It's way too easy for my taste, but colourful and clearly geared towards little girls as another commented. I think this will be a very nice game once my 2-year-old daughter gets a bit older. Thanks for the giveaway.

Fun game! Gets to be a challenge when you go to long! lol :)

Since i work nights and sleep days about the only time that i can d/load and try these games is around midnight to 2 a.m. and, i see that the giveaway is already over and it is just midnight...>_<
Thanks anyway, it seems the grandkids wont get a new game to try next time they visit...they probably would've liked this one.

An update to my previous comment:

As a user above (Sheepskate) suggested, the giveaway IS still active, just the page is changed.
I dl'd from the link they showed and the giveaway activated.
I wish I had known, for the others I missed :(
I wonder what is causing this bug?

I do hope they fix it soon, as I am not always able to be at my comp to download the game until the last hour or 2 :)

I have missed several because of this, including todays.

BTW, the above tip from "Sheepskate" was correct, and I was able to still get the GOTD game that-a-way.

Yup, missed it here due to the early ending... Too bad!

I was here late, but still within the normal 24 hours. Would have likely downloaded this one. Need to get this problem straightened out.

Someone needs to check the Calendar, time zone, and configuration for ggotd, 11:30(edt) and not available on the 9th of Oct...what gives?

what day is it?? It says this game was only available on Oct. 9--my calendar says its Oct. 9th today!

Its only 8:30 pm and it says this game was only available on Oct. 9!! Isn't it Oct. 9th today?? i was on yesterday at the same time and had no trouble downloading Egyptoid. When was Oct. 9th over???

I gave this game a thumbs up because it's a good match 3 game - it's fast and has great graphics. But I'm up to level 5.4 and it's not getting any harder, which I find personally disappointing. And I'd like a way to turn off that annoying giggle :-)

I have this game. LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Just over two hours to go before the game giveaway ends, 'four hours' early again. I did send a message via Skype to one of the Game Giveaway team, but it looks like the four hours that are missing won't be added back today.

If you have come late I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. Please do post a short message to say that you missed the game, so that the team can see how many community members missed out. This change of time wasn't announced so it's probably some error that's caused it and there may be a possibility of a re-run to catch up on the lost hours, but don't quote me on that.

There are much better match three games available from the links I've provided in my first post @ comment #1 (for example Treasures of Montezuma, Fishdom, Around the world in 80 Days, Flower Story, finding Doggy {similar to 4 Elements} Atlantic Quest, Sky Kingdoms, Story of Fairy Place and The Rise of Atlantis to name just a few).

Hopefully I'll get a message back from the team soon and will post a message in the game discussion forums with whatever news they tell me. Hopefully they will sort it for next week


It's almost 2am here in the K and I need to retire to my bed. So there won't be any more moderation until I get up in the morning. Please continue to post comments. I'll moderate then as soon as I get up.

For some reason, my previous post was redundant (according to this site). I wanted to say that I have a problem with timed games, and this one seems to be timed.)

I would like to thank all of you who have made it possible for us to try games free. Also, thanks to all of you who post "fixes" for those of us who have "mechanical" problems.

I also want to let everyone know that the owner of the Caiman site (my favorite source for free games) died last week, and the site has been taken offline. Apparently, there are some "customers" who intend to get it back up and running again by the end of the year.

I won't be downloading today's game


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

Hi, Rudy Caiman actually passed away Feb 2010. The site was taken off line for a short time out of respect for Rudy, but has since been operating though the actual site hasn't been updated since Rudy last did it. One of Rudy's colleagues and the son of rudy are working on moving the site to a new provider at this time. Yolou can find loads of Match three games over at MyPlayCity.

Around the world in 80 days for a more manly version of this jewels matching game! However, if you are a girl, around 12, or have a girl that age, this game would be perfect for her.

About the GGOTSD (Game Giveaway of the Short Day) I would guess that the file & activation server(s) will keep at it the whole 24-hour day.
When the web server removes its file link four hours early the file itself will probably still be downloadable from
http://files.giveawayoftheday.com/Lills.zip
and activation will probably be possible up to the normal end time.
(The previous Sunday I tried downloading the game after the web server had removed the link and the file downloaded normally.)

BTW Whiterabbit, I missed the rag doll game previous weekend but not because of the short day but because the file server did not find any files (neither game files (Windows and Mac) nor the main GOTD file). (I thought it was a permanent error, as in prematurely removed files, as I had never before got any error message from the (G)GOTD file server. But it was probably a temporary glitch as on Tuesday it happened again and that time I made a retry an hour later and actually got the file.)


