Don't know if anyone reads this stuff this far down the line, but I think I've found a bug: if you alt-tab away from the game to get back to Windows, for some reason, the game gets paused while it's in the background -- as it should -- but won't respond to clicks or keypresses when you return. (Win7 32bit.)


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Thanks for the feedback Tim, much appreciated. Seems similar to the one i mentioned about saves. Maybe they are related?

Enjoyed this game, neat idea to be able to switch the tiles and how they group. Mixing the hidden object game inside with the tiles is also different.I enjoy Playrix games a lot.

Have been playing this game for the past week in my "down time". Really a fun game, crisp pictures, one of the ones I have enjoyed the most. Thanks GOTD.


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Thank you for yuor feedback Sunshine

So a week later and I've found time to get half-way through the game.

I'm finding the game too quick with hints, that is the big thing. There should be a longer delay before it gives hints (highlights tiles), and an option to make the delay very long, maybe 4 minutes.

It would be nice to have higher resolution graphics, but I imagine the graphics were as high resolution as possible when the game was created.

For wide screens, to avoid distortion how about adding columns on the left and right hand side. For me, I never want my images stretched.

I agree, more poses for the characters would be nice. They're sexy, but after seeing them a couple of dozen times in the same pose they seem wooden.

(I like having a mode with no time limit, but a variable speed timer is easy to program, so why not add one for those who like a challenge?)


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Thank you for your feedback Keith. agree with you about the hints recgharging too fast. Makes it too easy.

Great graphics and I love match-3 games but:
- this one is too easy (I'm on level 67 and my children could do it without thinking)
- no time limit, that's frustrating to me!
- click everywhere like a fanatical and it works to refill bonuses and clearing 90% of the board. You should have put a security on this.

Thx for the game.

I love that this game has the hexagon option. I enjoy finding the matches this way. I don't remember having it in another game since Beezle (that was awhile back, eh?)

I noticed this game DOES notice my switched mouse buttons, as opposed to Enchanted Caverns, which did not. Good stuff.

Thank you very much GGOTD and Playrix for this free wonderful game. My family like it...Thanks again.

Just wanted to edit my last comment...

as a postscript: yes, I personally like relaxed gaming and the ability to make free mistakes on HOGs, but to each their own, and the option to choose is usually productive, especially if easy to implement.

As to the main comments:
1) Add a skip button to the storyboard... makes sense, but just add, "are you sure" check.
2) Fullscreen/resolution problems, none here on my win7 x64. I also had no icon problems... but for all you who are interested in preserving icon positions, check out Iconoid (32 and 64 bit flavors)... it has more features than just that, like auto-hiding desktop icons.

Thanks guys.


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Thanks for the info re: Iconoid Will check that one out.

Hi, I was really surprised by the immense fun I had with this game. The graphics were mostly great (more later), the music was nice (if not so varied), and the game-play was well-thought out. I know they are asking for nitpicking comments and criticisms, but first I just want to give it 9 stars out of 10 (for it's genre of match-3 and Hidden Object Games).

Criticisms:
1) Developers, try making more "realistic" text bubbles, you know, clouds are for thoughts, and "bubbles" are for speech... your bubbles are much to boxy and artificial looking, it detracts from the awesome graphics elsewhere.

2) The characters (Acua and Juan) need more poses, they always look the same, and so it's hard to feel any depth to them (at least not until the story lines come)... they feel to flat character-wise, and the talking mask is more emotionally attractive than the main characters. Try creating a few more stock drawings/poses for them, it shouldn't be hard if you all can draw all the other beautiful graphics.

3) Nice ideas on some of your power ups in the Match 3.

4) Very Nice ideas on the interactive HOG (hidden object games), requiring you to build an axe to chop a bush to find an spade... (sorry for any spoilers here folks)... nice.

5) the objects to find were a tad small, but overall, a very nice, clean, beautiful looking environment for HOG hunts.

6) the game's lack of a timer was overall HUGELY RELAXING. A game I could play before bedtime to wind down.

7) The characters seem a bit flat in their narratives as well, a bit predictable and cliche at times. That being said, the story line is interesting, and its VERY NICE how you weave the story into a sensible argument for why you are matching strange little tiles and hunting objects. The objects you hunt are PERTINENT, rather than bearing no meaning to the quest. I like much about that.

