HI,
I don't have much time to play right now. It downloaded slowly on windows 8, but opened fast. Game play is smooth and graphics are very good. The game seems more interesting so far. You follow one chore at a time. Not sure if whole game will be putting items together or not. will see in future. Thanks for another good game and have a good rest of the weekend!

Downloaded and installed okay on a Win10x64 machine.

A few quirks:
- Zemana AL realtime protection sees both the setup file and the exec file as threats. (just FYI, Avast AV sees neither as an issue)

- If I uncheck "Full Screen" in the game's options menu, a Windows message box pops up stating "engine.exe has stopped working" and the game shuts down.

- The graphics are bright and colorful however, the fonts used in the instruction pop-up bubbles and the writing at the top of the scene is very light and difficult to see unless very close to the screen. Same in the objects that contain writing (i.e., the letter, the book) But that may be just me, due to my eyes not being at their best.

No time to play more tonight, will try to get deeper into it tomorrow.

As always, thank you GGOTD team, MPC and Whiterabbit-uk.

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

Hi jboy

Thank you for your feedback

Hey this is fun. Smooth and the Hint reloads fast to find couple tiny pieces in tutorial. Nice sense of satisfaction when get to figure out what story structure is aiming at. Also like the Brit flavor at start. Colorful and a keeper.
No probs, runs smoothly. Thanks. Given the little mini games 8.5/10 for fans.

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

Hi sludge hound

Thank you for your feedback

i played Snark Busters this summer on Catlady’s recommendation.

i really enjoyed it, and my recollection of it is more favorable than it seems from the notes i took right after playing (below). i deleted the spoilers, especially my notes about what happened at the end. suffice it to say: that’s why there are sequels.

i don’t know if this might help anyone having trouble finding the objects. with fragmented object games, i take a zen approach, scanning the picture for anything that looks out of place. the objects to be collected don’t mesh completely with the background. that said, i get stumped often. i don’t like clicking the hint button unless a game is annoying and i just want to get it over with. so usually, i stop playing and try again later with fresh eyes.

thanks for offering this, and thanks, Catlady, for the suggestion!

Snark Busters 1: Welcome to the Club

ratings on a scale of 1–5:
fun 5
visual/sound 4
challenge 4
storyline 4
overall 4

you are on a quest to catch a snark. not sure exactly what that is, but it travels through mirrors into a sort of parallel reality. it locks the passage after itself, so you have to solve all the puzzles to get the key to unlock the passage and follow it.

very cute. not very challenging—guides you through with sparkles. it was fine, though. it's helpful to keep notes about clues because there's no notebook in the game. some stuff that i failed to note did not turn out to be a problem. for example, i didn't pay attention to the fact that a number i needed was on a poster. no need to retrace my steps to find the info: i was able to guess until i got the correct answer. in one puzzle, i never did figure out how to solve it. i clicked parts and then suddenly had solved it. the puzzle went away before i could see what i'd done.

there's no voiceover audio, and you can fast-forward and rewind through and replay the cutscenes, so i could play while on the phone.

art style is cartoony steampunk. not bothersome. less cartoony than kellie stanford.

music is generally an upbeat can't think of the style (like "putting on the ritz"). it switches to an interesting moody style when you go through the mirror.

there are some hidden objects, but mostly this is a fragmented object game rather than a HOG. you find all the pieces of an item and then use that item to progress to the next room and through the story.

the storyline is strong. it creates a unifying thread throughout the game. probably thanks to that, i was able to get back into the game fairly easily after leaving off partway through for a couple weeks. i think it was relatively quick to play. i found the ending a little disappointing.

I recommend this game!

(System info: WinXP Home SP3 on an Acer Aspire One D250, 2GB RAM, 1.6GHz, 1024 x 600 resolution. I'm getting a new computer soon and am so excited but still love my little netbook and winxp.)

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

Hi tingearl

Thank you for your excellent and in depth feedback; very much appreciated. :)

Great game -- not your usual HOG, but search for fragments to build items to be used to get more fragments. Great puzzle game.
I got it years ago from BFG, as well as the second one 3 in the series.

Thank you GGAOTD and MPC for the offer today.

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

Thanks for your feedback mahaal

Спасибо! Зашла с другого браузера и все получилось, ссылка пришла.Но теперь новая проблема, архив до конца не загружается, останавливается на 100МБ -это только половина архива и загрузка завершена.Пробую еще раз скачать.

...........................................Ведущий комментарий...................................

Здравствуйте Наталья

Сочувствую у вас возникли проблемы до сих пор. Я надеюсь, что она будет отсортирован до конца поддавки? Если не версия MPC в основном та же самая игра. Единственное отличие состоит в флажки вы получите в начале, когда вы устанавливаете игру. До тех пор, как вы уберете те, все остальное то же самое. Вы не можете выбрать, куда устанавливать либо, он всегда идет в папку программных файлов на диске C.

