build the support in the game if it was written in a common language instead of Java.

Overall, this game sucks. 2/10

This game freezes at the selection screen on 2 different notebooks, one XP, the other Windows 7. It looks like we'll be un-installing both!

Unfortunately, unacceptable for me.
The game is stucked while starting - the three faces, as mentioned by others. Normal exit doesn't work. Alt-tab, ctrl-shft-esc -> kill process does (it's the only solution). Unfortunately it gave me a blue screen of death: crashed on nv4_disp.dll. Haven't seen a blue screen of death in a very, very long time. My pc: Geforce 6800 Ultra, AMD 64 X2 4200+ and WinXP 32 bit.

My next action: flush Galatron off my system.

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YEAH...............A FIX for the UNRESPONSIVE GAME:



Yeah! it looks like the issue is fixable. I went over to find the link to my post in the forums (for the post above) and found a post by Campy. He has found a very simple fix for the problem:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/7859


Basically delete the original shortcut and create a new one from the installed executable. The game boot up is still slow, but you can see the mouse pointer scroll through several different symbols, then clicking on the screen takes you to the main menu.

If only we'd got our usual fare, that is we usually get no shortcut installed, we would all have had a working game. Weird isn't it. :lol:


..............................................................................UPDATE....................................................................

For some reason I still can't get it to work via any shortcut that I create, but it will work when I click on the games executable directly???? even weirder, lol


=======================================================================================

With the number of failed installations I decided to write an email to the developer to see if they can resolve this situation. Hopefully they will respond, so for now do keep the installation installed and i'll post any details of a fix (if one is found) over in the forums. I've posted the review over there as well.


http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/7859


Will need to make at least one correction in the review regarding the characters. As TK points out it's just a splash screen. I wrote the review under duress this morning, so it's not the best one I've posted.

I found the game really hard, so didn't get any further than the first level, lol. (when i was checking the game out using the demo)

Well can't get this to run on W7 Ultimate 64bit.
Strange because it says it's W7 compatible.
Not a good sign for a game to state misleading info.


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with the number of failed installs there has to be something wrong with the game. I was able to play the demo from their home site, but not the giveaway version. A pity as i was really looking forwards to exploring this game further.

One of my only free game downloads I have done from GGotD.
The game looked very interesting to me, I remember playing a similar game when younger where you could collect crystals and upgrade your ship. But had the asteroid engine if you will.

On fist running the game, the loading cursor changed to all sorts of different icons. and it took a while to load. I then exited to eat and planned on playing later. The second time I played, I was stuck at the loading screen. This game SHOULDN'T take this long to load. Not when games like Bad Company 2 take 1 min or less.

I am running Windows 7 with a duo core and 4gb DDr2 RAM.

Unfortunately, I got the same as so many other:

“The program can’t start because MSVCR71.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.”

I tried re-installing from both the mirror and the regular download links (in case there was some interference or such). No difference.

I then did some google searching to see what it really is about. Seems the missing file is part of Microsoft Visual C Runtime library. I found a sight that has this fix (NOT MINE, belongs to http://i.justrealized.com/2009/05/16/how-to-fix-missing-msvcr71dll-problem-in-windows/ )

1. Download MSVCR71.dll from dll-files.com. (It is free.)
2. Unzip…
3. Place MSVCR71.dll into C:\Windows\System32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64 if you using a 64-bit Windows\SysWOW64 if you using a 64-bit Windows.

UNFORTUNATELY, after this it would only start and go to the screen with the three characters and stayed there for 15 min with the circle showing it was loading. I finally just used the task manager to get out and end it. The task manager did show it as running rather than not responding. Yet, after 15 min I figured it was going no where.

My system is a P4 HT, 2 gig RAM running Win XP PRO service pack 3 all updated. I don't think any of that is too little for this game, but then it didn't run either. I would have LOVED to give it a try, but because it will not run and VERY few others have gotten it to... I give it a .5 out of 10. Yes, .5 because it drew interest, but no more because it delivered nothing but heart ache and disappointment.

ibwebb


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Thanks for your efforts. It's a pity that it didn't work. I downloaded and installed the dll though found thta i didn't beed to, lol. I was hoping it would fix the problem because i like gravity orientated games. I think I'll contact the developer seeing as they haven't made an appearance here today, with the hope that they will have a fix for the game. (You never know, This sort of failure isnt going to give them a good name as the giveaway project does have a large audience)

This looks a lot like a game I had years ago. Actually it was a screen-saver that had a game embedded in it. I think it was from some Canadian developers. In it, you went inside your computer and chose a folder as your battlefield. Inside the folder were enemies and prizes which were the icons from the programs represented in that folder. The physics and game controls were almost identical to this game. Also the weapon and armor upgrades.
I wonder if that game inspired this one.

**WARNING DO NOT DOWNLOAD**

I was able to download this game just fine, but when I started it up my computer froze completely. After 10 minutes of waiting I had to manually shut it down.

installed worked when started from end install but would not start after that. Gets as far as graphics never does anything after. Task manager says it is running but no HDD activity UNINSTALLED

I'm running win7 64 bit mode, at first I thought it wasn't working as it took quite a while to get past the opening screen with pics of 3 people. The cursor started doing all kinds of strange things and then after maybe 30 seconds it loaded.
from that point the game ran correctly.
It wasn't enough action for me. IN space games, I want lots of mindless violence. This one you have to think and pay attentionto whats going on.