8) The golden dragon on the book... it looks a little oriental more than meso-american, try and make it more rustic, a little less neon and jagged and ferocious.

9) Give yourselves a smile, cause that's what I'm doing right now! :)


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Thank you very much for your excellent feedback rasselas.

Sorry about some spelling errors. Saw a couple just as I was clicking the submit. I hope all you grammar police went to bed early lol ;))


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What spelling mistakes.... ;-) Not a problm Murphyy, it's easily done. (I do it all the time)

I downloaded today’s game without any difficulties. I am use Windows XP, Home Edition, AMD Athlon(tm)Processor, 2650e 1.61 GHz. 896 MB of Ram NVIDA and running a Firefox browser. I had it downloaded and was playing the game within 5 min. Everything ran right like clock work. I particularly liked The Lost Inca Prophecy for two reasons .Where as I already liked match-three games I think it enhances game play when other game genres are included into the game. I also liked that you had a very nice selection on what types of tile selection you cared to play with. (IMO)It makes the game from getting old because you can switch the way your playing. MY one problem I guess is that I would like to change the music. But that is just a very minor detail Thank you very much Playrix Entertainment for you generosity in supplying your wonderful games. They’re very much appreciated. GGOTD This has been great week for your software choices from both GOTD an GGOTD You all deserve a good pat on the back for the job well done! THANK YOU


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Thank you for your feedback murphyy, much appreciated.

Ydy ei fod yn gêm hynod braf yw, Diolch i chi Gwyncwningen!

Game worked fine in Win 7 32bit. All the files for the game are in the program files directory, no extra files or registry settings.

I'm glad it has the chain connection, because that was my favorite mode of mach 3 games, like 4 elements.


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You'll probably like Finding Doggy and The Lost Kingdom Prophecy then. You can get them free 24/7 from MyPlayCity.

The Lost Kingdom Prophecy:

http://www.myplaycity.com/prophecy/screenshots3.html

Finding Doggy:

http://www.myplaycity.com/finding_doggy/

Still flickers. Tried the Forum and the Compatibility issue. I installed it in another, older (5 yrs old!), desktop also running XP Pro and it works fine there!! Both are fully updated. What's the mystery?

Should mention that people who are having problems on XP may need to run this in an Administrator account. If you're using a limited "user" account, which you should be for security purposes, it won't install. With the advent of the new security, all GGOTD and GOTD software must be installed with administrator privileges. In Vista and 7, and I guess 8, the system will warn you of this through the User Account Control and let you install it that way. But in anything earlier, it likely won't do anything when you click it.

Played until I got to level 1-17 then the stupification set in, though I was tired tonight to begin with. Played all the game types and piece shape combinations on the way up.
I'm not that familiar with what would be considered high res graphics, but I'm not sure why that's so important. Graphics are in the background. I'm not sure they have to be too eye popping, except maybe in action or RPG games where the appeal of the look of the "world" is, perhaps, a bigger factor to the enjoyment. For this type, I'm more focused on game play.
Although the intro music is classical - actually classically orchestrated movie music, which is appropriate - the actually game music is the standard, light, busy, synthesizer come orchestrated music typical in this type of game. A little too rinky dink for me. Gets a little grating. Probably should be longer with more variety. Wonder if its the same in later levels. Might have to hang myself. Kidding.
Having the 3 different types of piece shapes with 3 different types of game play certainly adds a lot of value for the money, not even mentioning the minor HOG elements. I understand when people get frustrated because they can't master a game. You should see me with any game requiring coordination. But, still, why play a game that's endless. Why "bang" away, just collecting points ad infinitum without reaching any goal. It's nice to relax and turn your mind off, but why not just repeatedly flip a coin. Or play solitaire short one card.
There's no challenge to this - like the one reviewer said, he completed one level in 3 minutes with his eyes closed. Even when somethings difficult, like a square in a corner, you just have to wait until the right piece falls down, as someone said above. In a timed game, you may have to choose between making a match to move a piece or make matches to charge a power up, depending on the time left. Here, match, match, match, match, match, match, match, match, match, etc.... You can't do it wrong. Eventually, you'll get it, and if you don't, it's solitaire with a card missing. Not sure why I'd want to do that. And yes you can make getting to the end your goal, but why would just want to burn through game just to say you could, when you could say I finally managed to get through the end of a really challenging game. Of course, some games can be too tough, but match 3 in a relaxed mode just seems like a dog chasing its tale.

