Good game)

Giveaway of the Day, Thanks for the follow-up.
I'll keep in touch, as veryinterested by this free key ! ;)
(PS : your reCaptcha app to validate my message is a pain in the ***, not working !)

Want to win a key :)

really good ,i need it,lol

Please only post comments about today's game giveaway; other comments either inappropriate, or not about today's game will be deleted at the moderator or administrators discretion; however a little light banter among community members and with the moderator to keep this a friendly place to visit is acceptable and welcomed. All comments not specifically about today's game giveaway will be judged by the moderator and if deemed not appropriate, will be deleted with no explanation. Please see the end of this review for further details about posting comments and links to the teams contact form. The moderation policy and the FAQ's thread can be found over in the forums HERE, thank you.

Sleeping Valley

In Brief

A difficult one life platformer. If you've ever played Super Meat Boy, you'll understand what I mean by difficult, though Sleeping Valley isn't as hard as Super Meat Boy. I lost my only life six times in the first few moments of this game :(

Suggestions:

There are 10 000 keys available for Sleeping Valley; first come first served, though the giveaway team will always endevour to get more keys if all the keys are taken before the end of the giveaway period of 24 hours. The giveaway team have now implemented steps to stop key farming. The Steam community are a lot more aware of these giveaways now, so keys do go very fast compared to last year, so please don't delay, apply for your key now to avoid disappointment.

Once you've had chance to play the game, please give some feedback about Sleeping Valley, for example, what you liked or disliked about it, or how it could be improved from your point of view . If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why. What, improvements, if any, would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality? It only takes a few moments to give some useful feedback. The more community members who do bother, may help to bring more developers to this site.

If you miss today's offer and don't mind playing games via the Steam client you can get the game 24/7 via Steam HERE. It usually costs £2.79/$3.99, or you can get it totally free via Gametop HERE. As with games downloaded from other free game sites (for example MyPlayCity, FreeGamePick, TooMky Games and Jenkat games) , do make sure you uncheck any check boxes during installation of the game to avoid toolbars etc. When closing down Gametop games your browser is opened to their home page. This earns Gametop money, part of which goes to the developer of the game in compensation for giving the game away.

Introduction:

In Sleeping Valley you only have one life to live and it's your job to see how far you can take this cute character on his brutally hard journey. Controls are easy to understand: you can move character with the arrow keys and jump over brutal obstacles by pressing the space bar.

Reference accessed HERE 28th April 2017

Installation:

Once you've found the key key for Sleeping Valley (it should be sent to the email you used to enter the giveaway - it must be the email you first used to sign into the game giveaway site. If you’ve used a throwaway email there may be problems getting a key, because the key may be sent to that email. If you have any problems use the Contact form. You need at least 44MB of Hard Drive space for the games installation. Once activated it will be permanently tied to your Steam profile and you'll be able to install the game at any time, anywhere on any computer, so long as you can validate who you are (usually via emails etc.). If you don't have a Steam account you will first have to download and install the Steam client HERE

Then create a Steam profile/account. Once that has been completed you can input the Steam code that you've received (after completing the form filling) via the game button along the top of the Steam client, (located between friends and Help). From the drop down menu select 'Activate a product on Steam'. This opens a product activation window. Just follow the prompts to complete activation. Once the Steam code has been accepted, the game will be permanently associated with your Steam account and can be installed any time you wish.

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Sleeping Valley to work, please visit the problems section over in the Game Discussion forums, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE

The Game:

Sleeping Valley is an arcade platformer created by indie developer White Dog and was released on October 8th, 2016. Playing the game, I got vibes of both Limbo based on the graphics and color scheme, and Meat Boy for the difficulty. I haven't actually beaten this game, and I will explain why that is by the end of this review.

Believe it or not, the story is actually the high point of this game for me. There is no written story or verbal story, but that doesn't mean the game doesn't have one. From the very beginning you are shown to be chasing after this other white...thing, that looks like you. It provokes mystery and persuades the player to go on further. As you play more you encounter white things that look like you. All of them dead or imprisoned, and it tells the tale of what could very well happen to you. It uses only visuals to tell its story, much like some other games, and I really like it.

The game has very simple controls, and there's nothing wrong with that for a platformer like this, in fact, the simpler the better. The arrow keys control left and right movement, and space is used to jump. That is all fair and good. The game also provides you will the one goal of the game: Avoid white stuff. Short, sweet, and to the point. I like it. When I started playing, I quickly noticed movement felt off, and after a minute or so I finally figured out what it was. Whenever you jump, pressing left or right will cause the player character to move in that direction, non-stop. As it, just tapping the button will make the character continually moving that direction, regardless of if the player is still pressing left or right. It's a bizarre choice and takes some getting used to. I can't say it's necessarily bad, and its foes fit the theme of arcade style platformer, But I think the game could have worked fine with more standard and modern platformer jumping controls.