This is truly strange. I was having trouble getting it to run as I got to the screen where you pick your character and it seemed to hang up loading. I have Win7 x64 so I decided to try some compatibility modes. After changing to various compatibility modes, it always worked. While doing this I was changing compatibility and running directly from the install folder. Then, I tried going back to the desktop and running. Using the desktop icon, it hung up again. So, I deleted the shortcut and created a new one myself. It worked. If you are having trouble getting to run, you might try running directly rather than using the desktop shortcut.

I have gotten right up to the point when it should start the tutorial or game action and it then dies a death. the 3 char splash screen is not a species selection screen, but a loading screen and the mouse pointer animates conventionally at first then cycles through various icon textures until loading completes and it changes to initial menu with music and prompts. I find no difference in behaviour if I leave the included out of date java runtime environment in place or rename the folder so it has to use the current uptodate system java runtime environment it still fails at same points. I am using AMD turion x2 based vista home premium laptop with a dedicated memory Nvidia 8400M GS GPU.

Another negative comment. The game installed OK, but when I ran the program I get an error that a .dll file is missing, but the game still runs anyway. The tutorial is a bit annoying in that the help windows overlap other text boxes you might want to read while creating your first character. After deciding the frustration wasn't worth it, I just went with the defaults. Played a few rounds and it seems like an OK game, but I wanted to go back and rebuild my profile so I could "undo" some of the decision the tutorial forced on me. When I delete the existing profile, the program crashed to desktop. I try to run the game a second time, I get the .dll error again but this time I am stuck on the opening splash screen.

The good: The game plays like a more modern version of SpaceWar with four players instead of two and the ability to upgrade and customize your ship. And, really, if you are a classic gaming aficionado, how can you say no to SpaceWar? It seems like it could be an interesting game if one actually had time to explore it's depths.

The bad: In a period of five minutes I've hit 1 annoyance, 3 bugs, and the game has incapacitated itself, which pretty much makes this a self-terminating review.

Ok, did install and run on Vista64.

Basically you don't have a ton of control over your ship as the gravity effect is so large. It could be compared to diverting as opposed to steering.

Any oldster should remember Asteroids and the strategy for dealing with small ships, full speed vertical thrust and firing in the general vicinity. Imagine that level of randomness without the thrill of any speed.

Then my day got worse.

Could not find a way out of the started skirmish. Had to go to desktop and use Task manager to close the game, but the music kept on playing any ways. Needed a complete restart.

This Game is Trash.


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Why?

I know the game doesn't mention Windows 7 in the requirements, but since many systems are now running it, and it did specify Vista, I figured I'd give it a try on my Win7 64-bit system anyway. First thing that appeared when starting the game was the following error:

"The program can't start because MSVCR71.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

Tried that, and nothing changed. The program continued to load anyway. After trying the tutorial, I discovered that there was no way to exit the game except by using the three fingered salute (CTRL+ALT+DEL). This caused the black screen of death, which has never occurred on this system. The only way out was to press the power button until the computer shut off.

I uninstalled. The only leftover garbage which I could find in the registry was a reference to Galatron in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs, otherwise it seemed to uninstall cleanly.

Now we need to ask... HAS ANYONE BEEN ABLE TO GET THIS GAME TO RUN BEYOND THE CHARACTER CHOICE SCREEN AT ALL? If so, what is your hardware and software environment? What versions of Java Runtime do you have installed, what Graphics cards? What operating system and CPU do you have? There has been 32 thumbs up votes at time of posting so did any of those get this to work?

Got it up and running, has to assign keys to match the laptop. Had to include SHIFT key as a weapon, then had to disable "StickyKeys" since I was pressing shift 5 times in a row. then got it to work, but under Tutorial, the planet's gravity continues to pull you in no matter what. Ship's engines cannot pull you away from the planet. and it is too difficult to navigate. Once your ship explodes and you pop in a new one, the debris from the old ship then attacks your new ship!! can't imagine what the actual game would be like!!!

I encounter the same problem as xxstyxx (Post 16).

Thanks for the game yesterday Trio The great settlement.Please give more platform games.

Thanks and greetz from Mardette

Upon reading the reviews here, I believe I shall pass on the download today. Appears to be there are some bugs...too bad! Thank you though for the upload, and aas always I shall be back next weekend! :)

I downloaded the Game but it loading forever in the first Loadingscreen.
http://www.picdepict.com/images/15330139360507267376.jpg << this one

I use Win7 and tryed to start as Admin and in XP compatibility.

I am also reporting the problem. The game freezes at a splash screen. In Task Manager I can see, that the game consumes one of my CPUs at 100% but it is still showing me only a splash screen. I think, that it isn't a problem of my system, but of the game itself.

Please fix this and release it again.

No go Win 7 x32 Ultimate i7. First run at end install & heard some music then the 3 heads. Chose right most head. Black screen yet music still plays. Looked down & saw tab. Hit that and into game.
Tutorial. Horsy controls for sure. Look seems to be a port/mix of some old style games, even DOS era. Escape key to desktop. hmm maybe my autohotkeys bindings messes it up when again try to run it
because any futher tries & sticks at 3 heads w/ spinning circle right over the 3 heads & no input. Tried various compat modes & no go.
Upon reboot, still spins. And IE8 browser gets crippled to half size until reset it to full size. Uninstall after one try w/o autohotkeys active. No still that spinning circle as if trying to load but doesn't. Oh well off it goes. Prob not that cool anyway. Thanks.