But I can't downgrade a game for that, because, to each his own. I am downgrading it, however, because:
I don't understand how developers - in this case Seppia Games - who are copying other games can't copy ALL the good parts. I don't have a problem with copying - I would want more match 3 games than just Bejeweled. But why not simply have both timed and relaxed modes, since all the most successful match 3s have timed modes. To be fair, I'll also criticize all the other match 3s for not having a relaxed mode. It seems silly when you have a 3 year old game which doesn't seem to have made much impact, why you wouldn't simply put in a timed mode or some other kind of suspense generating feature. It seems especially strange in a game that's put so much effort in to putting so much variety in the game. If Seppia would add a time mode, this game might really be a hit, and might actually draw 19.99 for it, a figure I understand that has actually gone up (?).
So, I have to give this game only a 6, which puts it in the middle of the pack and restrain for voting up or down. Not that there's anything wrong with it for what it is. I give it a 6 for sadly lost potential. Basically, you go out of your way to make a really high quality sword and then you neglect to sharpen it.


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Thanks for your feedback Watcher. I agree that this game would be much improved if there was a timed mode included. Also i'd add penalties for excessive clicking on the HOG as well as slow down the hint refill, or put a limit on the number of hints you can use. Overall I though the game had a lot of potential, it being the first game of this kind to offer all three types of match three (swap, chain and group), plus the added bonus of being able to change the geometry of the tokens from square to hexagonal and vice versa, or to make the selection random.

I forgot to mention, after the two error boxes, I get a message that "LostIncaProphecy.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Other information:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
AppName: lostincaprophecy.exe AppVer: 0.0.0.0 ModName: lostincaprophecy.exe
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 000128b8
--------------------------------------------------------------------
aecc_appcompat.txt










-------------------------------------------------------------------
Any ideas? Thanks.

I get two error boxes when I try to run this game.

First: "Switching to the referenc rasterizer, a software device that implements the entire Direct3D feature set, but runs very slowly."

Second: "Failed creating the Direct3D device."

Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks


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Yes!

you need to install the latest version of direct X. If you are running XP download DX9.0c, Vista download DX10 and Win 7 download DX11.

Downloaded 3x. First 2 said corrupted. Had no problems after that. Set up smoothly and ran well. The game can be addictive trying to get to the next level, lol. Finished first chapter with no problems. Like the options.
Thanks for another good game!!!
Lee


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Thanks for your feedback Lee

Flickering problem also. Updated Nvidia driver and changed resolution. OS = Win XP Pro. Any other suggestions?


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Check the FAQ's section in the game discussion forumes. You'll find it in the sticky section. Try going into compatibility mode and disable visual themes and/or display scaling

Game seems to work well - nice music and graphics!
Only problem push to exit and have trouble getting
it to turn off! Playrix was some pretty good games!
Thanks gots and Plarix! I like hidden object and match
three elements of the game!


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Thank you for your feedback

It has an intriguing plot, nice graphics.

I'm enjoying the game, but I can always find ways to improve anything.

In this game, one can change the easiness of the match-3 games a bit by changing the type game, selecting from the 2 choices of 3 options.

But I still think that match-3 aspect is a little too easy for those who've played a number of match-3 games before.

Now that might not be true if you understand the scoring system and are playing against a friend for high-score. But I live alone and I'm playing alone, and I don't understand the scoring system.

To improve the game I suggest a difficulty selector -- pretty much all games can benefit from a difficulty selector. You get novices, you get experts in that particular type of game, you get people with handicaps, and you get regular folks -- so I think every should provide difficulty adjustments.

First, an adjustable delay for the trembling tiles in the group-3 mode and the hi-lighted tiled in the swap-mode, 15, 30, 60 or 120 seconds.