What about gameplay outside controls? I only got to three areas before stopping, and I dubbed them, in order, the Green Area, the Blue Area, and the Red Area. In the first two areas, the game is fun, fairly challenging, and provides a decent amount of engagement from the player. The screen above shows a point I greatly enjoy in the game. Given the concept of 'avoid white,' you think to do just that. But what about fire? Fire is dangerous, right? Well, not in this game, and I love that they did it. Fire is normally something you avoid in pretty much any game, but here? It's not white, it's okay. It's a concept I wish they would have used more. It does happen earlier too when black objects rain down from above. It's a nice trick since they don't hurt you.

The Red Area is the hardest I encounter, for good reason seeing as it comes after the first two, but it's hard for all the wrong reasons. I've been in a position of power where I was in charge of deciding whether a platforming stage was a good design or not, so I know what to look for, and the Red Area was not designed well. Whereas the first areas employed solid, fair difficulty, the Red Area is full of fake difficulty. Starting out, you are placed in an area where rocks are flying and bouncing off all the walls in every direction. I've restarted several times, and every single time, you have a second to move, or you're dead. And that wasn't just once, checkpoints later on in the Red Area have the same issue. You restart, and if you don't act instantly, you die. Instant death is one of the cheapest tricks for difficulty. It's not hard, it's unfair.

Speaking of the rocks, they are single handily the most aggravating part of the Red Area. Because of their rapid and spontaneous movement compared to yours, they take away all control of the player. You can't avoid them. You can't block them. You can't do anything except pick a god and pray they miss you. Or at least hit you somewhere other than the white. In a platforming game, taking control away from the player is, by far, the worst thing you can do. It takes away all essence of skill and makes the player rely on luck. There is nothing fun about that.

How does the graphics of this game hold up? I honestly have no issues with them.Everything is blocky, objects clip through each other, stuff like that, but I actually feel it works in this game's case. This game clearly isn't going for a modern, HD look to it, and is present and advertised an arcade platformer. In that sense, I think the old style and blocky graphics are a nice charm. Are they perfect? No. Could they be better? Yes. But for what they are, I think they look fine.

When I first started playing the game, I was honestly enjoying it. The first two areas were fun and engaging, and present a good challenge that kept me on my toes thinking. It's by no means the best platformer I've played, but it was just a small little distraction. Getting to the third, Red Area, really killed the game for me, (moderator comment, it did for me too) though. Once I hit that area, I stopped having any fun. It became more about luck and endurance of having to restart than actual difficulty. On more than one occasion, I reach further checkpoints in the red area, only to die, restart, and find myself back at the beginning of said area. Having that happen just kills any motivation to keep playing. On that subject, closing the game removes any and all progress, meaning starting it up again makes you start from the beginning. So you either have to do it all in one sitting or leave the game open.

In the Green Area, I was able to easily get above the level and skip a small portion of it. While it didn't matter much, in the long run, having that happen just shows how unpolished this game is. That, and the typo of the game's name on the title screen. For how little text there is in this game, for a typo on the starting screen, the game's name no less, just shows how little polish and care was giving to this game, and I feel that is my biggest issue here. I can accept bad games, so long as the developer really cares and dedicates themselves to it, but this game didn't show me that. It showed me they made something and wanted to out it out.

Outside of gameplay, the music really kills it for me, or should I say the lack of music. It's a bizarre and honestly bad choice to only include that one ambient track. It just brings the game down as a whole and makes me enjoy it less. It's not even that the music is bad itself, it's just the lack of variety. You eventually go deaf to it because it's never changing.

All that being said, the game is selling for only a mere four dollars, and I was able to get at least an hour out of it from gameplay. If you would like to try it and conquer the dreaded Red Area, then, by all means, go ahead.

Reference accessed HERE, written by Kevin Clenney 13th Oct 2016 Edited version re-posted by Whiterabbit-uk 28th April 2017

Other Reviews, Videos and a Slideshow of images:

You can see Steam community reviews of HERE, and you can see some videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Conclusion:

The game has a decent visual story and the initial stages of the game are well designed, though I found later levels much too difficult. With only one life, and dying frequently this game can get very frustrating at times, for me it was too much and I gave up on it well before the end game. The music becomes very boring after a short time due to the lack of variety. Still, for free this is well worth downloading, especially if you like a challenging platformer.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the developer White Dog for giving away 10 000 keys for this difficult platformer and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case a Steam key.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section, now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', that used to be posted with the review HERE.

The rest of the information that used to be posted here can be found in the forums HERE. I haven't had the time to update certain sections over the last few weeks due to my extended stay away from home (trying to catch up with stuff I should have finished weeks ago including sending out those steam keys to community members that are still owed keys. some members have still not responded. Please check the thread HERE to see if you are a winner. Most of the information posted is still valid and the links that take you to certain deals that no longer exit will still take you to the places where new deals are now live. check out Delenns comments over in the forums. she has been posting details of free game s for the past several months. Finally check out the Important Information section via the first link in this paragraph,especially if you have an account at DOT.emu. The site is closing down in June, so you need to download any game you have purchased via Dot.emu before it closes as they will not be available from June onward.