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

Thanks for the info Sheepskate

I got this the last time it was offered. It's twee enough to induce a toothache and it is very easy. This is a great offering for kids and beginners, but experienced players will get bored pretty quickly.

This seems to be an improved version from last October, as the previous version wouldn't play on my Win 7 x32 computer, but this version works just fine! Like the cute graphics! :)

So basically this is an 'entry level' match 3, without advanced tricks ? KOOL, perfect for me to share with some elderly friends I have been trying to wean away from the stock games shipped on our pcs'-
There really is a place for some of these easy type: see/do/complete-
Think about it for a second please, some of you more 'advanced gamers' probably do know some folks perfectly suited for some easier entertainment, hey - turn them onto to this game- fall/winter is arriving in some places & inside entertainment is tops !
Thanks goes out to FLY & GGOTD for this 1 for sure-


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

Check out the free games project over in the forums. There's a games synopsis that lists around 1500 free games of all genres plus in the game discussion forums you'll find posts that begin with a week number then a title called 'Good Games to Grab', previously it was called 'Free games for the Weekend' We are presently on Week 159. There are some superb games ranging from entry level games right through to more advanced games. well worth a look see.


Free Games synopsis:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4534


Game Discussion forums:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/forum/17

Installs to C:\LILLS\GAME by default. After installing, I opened Windows Explorer, dragged the LILLS folder into the C:\Games folder, and was still able to run the game with no problem. I'm not a big fan of software that wants to create an unnecessary root-level folder, so it's nice this trick works.

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

Sorry Guiseppe, had to delete the rest of the info you kindly posted. The giveaways are supposed to be 24 hour only giveaways, so to reveal a way of perpetuating the game once the giveaway is over isn't allowed. you have to be fair to those that are giving it away. That said you were 100% correct.

Another heady cool brew for warm lovely East Coast weekend. But I digress...

Ok Win 7 x64 Ultimate. Made shortcut. Nvidia GTX 460. iCore 7.
Has the basic options. Very simple little Match 3 but plays fair
for genre. Some Match 3 are way hard when comes to stacking the deck as AI places fresh pieces. A definite for younger set but as a short pleasant in/out game what's to hate.
Do a couple fast levels, feel satisfied, move on. Return at leisure.
Thanks guys.


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

True!

Hi. It is said that this game is normally $6.99 but at ...link removed..... it is always free. ?

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

The sites where you find free games such as MyPlaycity, Gametop and Falco Software are free becasue the sites pay the developers of the games sums of money for allowing them to give the games away. There's always a price to pay (apart fro m money) whether it be insiduous advertising on the site, your browser being opend up at the site, tool bars being installed or home pages being hijacked. None of those game are truly free, though some come very close to being.

I've removed the link you posted because as soon as I clicked on it I got a Red:Red:Red:Red warnings from WOT. If anyone wants to check the site out it's called Falco software. I've come across some of their games before such as Falco Chess Falco Pinball, Falco Tetris and Falco Checkers etc

Ok, tried the game on my desktop computer and worked very much better, I've tried Game Booster once before on the laptop and seemed to do nothing at all, so maybe it's the laptop. Game seems to play ok. As mentioned in the main review, its a pretty bog-standard match 3 game, with very little in the way of 'bonus features/power ups' to raise it above the norm.

One thing I would say is that (for me) it started very easy - I played through the first 10 levels averaging around 2 minutes per level and then all of a sudden, level 11 (3-1) turned vastly harder and took 18 minutes to complete! This was quite enough to deter me from playing further. There should be a much steadier increase in difficulty than this. Personally I won't be playing it again, thanks for the opportunity to thy it out, though.

I like match 3 games because they are relaxing to me. This is a good beginner match 3 game(for children). Having said that, I played 20 levels before stopping. The music and repetitive sounds started becoming annoying even after turning them down to a lower level. The bonuses were OK, but I would have liked better control over them. Some were automatically applied during the game. I think having some other puzzles or challenges might have kept my attention longer, but that is why this is a good beginner game.

This game is cutesy but the kids love it!! Go GameGiveAway!!

Probably one of the most boring match 3 games I have played. I got as far as level 2-2 before calling it a day. There is some corruption between the graphics and mouse pointer when the black info boxes are on screen, and in fact this can be seen in whiterabbit's last screen grab. The English translation is amusing in places and nonsense in others.

Stephen (whiterabbit) says it installs to C:/Program Files (x86)/Lills whereas it actually installs to c:\games\Lills\Game\, or at least it does here as it's a WinRAR self extracting file.

Please note that today's giveaway ends four hours early again. I don't know why they are ending earlier than usual, so make sure you download and install at least four hours before the usual end time.

