Thank you for the game. I downloaded the trial version of this game and I'm already addicted to it.

Samurai Last Exam is pretty much a memory game. I think if I played a lot of levels all at once, I could get everything memorized, but if I want to play a level or two a week, it will get very frustrating. For me, it's just too much work.

No problems with installation. It installed easily & runs great. I like the graphics, too.

Now that I know we can leave comments several days later, I will leave them more. I don't always have a chance to try the game out on the giveaway day.

Thank you!

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

Thank you for your feedback. :lol: I don't check the comments during the week that often, so it may take a few days for your comment to be moderated. Please don't let that put you off posting comments days or even weeks later. They are always appreciated.

Regards

Stephen aka Whiterabbit

Thanks for the game, it's fun.
The questions of customer in the game and the choices to answer is very humour too.

Installed and plays on Vista 32 bit.
This is more a memory game than a time management game.
I thought the game was just so-so until I got to level 10. Level 10 was when I was able to buy the "speed" power-ups. I'm glad I didn't quit after playing the first few levels (I'm on level 13). I think a lot of people give up on the game because of the quirky (slow) clicking in the early levels. People might keep playing if they knew more about the later power-ups.
The game plays slow until you buy the 2nd tier of power-ups. After you have those power-ups, you can play more quickly (and you can go back and replay the earlier levels where you didn't get 3 stars).
I don't like the custom cursor and I'm glad I can un-check that in options. The artwork is nice.
Thank you GGOTD and Vasilek games.

downloaded samurai fine on windows 7. just tried easy mode, first 6 levels so far and find i cannot remove wrong ingredients off the board. i can serve other customers out of order but this upsets customer first in line and they frown and give you less money when you give them their order. you can also make sushi ahead for other orders if you are fast enough and put them in the box to the left, but so far i was only able to do that once.
i am one who likes time management games and find this one to be pretty fun so far but i can see boredom coming up if all i get to do is prep sushi. im already forgetting recipes without prompts so i guess it's good for memory challenges. the first power up doesn't seem to be optional but the following ones were for me.


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

Thank you for your feedback.

It's an OK game with a few quirks to be worked out:

Mouse response is CRUCIAL for a time management game and it seems to be very "light" on accepting mouse clicks. Sometimes you need to click on an ingredient more than once to finally pick it up to put it in the building area.

Some sushi pieces look very similar to others, and it can be confusing (and frustrating) when building and serving customers. For a few pieces you need to click to view the recipe and make sure you're building the right thing (eg. non-spicy and spicy versions of the same piece).

I don't understand the need for questions and social interactions with customers. I've had customers come in with an order, and then change into a question right when I click on them. It seems like a distraction and takes away from the game.

The intro movie should only be shown once. It's annoying to have to skip it and click through it every I start up the game.


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

Thank you for your feedack. Good point about the intro movie.

Why do I always get an error message saying "Failed to Connect" when I try to install the game after downloading? Since we got my son's new computer (Windows 7 64 bit), we get this error message (which has "Game Giveaawy of the Day" at the top of the window) every time we try to activate a game. We've tried multiple times with some games after downloading (sometimes downloading more than once), and we are connected to the internet, but as soon as we click on the "setup," we instantly get an error message "Failed to Connect."

Are we missing something? We would like to try some of these games.


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

When this message appears reboot yuor modem and/or router. If that doesn't work clear out your internet cache. I've had the same problem on numerous occassions and one of those fixes always works. If they don't check your security settings. Sorry this was too late for todays game. You can get the game 24/7 for free from MyPlayCity (MPC). :) See my review @1 for link to MPC

I'm unfortunately a bit under the weather and haven't played very far in, but this game (so far) appears to be a fun, challenging time management game.

I'm definitely drawn in by the art style. It fits the story and setting of the game very well and is also quite unique (though I could be mistaken; I haven't played a lot of casual games). However, the one cutscene I encountered seemed a bit bland compared to the colorful in-game screens.

I once again can't really comment on the sound as I had to keep my volume very low.

