Interesting game. Installed fine. Loads fine. Game play is buggy. The curser will not move to the far right row or the bottom row. And the part that really gets freeky is that there is no uninstall option. Uninstalling required manually hunting down all the installed components and deleteing them by hand. This game will receive a THUMBS DOWN report on the howdotheyrate.com website.

I had discovered and reported that turning the Story off took care of the graphics freeze on level 10 of Greedy Spooks, but then the game slowed to a crawl again on level 11. So for the last 5-7 days, I have played with level 11, hoping to win enough time with the random rewards to finish it. Behold! there is life after lvl 12!

I won lvl 11, started lvl 12, operating just as slowly as before, and failed, just as usual. on Continuing, I was started at lvl 12, and the cursor was back to being lightning..... yahoooo


Now for the next bug. upon failing at level 14 to clear the board by match3, the game tried to get me to post my score to the world (as usual), went to the Start Menu, let me try to Continue, and locked up.
The error message is similiar to the level 10 error, only the addresses have changed:
"Access violation at address 040DA32C in module 'Greedy Spooks.exe'. Read of address FFFFFF08."

when you try to continue afterwards, you are back to the viciously slow lvl 11.

I presumably also have gotten this error when winning level 12 in slow mode. That time the game crashed when the second portal plate came in.

This game wont allow you to play the bottom of it no good for grandkids

I, too, am having the same problems as 76, 81,85, and 88. I am stuck at level 10/11 with an "access violation" notice. I know this comes without technical help but help with a faulty given product would be appreciated. I was really enjoying the game with no other problems. Maybe it is a bum game after all~ Thanks for trying.

i turned off the Story and replayed from the beginning. Amusingly, the first page of the story still shows, but the 5th gear/pinion went where it was supposed to And the game didnt stop/crash/freeze.

the slowness of the the next level IS Appalling. i cannot get past this level right now, because i keep running out of time. (sigh) of course, the board itself doesnt help with all those double locked tiles.
the cursor behavior is very strange, and there is no game option for turning off the cursor. i am curious to know if that little change would make the difference in response time that some people have suggested.

Very buggy...thumbs down for that

This game crashed my PC over and over again.
All the time at the same spot.
Bad download for me so I removed this one.
Unfortuanately because I like the graphics and this kind of games
Next time better ....

Shame shame shame! Installs into C:/Games... NOT C:/PROGRAM FILES/Games as it should. I found no uninstaller for this game at all, big disappointment.It does not take long to compile it into an exe file and there are many free compilers out there with no ads or other unwanted features.

Installed it on my mothers PC and it would not run at all, kept throwing a missing file error. Installed on my PC and I got the same thing. Had to take it off manually, which most would not know how to do. Would not reccomend this app to any of my users.

However, I do thak you for the free product anyhow. I know how hard it is to track them down and put them up on the site, especially in 24 hours or less.

Thank you GAOTD for all your offers :)
~Reeker001

Re: *76*

What a pity! I was really starting to get into the challenge of this game. All I can say is that I've just got the same access violation, after finishing level 10 - which doesn't augur well :(

I'm going to have another try with the game story disabled, in case that's where the problem originates? But, in the light of further comments @ 81 & 85 I'm not optimistic. Short lived bit of fun, if the game only goes this far. I hope another fix will be made available?

the clock dosent go slow-mo

Ran far too slow, nice graphics, but so slow, very glacial, which is a pity, I like games like this, but I would have died of old age waiting to finish it.

from level 11 it goes slow-mo again, too bad

to slow to play. I must wait to long for the next step to play. I have it better seen by atlantis quest or other equal games.

greetings
from germany

I lie the game don't get me wrong BUT you can play it a time or 2 then you start having a lot of trouble getting back into the game. I am not the only one who has had this trouble with this game.

#52, I also had the ‘give-away period has expired’ message.
(BTW, without reading comments it is sometimes hard to understand what kind of game is presented - arcade, logic-puzzle, RPG or smth else.)