Regards

Whiterabbit

Installs and runs ok, but painfully laggy on my core2duo/win7 laptop, for some reason. Appears to use quite a lot of cpu and memory resources.

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

try using Game booster. it free's up about 405 of your RAM. Hopefully that will solve the problem. There may also be a conflict with something else you are running in the background

Ran this when it was last year's offerring: A bit too easy, even for me, but free is free, right?

Looking forward to a good adventure game, should be once coming soon.

THANKS for all your hard work and patience with some of us lol

Enjoy the weekened!

Tim

Well I like match 3 games with a challenge, this one has none. This game is far to easy, very boring with nothing really to keep you wanting to play. I shut the music off because it was driving me crazy but that it not unusual for me. Would possibly be good for kids.

Mouse cursor disappear in Full-screen mode

I started the game, but I can't see the mousecursor, it's really annoying, it made me stop the game. However, it seemed interesting.

good game, but the interface and topic gives the impression as if it is a match three game for little girls :)

Clock is set to 20 hours instead of 24 like software. No wonder it's always broken. Good thing I am getting it when it starts 2am my time. geeez guys fix the site already. thanks for all that you do.

For some reason the game giveaways have been finishing early over the last three giveaways. Make sure you install the game as soon as you download to prevent dissappointment in case you are one of the few who download then install later in the day. They seem to be ending four hours earlier.

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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 why your reasons 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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Problems installing, activating and running today’s gamel>:


If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following - for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” Check to see if your internet explorer isn't offline (thanks to MrSnoozles/Mike and GMMan for that fix). If the previous suggestion doesn't work go check out previous comments from the last several weeks and look for comments from GMMan and Mike. They have also posted their possible fixes for this problem.

Mike suggests that you check to see if Internet Explorer is offline (even if you use firefox). If it is make sure that it's online thn try again. I’ve always tried re-booting my modem and/or router with some success, though Mike has said that doing that does nothing. Still, it’s worth a try if all else fails.


If you are getting the black screen problem right click on the games executable and select properties then click on the compatibility mode and select the disable visual themes. This should fix the problem, if not try disabling the display scaling on higher dpi settings and disabling the desktop composition.

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember that XP uses DX 9 or earlier only, Vista uses DX 10 or before and Win 7 DX11 or before). Also try updating your graphics drivers. The main two chip manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI both of which offer driver downloads for free. Just go to the respective manufactures home page and you'll find a link to the driver download page. To find out which graphic card or graphics chip your computer uses type in Dxdiag in the search field (Vista or Win 7) or the run command (XP); this opens up the DirectX diagnostics panel. click on the display tab and look to the left panel. You should easily see what graphics card or chip you are using. (This is required information when selecting the correct download from the developers site).

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Installationl>

Today’s giveaway downloads as a 31.3Mb zip file that unpacks to two files; a read me that contains the terms and conditions (previously we were given a registration code for this game, but today’s version the activation is included with the set up file) . There’s also a dual activation and set up file. The game installs to :


C:/Program Files (x86)/Lills

The game plays okay on XP Pro 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit and Home Basic 32 bit and Win 7 Ultimate and Pro 64 bit. There's no shortcut installed to either the desktop or start menu programs list. To uninstall the game just delete the installed file manually becasue there is no uninstaller provided. (I think this may be removed to save on bandwidth)

Introductionl>:

Lills was originally given away back in late October last year. It received an average welcome with 56% of community members out of 311 giving it a thumbs up. You can check the 23 comments made HERE . Also there’s a video of game play HERE

Somewhere lost in time and space, in the middle of nowhere live a tiny people known as the Lills. They live in lush green grass, rejoicing in the sun as blissful as children. But without warning, the Dark Witch arrived and kidnapped their princess. Life as they know it has ended, so they must save their beloved Princess to restore harmony.

Reference accessed HERE 30th Oct 2010

The gamel>:

This is a cute-ish match three with anime style intro' graphics. The game play is the same as your standard 'match three' game where you create groups of three or more blocks to remove them. As you remove blocks you collect magic powder that gathers to the right of the playing field. This is the spells resistance meter. The witches spells show as pink/violet and spells resistance as green. When the green part of the indicator grows you gain the advantage, and conversely when your green indicator shrinks the black witch gets stronger. You win when all of the black witches indicator is removed from the meter. The longer you take to complete the level the more the black witch grows in strength (that is, the violet/pink indicator grows bigger). The faster you remove blocks the more magic powder you will gain and therefore the faster your green indicator will grow and swamp the black witches indicator. Once the witches power has been overcome the level ends.