Most importantly, I'd say the gameplay is both fun and challenging. I did fumble around quite a bit trying to remember recipes, but then again, I've never prepared sushi. Remembering recipes isn't really an issue, as the game allows you to view your cookbook at any time. Some of the powerups I've seen so far seem a bit redundant, as they also allow you to view recipes (although these ones remain visible while you're playing, and the cookbook cannot be kept open while you prepare food).

I sometimes find myself wishing I could hold more than one ingredient at once, but perhaps that would make the game too easy. I found that even on medium difficulty, the game gave me far too much time to complete a level. The only reason you'd want to hurry is if you were shooting for a better score. Perhaps it gives less time as you go on.

Once again, I'll say I wish there was an option to keep the game from looking stretched on a widescreen monitor. But I have to admit, this game can easily get away without having that option. It looks quite nice even stretched.

I keep all the games I get from here, and I can definitely see myself playing this again sometime soon.

Thanks GGAOTD and Vasilek Games!

On an unrelated note, I'd just like to say I never stopped and thought about why games were being given away here. Now that I know how much everyone's comments help the developers, I'm certainly willing to leave a quick review. It's the least I can do when I'm being given some free entertainment. :)


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

Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated.

Ok, the graphics are ok, the music is annoying (even tho I turned it down in the options as I do with all the games I play) and I had to turn the sound down also to get rid of it! The actual game play is about the same for any TM game. As others have said, TM's are not for relaxing play but they have their uses and except for the music this is a keeper. Thanks GGAOTD and the games developers.

BUG: on my portable vista it showed "click here to buy powerup" in the bottom left corner...
overall, not my style of TM game, played 3 levels and quit...
if anything, id say u have to invest in those 3 first levels so a player doesnt quit

I hate sushi.

I'll pass on this one.

-Jeeem-

Not working for me. My monitor says the video is out of range. Are there any command line arguments to have it start in windowed mode?

Thanks for the giveaway, time management titles arent on here much,so its nice to see one. Wish it was less of a memory one though and more of a proper time management

First off, thank you for the game! I am not a huge fan of time management games, this one is not too bad! I like the idea of the Sushi restaurant. I thought the graphics were not bad. I found it quite frustrating with selecting an ingredient. Many times I thought I had it and did not. I wish the developers would have tested this out a bit more. It seemed to slow me up.

By right clicking you can clear your ingredient board and start over. I did like that, but I found it hard switching out one ingredient if I got an order wrong. I do wish there was a way to do two orders at once, but I think as time went on that might have been a bit too hard. I agree on the music, it got pretty old. Perhaps if they did something softer like others have suggested.

I get tired of the fast food type TM games so this was a unique twist! I hope that more people who try out the game post their thoughts too! We might end up helping more!


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

Thank you for your feedback

Thanks for the free game!

I have no idea why this is getting predominantly thumbs down. It's fun and cute. I might have had people leave money automatically or made it so you can put the ingredients together instead of them automatically building themselves once all present, like the tamogachi ds version, but it's still fun and cute.

I really enjoy time management games and am enjoying this so far.

Some suggestions for the game developers to consider. One thing that I really wish you had the ability to do is to clear your board with one movement. I have had more than one instance where it says I have an ingredient that can't be used to make sushi and I end up having to remove the ingredients one by one and start over. This is frustrating and takes so much time that I can't get done in time to get the stars I want and end up just restarting the level. I would definitely like to be able to just clear the entire board and start over. Perhaps this is a power up I have yet to unlock.

In early levels I wished that I could be able to make more than one piece of sushi at a time, but as I go up levels it becomes part of the challenge. Although I do wish that I could wait to serve the sushi. So that when a customer has 5 pieces of sushi. I could finish the first piece and go to making the second piece. It becomes repetitive and annoying to have to serve each piece before I can start making the next piece of sushi.

Overall though I am very much enjoying the game and want to thank game giveaway and the game developers for offering this free today.