The game today had problems and then, with the help of this site it was suppose to be fixed. Unfortunately, the Creators only fixed it to LEVEL 11...then it goes back to the same old problems.
Please, if there is anyway they can fix the WHOLE GAME???
It could be a great game and very proiftable one...but not if they don't take care of problems before and do a COMPLETE job of fixing it.
Thank you GGAOTD...you always give me something to look forward to...and it's NOT your fault about this game.
~Ceejay

Wow, I would've loved to have downloaded this, it looked like a new one and a keeper, but then i checked the comments, will pass on this one this time. Sorry to say, but I am BUMMED that ggotd has had so many sleepers to date. BUT I do appreciate all you have to offer! Just has been a while since there has been anything cool to download.

I don't think y'all check these comments for requests, but just in case y'all do... could y'all pretty please offer some way cool WORD GAMES .... or even a cool pinball...

Thank you for ALL THAT YOU OFFER US FOR free, I do so appreciate it --- even games that I do not download!

For me, there really isn't any difference in speed between the two versions? Both run great. As I said earlier, I only have an XP 1900, but I do have a GeForce 7600 GS. I'm wondering if it's the graphics card which might explain the reports of very slow gameplay?

I realise now that the help button (during gameplay) is actually a hint button, and it works fine. The option to choose between 3 levels of difficulty seems to have been removed in the updated version, and as a novice (with poor eyesight) I would have preferred the option to select an easier game.

Also I found it interesting that when the game is run for the first time (with no Config.cfg present) it opens full screen, with no problems, whatever resolution is being used. But as soon as you name a player, a Config.cfg file is created, which doesn't seem to remember any selected options, and reverts the game back to insisting on opening in windows mode again (with the mouse - screen res problems re-surfacing). My shut-down lock-ups do seem to have been fixed, with the updated version, but its still a bit sluggish to exit.

@74 You just need to delete the game directory, and any shortcuts - and the game will be totally removed. The game doesn't add any other files to your system, and doesn't make any use of your windows registry. If you wanted to leave things squeaky clean, then (as I said earlier), there may have been a microsoft DirectInput key (which will be named something like HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DirectInput\GREEDY SPOOKS.EXE2A425E190012EC00) which windows created when you were playing the game. But if reg editing worries you, then I wouldn't bother about it.

Nice game... ran fine for me in WinXP on a Pent4 with only 512mb of memory- however I had the same problem as some others where I had to shut the game down via the task menu. I'll try next time in windowed mode. Thanks for the game :)

I would just like to take a moment to point out that this is the PERFECT example of how so called "negative" comments can be a great use to this website, the developer and the users. Not once did I see someone GRIPING today about "all the negative comments"... its simply because people were reporting FLAWS as we always do.

I'm going to write this date on the calendar. The day the so called "negative posters" finally proved WHY posts about faulty games and gameplay ARE IMPORTANT and NECESSARY!!!

If not for the HONEST reviews today we would still be stuck with a slow and sometimes useless piece of software.

So for all of you who say "Just shut up and take it... its FREE"... please feel free to use the original version. You don't deserve the update anyway. Sorry to sound harsh.. but it was getting ridiculous.

Just My Two Cents... Bash me if you will.. :)

Anyone else getting an Access Violation at the end of the second level, when you fix the fifth gear at the gate? I've tried to get past that level twice now and it's hard-crashed the program twice.

This game's re-release WAS hopeful... *sigh*

-- Retro

Even with the update, this game will not move fast enough to play. At level 11, it suddenly slowed down to a crawl so that it was impossible to play. I really like match-3 games and I'm sorry this one is unplayable.

I wrote comment 27 above but I'm now amending my stance. I tried the updated download just for the sake of testing it and I now say that as a singular freebie this one shouldn't be missed. The program is clean and safe like a GOTD game should be, and it's one of the nicest looking match three games I've seen to date. I didn't play long but it looks to be a real pleasure, with lots of eye pleasing elements that those screenshots don't capture. Kudos to those responsible for the update! If MyPlayCity continues to offer CLEAN games like this one here we may be in for a treat.