постскриптум Я надеюсь, что мой перевод Google был не слишком ужасны. :)

Hi!!
The game downloaded and installed easily on my Win10 64b laptop.
I have my laptop set at 1920x1080 display with 125% custom display.
I have found that most of their games don't like that 125% and that I have to change it to 100% to play games in full screen mode.
This game, however, opened right up in full screen, but the cursor couldn't "reach" the buttons. I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL to get out of the game. The next time I opened the game I didn't have this problem. Weird.
I do have the crash issue when I try to change the full screen mode in the settings. I have tried using both 100% and 125% display and it happens on both settings. I'm not sure what is causing this.
I was only able to dabble on the game play for a couple of minutes but it seems to be a very enjoyable game and a very nice offering. I will definitely spend some more time in this game during the week.
Thanks for all the work you do keeping this site up and working. :-D

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

Hi Dawn

I had the same problem, though I was trying to play it in windowed mode so that i could use the snipping tool. My other screen capture programs wouldn't capture anything.

keeps saying the setup files are corrupted after i run setup i have downloaded it twice still same thing

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

Hi Claude

Follow the link I've provided in my review above to the FAQ's thread over in the game discussion sticky section of the forums. There area few fixes that should solve the problem, though it's most likely your security that is causing the issue.

I'm not a fan of HOG's but I do love steampunk anything. Downloaded and installed no problem - beyond the 3 unwanted and now deleted icons on my desktop. The music is a bit more circus than steampunk to me. I managed to get through I guess it would be a first level. I'm terrible at finding objects when I know the shape I'm looking for.. parts of objects.. I fail. I found myself waiting for the hint button a long time. The train toy is lovely.. if I go back to the game, it will be for the graphics.. just to see what other steampunk stuff is in there.

Нажимаю кнопку ''загрузить'' открывается окно получить ссылку,ввожу адрес почты нажимаю получить и...тишина,и так уже пол часа

...........................................модератор комментарий...................................

Здравствуйте Наталья

Если вы использовали другие сообщения электронной почты на этом сайте, проверить эти, а также. Первая электронная почта используется тот, что ссылки будут отправлены. Я отправил комментарий на прошлой неделе об этом. Проверьте мои предыдущие сообщения, и вы будете перенаправлены на должность, сделанному поддавки команды относительно этого почтового выпуска.

There's some discussion in the comments RE: malware -- *maybe* this sort of a reality check will help a little bit?...

Security software makes mistakes... it lets malware through & it flags innocent or benign software as threats. The situation would likely be worse, but there are so many people not following best practices [people not installing updates, clicking on suspicious email links & attachments, falling for phishing scams etc.], that many criminals don't see any need to develop newer &/or more sophisticated malware.

Some security software is better than others -- av-test[.]org can give you an idea of how well different brands work. Some security software sees things as threats that other software does not -- one area where there seems a bit more variance is whether it detects spyware/adware, & if so, what it considers spyware &/or adware & related. I think that's the sort of thing that *might* be happening when WR says: "My security did block the installation, so turned it off. I think the adware (non invasive) that MPC add to open your browser to their home page is responsible for this." Unfortunately when security software blocks this sort of thing it often doesn't give you any hint as to why it blocked it, treating something that opens a web page the same as if it was detected installing a back door.

There are 2 main ways that security software detects *suspected* malware -- it looks for & tries to match portions of the software's code to known samples of malware, and it watches, monitors what the software does. I put the emphasis on *Suspected*, because to actually verify that something is in fact malware, security researchers have to do a hands-on analysis. Too few people working in the security field, plus too many malware samples, means that this status quo is about the best we can hope for today.

So where do their malware samples come from? When someone(s) working in security finds something they report it -- they share it. One of the main ways they do that is by uploading samples to virustotal[.]com -- individuals can also upload files & get a listing of what security software, if any, detects a possible threat. One proven problem with this sharing on VirusTotal is that false positives do get uploaded, & those false positives are also often added to the patterns different brands of security software look for -- later on when they've had time to analyze those false positive patterns, hopefully they'll be removed. This is probably why security software might suddenly flag something you've had for quite some time as malware, or why security software might start blocking something it never had problems with.

But we should listen to & trust security experts along with security software, right? Maybe. Income can be related to fame, so making headlines, including when they're based more on hype than fact, can pay well. And for many [maybe even most?] it's just a job. People sell useless security software, & security software as part of a scam or scams. Well known security software companies have been found to add their own spyware &/or adware, & either [spyware &/or adware] often makes your system less secure, introducing new vulnerabilities. In what many feel was a big breach of ethics, one security company teamed up with a financial firm to make money in the stock market -- they set it up to take advantage of the expected decline in stock price when an alleged vulnerability in a company's products was announced. If you think the security folks are all good guys & gals, look up the history of McAfee, & the guy that founded it [there's even a recent movie about the guy].

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

Hi Mike

Nice explanation, thanks for taking the time to write this, very much appreciated. :)

Darn, I was looking forward to trying this game. My Avira gives the same TR/Atraps message and quarantine as above. I have NEVER had a MPC game cause issues upon installation. That's why I trust MPC. This quarantine, however, means that I will not install this game.