And thank you WhiteRabbit for doing a review even though this type of game stresses you out.


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

haha, thank you Tailte, and thank you for the feedback. It is comments like yours that we need to create a site that developers will want to come to. With a potential audience od thousands, it's an ideal platform for developers to get feedback and new ideas for their games.

Never did like Sushi ROFL! but I'll certainly give this game a try! If I can understand the Jap Yap! :)

# 16 Steven

I appreciate your answer, however, this game does not instill that feeling in me, it just seems to be out of place!

It is still Samurai and Sushi to me...

The game feels too repetitive.
In other time-management games I've played, the way to get ahead was to batch operations so that I would do the same piece for multiple customers before moving on to a different step. This game requires all operations for one order to be finished before I can start on the next order. This means that it is just an exercise in rapidly clicking on the blinking pictures.

I encounter a problem, where on computer based Chinese traditional, with they keyboard english us, the software would not accept any keyboard entries for creating a user. so game is unplayable. on english version of windows its ok.

I am downloading the game now but due to dial up, it will take a while. I did want to answer another persons question about what sushi has to be with being a Samurai. To become a Samurai, you have to master 18 disciplines. These include the martial arts as well as other arts that seem unrelated to help blend and balance the personality and create harmony. Among these 18 disciplines are meditation, flower arrangement and (yes) Sushi, which is a discipline within itself and requires years of training and apprenticeship.
I look forward to trying this game.

KOOL! Thanx WR-UK, GGOTD and especially Vasilek Games. Cheers.

I didn't like this game very much and uninstalled it after a couple of levels.

While I'm not a huge fan of TM games, they're okay. I enjoyed both King's Smith games a lot, and thought I'd give this one a try too.

The problem I had is that it's more of a memory game than TM. I only played the first couple of levels on the middle difficulty setting, but there aren't any decisions for the player to make. In King's Smith, for example, players have to decide whether to buy an item to repair, how much an item should be improved before selling, which order to repair weapons etc. etc. There is nothing like that in this game. Here the object is to make sushi dishes for customers from the ingredients at hand. You can only serve the first person in line, take their money, then move on to the next one. Players have to remember the recipes (though the ingredients are highlighted in the first level) and assemble the dishes. The trick isn't to be efficient in serving everyone on the restaurant, but to remember how to assemble each order.

Players cannot make several identical orders at the same time to be more efficient. They have to be created one at a time. There's really no 'time management' to the game, it's more just clicking ingredients before the clock runs out. Not my cup of tea. (No pun intended.)

Thanks for offering this game though! It's always fun to try something new.

BTWQ, this was one of the rare times when I had a chance to play the game the day it was given away. Usually it's a day or two until I get around to giving the game enough time to make a judgement on it. Would it help the site if I gave my impressions a few days later? Do the developers read these comments days after the giveaway ends? Just wondering.



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

The comments section is always accessible, so yes, please do leave a comment once you've played the game. Thank you.

I remember seeing this game on the Lopens site (devloper of Trio). I found their descriptions amusing. Will definitely try.

#6 bry68

I ran the file through Malwarebytes and it came out clean, and WOT(Web of Trust)did not flag the sites homepage!

Another note, I also did away with the in game cursor...

Now I remember why is wasn't memorable!

The Graphics were just okay. The music got on my nerves. I didn't see a point to the story. It has 5 paths of 40 levels for you to take, the last one being what they called difficult, the first one being easy. It was just to repetitive to me!
They could have improved upon the game by having chaining bonuses(you could only do one sushi on your board at a time) like the Dash games, changed up the music instead of it being the constant same old, same old, and gave it more of a story line! The power ups were just okay!

The only reason I would leave this on for a bit yet, is the price is right!

I am a sucker for Oriental based games, but can anyone tell me what Sushi and a Samurai have to do with one another!

Hi Whabbit

Suki


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

haha i was thinking exactly the same thing re: Samurai and sushi, :lol:

Gee, if I wanted to rush around on a time constraint, I'd stay at work, not play a game! It's great if you like this genre of game, I prefer not to play these.