I must note that I experienced a severe menu flaw that forced me to close the program via the task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) because I couldn't access the menus with the mouse (an Alt-F4 exit would have been nice). I had started the game fullscreen with a 1440x900 resolution but the menu was apparently way off the screen or something, after restarting in windowed mode with a smaller resolution everything was fine.

game too slow, so i decided to uninstall it but i have problem uninstalling it, can anyone help me?

My last comment (#72) should have read "there is no pausing in the middle of a level". I like a game that I can just click on the help menu to "pause" the game if I need to leave it for a moment.

I also waited for the updated version and I am happy I did. Most of the problems were fixed. It is still a little slow but not as bad as some games offered in the past. For example, Rise of Atlantis can take a long time when there are up to 16 "matches" in a row.

Exiting the game is a bit of a hassle having to make several clicks to get out but, I was not taken to their website. There is also no stopping in the middle of a level, no help menu, when I click "help" I get a game hint and it cost me points. To exit I had to press my ESC key. It does save your game but you have to re-start the level you where on if you had stopped in the middle of a level. The graphics are good and the music is OK.

I like match 3's so I will keep this one for a while. There have been better ones offered in the past (IMO) but this one isn't bad, though it may take some getting used to. ;)

I have now been playing the updated version of the game and it is 100% better you can save games as well. Thank you for getting us the updated version. Well worth downloading.

What a difference in game play! So much faster. Thank you, MyPlayCity for the update. The problems with your game were very annoying, but I enjoy your game now with the fixes. I wasn't going to bother going to your website before, but now I will.

I downloaded this at a quarter after three, before there were any comments. More fool me. "You are downloading greedy spooks to your computer" should have been the warning. The positives: solid game play, very attractive, and compared to the last few days It's nice to have a game put a icon on your desktop or games folder where you want it instead of making you go hunt for and copy it. The downsides: the gameplay is i n c r e d i b l y ... s l o w - maybe good for small children, the very elderly or the mentally challenged. Starts up your default web browser automatically to link to their website after the game. and the games they give away there flat out ask permission to install adware on your hard-drive. How cheeky! I said no.

Last year GGOTD had a great dominoes game that I loved - but lost during a full system recovery. Any chance that might be offered again sometime, please? The same company also had an excellent Mah Johngg I'd like to see again.

DOWNLOAD GREATLY IMPROVED. REVISED SCORE FOLLOWS, ADAPTED FROM POST #30

+2 : great graphics
+2 : gameplay still a bit slow, but vastly improved to the point of enjoyability now.
+0 : game now comes with save option
-1 : no longer spams you with adware post-session, but does put up one ad with a timer which is unnecessary. Licensed games should not do this.
+0 : no longer spams your desktop with advertising links
-1 : bad design with unnecessary waits between levels. Why does it count down score?
-1 : asks for personal information unnecessarily when leaving

Score is now +1 after improvements, which means I'll enjoy it on my hard drive for a while.

Appreciations to GGOTD for rollout of the new version, but you really should mention it somewhere better than in the middle of a great number of comments. Cheers!

-- Retro

After downloading this update, I'm quite amazed. The negative things that made this game not worth keeping have been fixed. You can't save your current progress on a board (a game in play), but at least you can save the data that you're on that level; only a minor issue & easily looked past. You still have to click through a lot upon exit, but it's easily dealt with due to the improvements of this update.

This update is a great example of this site doing exactly what it's supposed to. Providing a game to the public, getting feedback on what needs to be improved, and implementing those improvements. Great job, guys!

pps #59 is being played on WinXP Pro, 2.3 GHz, 1gb memory and 256 MB graphics card and i must have selective blindness. very sorry, MyPlayCity.

i've been playing the upd version, and have had the "Start Menu" run away from the screen leaving me in Limbo. TaskManager takes care of this problem with trouble (MicroSoft kepts giving itself error messages). dropped out once with "activation access denied..." while one of the gate pinions was being placed. and my popup blocker seems to be keeping any adware to invisible.
rem: you can kill the story line with the click of an option.

i really hate the way it "adds up" the score, and the country designator is for "World Records" which the game (not in a browserscreen) doesnt connect with.

yes, its slow. but it Is fun. Thank you for the update and the MyCityGames resource.

