Please excuse my late moderation. I've been beta testing a new mod for Battlefield 2 which is brilliant and time just disappeared on me.

I've not checked, but I do remember having problems starting this game the first time it was given away, but managed to get it working the second time. Please check the comments sections of both times this was previously given away because there may be fixes posted there. I've posted links to both previous giveaways below in the In Brief section.

The two files that community members are saying are missing are part of Microsoft Visual C app. You'll find details of either how to fix or get downloads via the following links:

For msvcp110.dll click HERE and for the msvcr110.dll click HERE.

Search for the Wonderland:

In Brief:
A basic Hidden Object adventure with a timed and untimed mode.

Today's giveaway was originally given away on the 28th October 2018 HERE, where it received a positive 70% from 37 votes, with 31 comments; and again last year HERE, on August 2, 2020 where it received a positive 88% from 26 votes with 21 comments

You can see a few videos of game play HERE, HERE and HERE.

You can also see other short reviews of Search for the Wonderland HERE (go to bottom of the page).

Introduction:

Explore the eerie locations in the hidden object game Search For The Wonderland! It’s time to dive into the dark yet miraculous world of sinister locations and numerous hidden object scenes! Launch the game Search For The Wonderland if you are not fearful and dive into the depths of gloomy yet picturesque world! What will be more captivating than looking for lost items from the list? So don’t waste a second! Choose any location you like: there are lots of them! Go to the devastated Railway Station, visit the dangerous Doomed Swamps, or appear in the Lost Prison. Or maybe you prefer something gloomier? Then the Sanctuary, dark Crypt or thick Forest are at your disposal! Go to the chosen location and you’ll see a list of items to find. Do your best to find everything the quickest possible and get lots of rewards! If you are stuck, use a hint at the bottom right corner, but keep in mind that if you manage to finish the task without using hints, you’ll get extra rewards and your high score will be better! Choose either the Hardcore mode, or the Relaxed mode.

Edited reference accessed HERE. 28th Oct 2018, reposted 26th June 2021

The Game:
Search for the Wonderland is a basic hidden object game with no storyboard, just hidden object scenes. When booting up the game you can turn off the music via the speaker icon in the top left of the screen and to close the game down use the red button on the top right of the screen Because this is an older HOG if you use wide screen monitors you may/will get a black rectangle on either side of the game (see some of the images below).

There are 66 hidden object scenes all of which are accessible from the outset. You can choose to play in a relaxed or hardcore mode. If choosing hardcore which is the default setting you initially get 50 seconds to find the objects starting with three objects in round one and increasing in number as you progress through the rounds. If you complete the task within the time, you then go to round two, then round three etc. I've not made it past round four so far, so cannot say how many rounds there are in each HOG scene, but from the number of objects within the relaxed mode there should be at the very least five rounds or more.

I think the number of objects you have to find in each round of the hardcore mode increases by two for each round you complete, at least until you get to round fur where the number increased to three extra objects. Round one had three items, round two had five and round three has seven etc. You can use the hint button in both modes. It takes about a minute to recharge, so you'll only get one opportunity to use it in the hardcore mode.

The relaxed mode lists all the items you will need to find and only includes one round. Each time you replay the HOG scene some of the items will be different, but the items always remain in the same place, which makes the game, especially the hardcore mode much easier if you replay the scenes several times.

Conclusion:

I didn’t like the fact that there was no ability to play the game in a window, however the 66 separate hidden object scenes were accessible right from the outset, which for me was a refreshing change from the usual formula of unlocking different scenes by completing the previous scene first. Because the objects in each scene remain in the same place whenever you replay the game, it makes the hardcore mode a lot easier to complete if you replay it a few times (assuming you've got a good memory), Otherwise I found this a bog standard (average) Hidden Object game similar to the original eye spy games when hidden object scenes first came on the scene 20+ years ago; that said, I actually enjoyed this the third time round as the issues that plagued the game when it was first given away appear to have disappeared. The first time this was given away I wasn't able to get the game to work and several other community members reported the same.

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found three hits from 62 antimalware engines (Kingsoft, Yandex & Zillya) . The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to MyPlayCity's (MPC) home page after the game has installed and places a few shortcuts onto your desktop (which can be safely deleted once the game has installed). The installation 'does not' inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to MPC's home page when the game has been installed, it earns MPC some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. Most of the original low level adware that is usually included within MPC games has been removed in the game giveaway of the day version; however, whenever you close the game down your browser will be redirected to MPC's home page. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/23240f2554513e63aac187d2ff2c58f73661cba78087c8e42757a679ff7b6d4c/detection

Other Free Games:
The latest games from Epic Games include Horizon Chase Turbo and Sonic Mania and will be available to add to your EPIC games library until Thursday 1st July at 4pm UK time/11am EST when a new set of games will be available to add to your account. Since Epic Games started to give away games I've accumulated over 270 games not counting duplicates and missing several. Most of the games are either AAA or high end indie arcade games.

Also from Epic, If you play online with friends there's a decent PvE/PvP free FPS game called Scavengers with a coop mode (I checked it out recently and it looks fantastic as well as plays well) and you can still get the clicker RPG Idle Champions as well as other multiplayer games. I've been posting redeemable codes for free chests that contain various buffs and other items for Idle Champions (time limited for 5 to 7 days from the day of posting) over in the forums HERE. They contain various items that boost your heroes abilities and health as well as affect your group of heroes in game, for example potions that boost health or DPS, contracts that can improve armour or weapons already used by the heroes or other contracts that add specific amounts of gold to your bank as well as items of jewellery, armour or weapons that buff your characters stats. I don't usually play clicker type games, but this one is well supported by the developer and has a massive following. I'll be posting codes for as long as I continue to play the game. I've posted some help sheets and links to a game wiki via the above link as well

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. Delenn has been updating these regularly for years now. It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep. Delenn has recently posted details of more Steam games that are temporarily free. One may be until it leaves early access??? - i.e. Tower Ball - Incremental Tower Défense plus a reflex game called Keyboard Killers are still free. Delenn posted details of a free origin came called Battlefield 4 which is available for free if you have an Amazon Prime account (If you like FPS games, it's a brilliant game to own. (not sure if it's still live).
To those who contributed to the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid over on Itch.io, they raised $899,963.91, which was a great achievement.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

The Indie Gala developers freebies are available HERE (latest additions) and HERE (81 games in the Showcase, most full versions). Recent additions include In Between Land Sonya: The Great Adventure, The Last Dream: Developer's Edition, Deep Despair Cube Runner, Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders, Whispering Willows Snow White Solitaire. Charmed Kingdom, Adam Wolfe (Complete Edition), Doodle Devil Deep Space Anomaly ; plus, many more in the showcase secion HERE and the Freebies section HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)