If you would like to see a video of the game, here is a link to BFG:

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/8620/samurai-last-exam/index.html

I thought this looked familiar, I beta tested it, but don't remember much...

Does't run on my XPsp3 (with all the updates and runtime/ dotnet/ .Net framework installed.

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

It runs on my Win XP Pro 32 bit platform with no problems. all my drivers are up to date and SP3 is installed.

game home page blacklisted by malwarebytes

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

Did you check the game for any malware? It installed fine on my system, with no warnings from my security software. The giveaway site was flagged as a red site by Site Advisor for several months a few years ago despite the offending file (which someone had posted in the freeware library) being removed immeiately on discovering it was bad. It took Site Advisor nearly nine months before the red was moved back to green; which probably caused some people to not visit the site. Sometimes those warnings should be taken with a pinch of salt, though I don't mean to down-play such warnings. They at least give us fair warning that something could be amiss. Careful browsing in such cases is the order of the day. :)

I installed this game on w7 Ultimate 64 bit and got a compatibility message after. I tried playing the game and it worked fine on the first 2-3 levels then crashed after messing all the ingredients up in many orders. Was a boring kids game anyway so no worries just thought I'd let others know to save experimenters like me time.


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

It worked fine on my Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit platform for several levels. I won't be playing it further though as TM games are not my thing. Still, I wouldn't say it's a kids game.

Whiterabbilt. I'm with you on TM games. I get too stressed out. Like you, I want to somewhat relax while a play a game. I'll get this one anyways because sometimes I have friends over who like TM games. Thanks!!

Just posting to say thanks for the giveaway, time management titles rarely feature on here so its nice to see this one, I think I may have tried the demo for this some time ago, well worth a look if you like TM games ;o)

Well this is certainly interesting. This is the kind of game that you would think comes from Japan and is too strange to publish in America! Or in any other country for that matter. The objective of the game is enough to keep me playing more, I could care more or less if the game works like it should. No problems whatsoever playing the game! Interesting concept!

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 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. Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment. Thank you.

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Today’s game, 'Samurai Last Exam', is a Japanese based time management game with a a sushi restaurant theme. It has colourful graphics and (as with all Time Management {TM} games) the need of a fast clicking hand and a relatively fast mind. Unfortunately of all arcade games, TM games are the ones that I play the least because I prefer games that let me unwind; whereas TM games tend to instil a feeling of unrest and manic movement and always leave me mentally exhausted, :lol: You can be assured though that I will be giving today’s game giveaway an unbiased review once I've caught up with some sleep. The following review uses images and other information taken from the developers site (though I have uploaded over 70 of my own images to my photobucket account and linked it in the Images section). I've written the installation section and most of The Game section (apart from a section of the game summary), and the conclusion. The developers contribution has been referenced to Vasilek Casual Games, that is the introduction, the images that you can see in the post and part of the game summary as well as the features list.


Installation:

Today’s game, Samurai Last Exam downloads to a 32.6Mb zip file that unpacks to a read me and a dual activation/set up file. The game installs to C:\Games\Samurai_1.3 by default, but you can change the install path during the installation wizard if you wish to install the game to another path.

For those new to the Game Giveaway project, you have to install the game within a 24 hour period starting on the 30th April 2011, at 12 midnight Pacific time (1am Mountain time, 3am Eastern time, 8am GMT, 2pm Dhaka, 6pm Sidney/Melbourne, 8pm Fiji) and ends at the same time on the 1st May 2011. Simply click on the dual activation and set up file and follow the on screen prompts to receive a free fully activated arcade game.

The installed game is 35.3Mb in size. There is no shortcut installed to either the desktop, or the start menu programs list, and there is no uninstaller; however that doesn't matter because the game is free standing, which amongst other things means it can be uninstalled simply by deleting the installed folder. There should be no registry entries to bother about either. You can find a short tutorial in the Giveaway game discussion forums that tells you how to create a start menu/programs list shortcut; however that was written for XP users. The game works in Win XP, Vista and Win 7.