After reading the comments today, I was not going to download this game. But, after reading #54 and #55: the slow-play, multiple ads and save funtion issues have been fixed, I decided to give this one a try: downloaded and setup on my Windows XP in about 8 minutes. Another game that didn't make a short-cut - thanks for the heads-up in the read.me file! Well, the games does play a bit slow on my computer. You can use 'options' to not play the story-line, but when you quite playing, it still wants a 'country and to submit score online' and then finally ... one ad screen. Overall, I am thanksful for all the great games from GAOTD, but not for this one ... even with the update, this is a match-three with more adware. Thanks anyway - will be deleting and running a complete scan on my system .

FYI - the GGOTD (1st dl, not the update) ist equal to the demo and contains no adware (toolbar). bit annoying is the ad-screen when exiting the game, but no problem: edit wdata\config.ini and enter a zero '0' in first line, then delete the rest. (or delete the wdata-folder completely and simply close the game [x])

The game style itself aint brandnew but i enjoy the grafics and sound

update: edit the updated version as described above (wdata).

Wee-Ha! Just downloaded and played. All the glitches seem to be worked out. Nice match 3... fast moving, able to return to saved game, and the only plug for the company seems no different/more than some others offered on this site. A small price for "free"! Been waiting for one of these for awhile. Our other computer hard drive fried recently so I'm starting out with zero ;(....Thanks for all you guys do for us, including putting up with the ingrates and their snide comments.

The new updated file is definitely worth downloading. Much faster game play, no install required, and it did not take me to the publisher's web site when I quit the game. See comment # 43 for info on the updated file. Thank you GGAOTD team for the fix and thank you Myplaycity for the game.

I was quite excited about this game as I like match 3 and after yesterday's great game I could hardly wait to play this one!

I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with this game. It is very, very, very slow you almost have to force your mouse to move to where you want it to go. Also just now I got this alert/message "Access violation at address 040EE5E5 in module 'Greedy Spooks.exe' Read of address FFFFFFFF." Now this worries me. Is this program trying to access information from my computer? Also the fact it pops me into a website even if it is their is bothersome. I don't like to go online when I'm playing a game unless I know I'm going online. Also the help file only works from the main menu. The game does not save when you exit so you can continue when you have a few more minutes.

Altogether I'd give this particular game a 4 out of 10 (and I'm not the biggest gamer out there but there are definetly better match 3 games out there that do not expose you to access violations and/or spyware,adware,malware.

To change the subject - in reply to #31. I never gave the name a second thought until you mentioned it was unfortunate, but then I'm not from the United States. I thought it was referring to pirates being spooky and greedy but then I've never thought of people from different cultures or religions and background that way. People are people, some are nice some not, etc. I know you were not meaning your comment to sound discriminatory and were trying to protect others feelings but not eveyone thinks the way "your passerby" does. Sometimes a name is just a name with no overtones/overtures to it.

@#35 -niteraven - Thanks so much for your suggestion. I was all set to try that when I saw the note about the new download. So I just un-installed the first one and tried the new download and I didn't have any of the problems I'd had to begin with. I'll keep your answer in mind though in case this comes up again.

@#43 - The GGOTD Team - With as many problems as the people who downloaded the software earlier were having, I'd like to suggest that you move this notice to the top of the comments. They just did this on the GAOTD board, so I'm pretty sure you can do it here as well. It will allow those who had problems earlier to discover there is a solution to most of their problems without having to dig through 43 responses first. Also, it might make it easier for anyone who comes to the site to read the comments before deciding to download to make their decision.