The opening sequence is from another game that I can't remember the name of. It will be interesting to see if the entire game is a remake just in steampunk. Great graphics!

I already have this game, from MPC. I enjoyed it, and the sequels, immensely!! Great game for those newer the the genre who don't like to get frustrated or use up all the hints...
I found the graphics were excellent - no dark, dingy rooms that are a challenge for the eyesight. Mini games were also fun, difficult enough to exercise the brain, without frustrating it.
I can hardly wait for further sequels to the game! Or, allowing a reset so it can be played again (if so, with different objects needed to be found? to keep it "different"?)

The first game in 6 years of GOTD which did not install smoothly. The game.exe was put in quarantine by the virus scanner of Avira. Which means blocked and not easy to delete.
Well, installation with Avira scanner off and in another map solved that problem. I played the first part and was surprised by this game. Very well done.
Leave the HOG behind, invest in the storyline and the difficulty of the puzzles and you will have a super game with authentic graphics.

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

Hi daan

Thank you for your feedback.

Hi WR, getting a 404 broken link error when trying to download from the link that was sent. Am I doing something wrong or is the link being "tweaked"? THANKS as always. L

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

Hi Laura

I don't think so. Try getting the email sent again. They have changed something though becaise previous to this week, I've always been able to download the zipped giveaway files before the giveaway via my admin account, but since this week, I've not been able to download any; and have been getting the same error message as you. Only when the game has gone live have I been able to download the game. Thankfully I already had this game via Steam. I don't like downloading games directly from MyPlayCity anymore, so getting my reviews up is going to be more difficult if this continues, that is unless I already have the game. :)

Was unable to install game. Usually, I temporarily disable the anti-virus portion of Eset Smart Security and WinAntiRansom and am able to install the games from this site. Hopefully this will not become normal.

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

Hi Joe

I have the same problem, have been since they introduced MPC games. I think it's the adware that sets mine off (Zemana Antimalware).

Game.exe contains TR/ATRAPS.GEN.

I Know - according to Whiterabbit is this a false positive - but I will not disable my antivirussoftware to install malware.

Sorry - I don't believe in so called false positives - either false or positive but not both - and in this case I go for positive.

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

The game does not have any malware. What is probably setting your security off is the adware that MPC add that opens your browser to MPC's home page when you close the game down. If they did not include this they would not earn cash from the game and therefore it would no longer be available for free. This is how such sites operate.

love these games, also pleased that I could download this one without having to go through all the sharing pages, especially as I don't use facebook or twitter myself

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

Hi Steve

You can use the email option.

I watched a "Let's Play" for this on Youtube not too long ago. This game is everything the review states. So happy to get this as a HOG and steampunk fan.

Thank you for this offer and to Whiterabbit for the nice write up as always. Cheers.

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

Hi Dana

The whole series is excellent.

I was looking forward to play it since I love HOGs, but the Avira deleted the game.exe file during the installing process because it apparently found something malicious in it. Trying to install it a second time didn't help (with the Avira check off), I cannot launch the game either way.
Thank you anyways.

D/l'd and installed fine on Win 8.1. Cute game so far! Having read that it was quite short, I vowed to pace myself and do just a little bit, enough for a quick review, but got hooked :). Finally pulled away to write this :).
Pros: the gameplay is quick and fairly straightforward so far, and the hints recharge quickly. Although few and far between, the mini-games break up the HOG tasks just when they are getting a bit straining.
Cons: The big one is that a few of the pieces are VERY hard to see, at least to these older eyes! I really prefer HOGs that have you find actual objects rather than random little pieces of objects. And while the hints find pieces for me when I'm stuck, I hate using the hints! Some minor nits: The music is VERY repetitive and getting kinda annoying. And I'm finding that every once in a while, the hourglass shows up and you can't do anything for a while; so far it's always recovered, but this is a pretty powerful machine and shouldn't be choking.

Overall, thumbs up; between the recent interesting twist on match 3 with Wizard Land, the different Serengeti, and two adventure/HOGs recently (Kaschey and this one), I've been SO much happier with GGOTD :). Thanks, guys.

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

Hi Neme

Thank you for the excellent feedback. :)

This is such a fun game! Sadly, I already own it and the two sequels, so cannot take advantage of the offer. I recommend it highly to those who enjoy this type of game.

Hi everybody and Whiterabbit-uk. :-)
No problems during download.
Package and files scanned with Win10 Defender, SAS free 6.0.1228, MBAM free 2.2.1.1043, EEK free 12.0.0.6971, gridinsoft antimalware 3.0.66: no problems detected.
No problems during installation on Windows 10 standard/home x64, with DEP always on.
No problems at program startup.
I'm using:
- resolution 1920x1080, color depth 32bit, refresh rate 60Hz.
- custom scaling 150%.

Scans post-installation show also no problems (with the same tools).
The only problem I can see is when I untick the full screen option and the program crashes.

Enjoy it! ;)

Thanks to GGAOTD team, in particular to Whiterabbit-UK/Stephen, to Alawar, BigFishGames and to MyPlayCity for the game!

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

Hi Xilolee

Thanks for the feedback. :)