Introduction:

What is a dream of every young Samurai, after finishing training in the temple of Sakura? Of course to beat the dragon! And to prove his loyalty to the teacher. Also, to serve people (while scoring off the dragon). And here is the long-awaited moment! The teacher is sending his disciple to the Last Exam. But what is it? There is no dragon, but, there are people, who want to get … sushi! You can’t disobey your teacher, so, there is only one thing to do: to cook sushi. The exam is divided into 4 stages. At the beginning of each next stage a pupil receives a message from his teacher, containing the key to successful passing. The samurai is to develop more and more new qualities to pass the Exam. The number of customers is increasing and your exam is not limited only to cooking sushi, you must be polite and tactful when talking to the customers!

Reference http://vasilek-games.com/index.php/en/products/windows/9 accessed 29th April 2011

The Game:

The option menu is fairly basic, with a toggle for full screen to windowed mode, a custom cursor toggle and the usual music and sound sliders. The music gets very repetitive quickly, so you may want to turn it right down at some point in the game. Unless you are adept at editing executables, there is no easy way of changing the music except for turning it off and playing your own music via your media player.

When your first customer arrives until you recognise the various images of sushi meals, or until you can buy and use power ups you just need to hover your mouse button over the meal that the customer is thinking about. It will briefly list what you need as a pictogram. You then have to click on the ingredients and drag them to the preparation board. If you have time you can prepare spares which can be stored in the container next to the preparation board. Once you’ve completed the meal drag it to the customer, who will then leave the Sushi bar leaving behind a small pile of money. You can use the recipe book that is situated just above the green pause button too see what is required as an alternative to hovering over each customers thought bubble. Clicking on the recipe book will show you all the available meals and what ingredients are needed. At the start of the game there are only three meals available , but this list increases as you progress through the levels and unlock more recipes.

If you don’t serve a customer quick enough you will lose that customer and valuable money. The blue dragon to the left of the screen is the indicator as to how near the end of the level you are. As you make more meals and collect the money, the dragon will gradually turn red. When the dragon is fully red the level will end. Each level is timed. If the dragon is still partially blue when the time ends you lose the level which fails to unlock the next level. Thankfully the time to complete a level is generous. You can win the levels with one two or three stars. Three stars is the best. You get five minutes to complete the three star win, 20 minutes to complete the two star win and a lot more time to complete the three star win (I didn't bother to check the third setting)

The quicker you serve customers the higher your score will be. This is important because this will determine what power ups you can purchase at the end of a level. Initially at level 2 you are introduced to three power ups, but there are twelve to unlock. The first power up is called ‘Quick Memory, which allows you to view a recipe without looking at the recipe book. The first power up costs 1000 credits to purchase. My first level score was 1500 credits, which was relatively low, but I was taking screen captures and taking notes for the review, so you can expect to score more in the first round. The other two unlocked power ups are ‘Retentive Memory ‘ which gives you the option of viewing recipes from the book for several seconds. The power up is activated when you first click on the customer’s order and appears to remain active for the rest of the game . The cost of this second power-up is 2000 credits. The third power up is called ‘Super-Eyes’ which when activated causes all the ingredients to vibrate so that you can see them easily. You have to click on the customer’s order first. All power-ups activate will continue to work. Super Eyes costs 3500 credits.

Occasionally you will get a customer asking a question. To see what they want to ask, click on the question mark. You’ll get a dialogue box opening which gives you several responses. Depending upon which you choose, the customer will be happy and remain, or will leave in disgust. (I’ve captured several of these, which can be seen via the images link below. For example the customer may say:

“It’s a nice day”

To which you can respond by clicking one of the following:

Um
Get off of me!
It’s really tasty!
Yeah fine.

The levels are interspersed with more story dialogue which can be skipped by clicking on the story board.