As to the actual game - I had the same problem as Whiterabbit (#49), there's no way I could find to exit the game without using the task manager, which seems a bit extreme. Definitely something to get resolved ASAP. However, the problem with the advertising seems to have been taken care of. For this I thank everyone involved. There is still a folder full of url's in the games folder, but it's not doing anyone any harm just sitting there, so I'm not complaining.

However, for a match three game, this one does still run slowly. Not nearly as badly as everyone was mentioning earlier, so I think MyPlayCity must have resolved some of the issues, but still slow enough that I doubt this will be one of my regular games. Too bad, as I really enjoy the way the game is put together, and the graphics are very nice.

Niteraven mentioned (#25) that maybe it would make the game faster if there were an option to use the normal cursor instead of the custom one, and I agree - I've seen that problem before and using the cursor the computer came with sped up the game considerably. Maybe MyPlayCity should consider that - the cursor might be fun, but the speed problem really spoils the game for me, and I'd be willing to sacrifice the cursor for a faster game.

Once again, my thanks to the GGAOTD team and MyPlayCity for resolving most of the problems as quickly as they did.

A LOT faster now... ability to save and everything is fine. Nice Match Three!!! Thanks for the fix!!!

Well, this makes absolutely no since. I say thank you for the game and mine does not show up on the board. What gives ? now one can't be nice and say thank you anymore ????????
Whatever !!

I was unexpectedly busy yesterday, so I was unable to review the game. Today, however, I have much more free time. Here's my review:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2667

Why is this site giving away adware? I don't have to pay "$19.95" for it!

Ahhh, that's a much better version. I'm glad I checked back and now have a lovely match 3 game to play. Thank you so much to all for your hard work.

I waited until now to even try to download after all the warnings of slow play. It worked fine for me (32 bit Vista Ultimate - 2.4 GHZ machine and 2 GB memory).

The only ad I got was on the actual exit. That was just one more click to make. The only slight problem is you have to wait 5 seconds.

It works fine and does save the game.

The complaints I heard above was slow play, no save and ads. It's not slow, it does save (now) and there is one ad. I'll keep it.

Not a game to recommend
no game save and only one life so every time you fail it's all the way back to the beginning. I like match three and puzzle games but I do not like to be told it is solve it in one sitting or else.
These two points make this a no joy game for me. fix this and I would play this for months.

I'm getting a 'give-away period has expired' message when trying to install/ activate this game. Anyone else getting it too? There should be another 14 hours left surely?

Is something up with the game or have GOTD pulled the activation?

Thank you, sincerely, but no thanks. Love match three but not adware.

After install I got "failed to initialize device", whatever that means!!

I've just got back from visiting family to find the new file download. It definitely seems to have got rid of the adware, but the movement of the tiles is still a little sluggish, though not so as to spoil the game play.

The trouble I have now is that I can't shut the game down without having to invoke the task manager. I started up the game and closed it down several times to check to see if it was just a one off problem but each time I had the same difficulties with shutting the game down.

Still, it's a well made game and I will be keeping it for a while, though I'm still busy playing a whole string of games including Montezuma, Sky Bubbles, Destiny Architect, Magic Farm etc (oh yeah and Wings of War thanks to Red Neck). For those who missed my post yesterday about Magic Farm; Oleg the developer has released another update that has fixed all the major bugs as well as added new content in the form of some bonus levels as well as balanced the game up a little. You can find the link to the latest update on page 4 of the Magic Farm review thread that's in the Game discussion section of the forums. The link to the forums is at the top of this page.

Thank you MyPlayCity, despite the rubbish I ended up with. And thank you to the giveaway team for sorting out the problems. I hope the existing problem can also be fixed as well. :)

This right here is why I won't put a link to GGOTD on my free software page of my web site. If you are making the claim that your offerings are spyware & adware free, you should make sure that they are. Some of the games at MyPlayCity actually have malware in them, not just adware. The browser opening up to their page is annoying at best, and frightening at worst.