The spell force has x2, x3, x4, and x10 multipliers. The higher the multiplier, the faster the green indicator fills. If you create matches of four or more you are awarded a spell shield which decreases the advantage of the black witches spells (that is the violet/pink indicator shrinks). You start with three lives and can earn an extra life when your score reaches half a million points. Apart from the spell shield and life power ups there are three more called The Bubble which is awarded when you reach x10 multiplier. It instantly removes twelve blocks randomly from the playing arena. The points that you earn from the removal of these blocks is multiplied by three. The Whirl wind is rewarded for creating a certain number of four or more chains. The Whirl wind removes nine blocks from the arena and any points that are created as a result of these blocks being removed are also multiplied by three. Finally, the Slow spell which as you’d guess slows down time for five seconds. In this time, your spell force grows faster (the green indicator) whereas the black witches violet/pink force slows down. To earn the Slow spell you need to earn quarter of a million points.

At the end of each level you get a statistics window that tells you your score, a breakdown of how you scored in that level and a comparison with the top scorer in that level. You can set up multiple profiles; If a family member or friend has scored better you will see the time it took them to complete the level below your own time. If you manage to beat the best score you’ll be congratulated and replace their name in the high score portion of the stats window. In the options menu you can adjust sounds and music as well as toggle full screen to windowed mode/ There’s also a toggle to turn on the help prompts. This is on by default and will bring up small information boxes whenever something new is introduced. When starting the game be careful not to click on start if you've already got a game in progress otherwise it will overwrite it and you'll have to start again. :( There's a level progress map (see link to slideshow below and the first image above) which shows the number of levels, which is 100. It looks like there’s some changes made every 25th level (i.e. at level 25, 50 and 75), but I can't conform this as I've not played past the 25th level.


Controls:l>:

Mouse controls the movement of pieces
Esc – pause - also brings up options menu


Images & Videol>:

You can see a slideshow of about twenty images HERE. There’s also a video introducing the game with the intro graphics and some game play HERE .




System Requirementsl>:

Unless you are using a computer that’s over 10 years old the system requirements should be easily covered.

• -Windows 98/ME/XP/Vista (it also works in win 7)

• Pentium III processor

• 256 Mb RAM

• 50 Mb hard drive space

• 32 Mb video memory

• Sound card

• At least DirectX 7 (unless you have an OS pre XP you will have at least DX 9)

Conclusionl>:


There’s nothing special about the game IMO, with only a few bonuses I personally would get bored very quickly with this game, but it does have some appeal. I did find the music a little annoying after a while. Some may find the background sounds inappropriate as well because you get belches and farts interspersed with standard gaming music There’s also an annoying cutesy giggle that starts whenever you hear any of the above noises.

I’d suggest to the developer that they add more bonuses and reduce the amount of points you require to gain a new life or at least add another life award at around a quarter of a million. I’d also increase the amount of time you get when you are awarded a whirlwind power up. Five seconds isn’t very long for attaining quarter of a million points. At least add another five or ten seconds to the power ups life span. On average I scored just over five thousand points for each level I completed. Without scoring multipliers it would take 100 levels to gain a new life or 50 to gain a whirlwind power up. That’s a total of two for the whole game. You should be working on gaining one of those power ups at least every other level. I doubt I’d be playing the game for so long unless it was improved.

Overall I'd say it was a game worth downloading, but it’s not one of the top-end match three’s in my opinion; partly because there’s few extras included in the game, it’s just a basic match three with crisp graphics. I’d give it a 6 out of 10, but only because I like match three games and it’s not already free from the usual free sites. :lol:

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Additional Informationl>:

You will find 36 free match three’s over at Gametop and almost 70 over at HERE. Do remember to watch out for tose check boxes that need to be unchecked, otherwise you may find your home page has been redirected or you’ve got a tool bar added to your browser. Gametop is the one to really be wary of whereas MyPlayCity games are mainly free of such practices, but not altogether. All games from these sites also open your browser to their respective home pages when you close the game down but the practice is innocuous. Just close the browser and it’s done. Both sites have some excellent match three games for free plus loads more from most other genres. MyPlayCity has a lot more premium games than Gametop, which seems to have lost quite a lot of games since they updated their site last year.

You can still get Realore’s free game, which is usually available each Friday and over the weekend. This week’s free game is Turtle Odyssey which you can download HERE. Sandalot’s free game of the week (which changes on Monday) is a strategy adventure called Eye for Design which you can download HERE. Unfortunately Sandlot has been bought out by Digital Chocolate and will cease their download service from the beginning of November. The free game of the week will continue until then (I think). If the games follow the usual pattern the next game should be an excellent match three game called glyph which will be available from Monday. You can pick up on what game will be available via the forums, just go to the game discussion forums and look near the top of the stickies list and you’ll see the Sandlot and Realore threads.

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