As you progress through the levels more ingredient’s appear as well as more complex recipes. If you place an unwanted ingredient on the preparation board, you’ll get a message telling you that you can’t cook any sushi due to an unnecessary ingredient. You must remove the incorrect one before the meal will complete.

You can restart a level by clicking on the green pause button to the bottom right of the screen, or you can quit. If you want to return to the main menu click on the pause button and select quit. This opens up a second menu that allows you to either return to the game, go to the main menu or quit the game completely. If you want to create a new profile, of which there is space for 10 you have to return to the main menu.

There are five difficulty levels.

1)...Ashigaru Way (Easiest)
2)...Onna Bugeisha Way
3)...Kensei Way
4)...Daimyo Way
5)...Shogun Way (Most difficult)

I'm not a lover of TM games, but I found the easiest level easy to cope with and was attaining the best results for each of the levels I completed. that is three stars. The difference between difficulty levels is the number of meals you have to prepare. The harder the level, the more you have to prepare to complete the level.

Summary:

• Choose ingredients, dressings and tools, put it on the board and make sushi. Don't know a recipe? Look at your cookbook.
• Don't keep your clients waiting.
• Talk to your clients politely. Don't be rude or you'll lose them
• Power up your samurai by developing his skills! It will not be easy to finish the game without these power-ups as some recipes are quite complex.

Suggestions:

The collision mesh is too precise, you have to click on an item exactly right to pick it up. When you are rushing to complete a meal, this can be very frustrating because it's easy to miss the item.

Power-ups once activated appear to last for the rest of the game, not just one level. Maybe change this so that they last only for a specific number of levels. You'd have to make them cheaper as well.


Images:

You can see a slideshow of around 70 images via the following link:

http://s571.photobucket.com/albums/ss160/Whiterabbit04/Samurai%20Last%20Exam/?albumview=slideshow



Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNDhDESg2ek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgidYmad5Zs

Features:

• 5 difficulty levels

• 40 game levels

• The hero skills improvement

• 30 kinds of sushi

• Original Japanese style of music and art

• The clients are talking to you. Be tactful!

Reference http://vasilek-games.com/index.php/en/products/windows/9 accessed 29th April 2011

System Requirements:

32-bit OS Windows XP/Vista/7
Intel or AMD 1500 MHz or more processor.
DirectX 9 compatible video card with 32 Mb video memory
Screen resolution: 1024x768 or more.
DirectX 9 compatible sound card.
DirectX 9.0 runtime installed.


Conclusion:


The game has a charm of its own; you'll certainly pick up a few sushi recipes if you play this game, lol. In my opinion it's a game for those who love time management games; I think it's too narrow in its game play for anyone other than the TM enthusiast to like a lot, but that said, it's still playable. I am not into these games at all, but I did find playing it on the easiest level tolerable. You get a generous amount of time to complete levels, so there really is no need to manically click away. With the power ups I think it's far to easy a game and soon becomes a little tedious. I do like the simple Japanese graphic, but that's not enough to hold my interest for long. I’d give it a go without the power ups; though I think that it may not be possible because you were forced to take a power up when they were first offered after the second level. Not sure about later in the game. I gave up after level 7. :)

• Graphics, I like the style so despite it looking fairly simplistic I give it a 7 for graphics.
• Music is very repetitive, and although it’s got a Japanese flavour, I’d liked to have heard some mellow Japanese tunes in the background instead of the manic drum beat that we get. 4 out of 10 for the music.
• For game play I’ve scored it a 6 out of 10. It’s passable, but not memorable.
• So… averaging out the scores to one decimal place we get a score of 5.7


Other information:



You’ll find over 40 time management games over at MyPlayCity, including todays game giveaway, just follow the link below:

http://www.myplaycity.com/free_time_management_games/

Do be aware that MyPlayCity have reintroduced toolbars and home page hijacks to their games, but these can be avoided by un-checking the appropriate boxes during installation. Also when you close any of their games down, your browser is opened and directed to MyPlayCity's home page. This is innocuous so don’t worry. Closing the page ends any connection and nothing is downloaded.

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