Secondly, the sledgehammer power-up activates too easily for me. I'd like an adjustment to make it harder to access the power-ups. I don't know, maybe a 1 to 10, or a 1 to 5, adjustment dial that controlled a multiplier of the necessary score or other factor that activates the power-up?

---------------

On another note, something that else that could enhance any games appeal and improve marketing to enthusiasts.

Remember the old pin-ball arcades, and they'd display the high score for that machine in that arcade, and you'd try to beat it?

But now we game in the privacy of our own homes and don't know what other people's high scores are.

How about providing for reporting high scores and comparing them to the high scores stored on the game company's server???

A score about a certain point would qualify, and the game would offer to report the high score.

A new top score ever, high-score of the week, a score in the top 1% to date, the gaming company could offer some kind of discount or small prize.

It would be an opportunity to get the gamer back to the game company's website for marketing purposes.


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

Thank you for your excellent feedback and suggestions. There are quite a lot of games that compare your scores to others who play the game. Also if you play some games via steam or games for windows they will compare your scores just between friends. It definitely adds another aspect to a game. (though can be disheartenig if all your friends consistently get better scores than you). ;-)

Addition: It runs fine on my Win7 Laptop.., but whatever I do I can't get it to run on my WinXP computer.
One more strange thing: On my WinXP computer Norton antivirus made trouble with the installation, but not on the Win 7 computer..


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Thanks for your feedback sunny; yes curious. ;-)

Have only played a few levels but it seems like a very good game. I like the choices of playing tile shapes and modes of play. My only gripe is that, in the hidden object mode, if you click on the hint button, the hint seems to appear for only a very short time. It may disappear before you even see it. Playing with win7 64 bit and the screen changed to 800x 6?? automatically to fill the screen- 24 in monitor. I can see that the hidden objects might be hard to find on a small screen.


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thank you for your feedback Em, much appreciated.

I'm also having the flickering problem. Running Win XP, SP 3 with the latest Nvidia drivers. Changing the resolution doesn't work :(.

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Have you tried the fixes I suggested via compatibility mode? (i.e. disabling visual themes etc)?

Many thanks to Playrix for their fine games. I have purchased a game from them just because of their support of Game Giveaway of the Day. I have liked every one of their games which I have downloaded from your site.

..........................Moerator Comment..........................

it's probably because of you and others that have purchased games from Playrix through getting games here that we continue to get games from them. :) (Same goes for Alawar)

@ Whiterabbit aka Stephen: My mom named me Debbie originally, Debbie Reynolds being the hit star of the year of 1962 way back when, but, my father absolutely hated the name Debbie, said it was too common, so he opted for Deborah, my mom tried to coax him into Debra but, nope, Deborah stuck. In my country, Thanksgiving Day (Autumn harvest feast) falls on 22nd November this year and it was 50 years ago to the date and day (Thanksgiving is always on the 3rd Thursday in November) I was born, yes, Thanksgiving Day November 22, 1962. No Butterball (brand of turkey) jokes thanks :)


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

When I saw the date 1962 the first thing that pooped into my head was Castro, bay of Pigs and the threat of nuclear war. I remember playing pata cake with my sister, singing when my daddy went to war..... I was five going on six at the time.

This game is a match 3 (love them!) and nothing like Bejeweled as someone else mentioned. Even the game mechanics are different. If it's mildly similar to anything, it would probably be "4 Seasons" with line drawing action, as opposed to swapping gems.

For me though, the gameplay was far too easy. I'm used to much more difficult Match 3s such as: Azkend, Scepter of Ra, Rainbow Web and Heroes of Hellas - I've also played all their sequels - none of which I've seen featured on this site.

The graphics are nice but low def, so not as vibrant as they could be.

REALLY didn't enjoy the fact that I couldn't skip through the story, some game stories are fun to follow along, but this one didn't engage me at all.

Anyway, finished the game in a day, and I never bothered playing it again, whereas the games I've mentioned above have great replay value.

I already have this game from Shockwave (where I'm a fully paid member $8 p/m) so can download at will for free every day - in fact I've already played most of GGotD games lately, for that reason.

Regardless, Playrix is reliable and a great game distributor and I enjoy most of their games. Thank you Playrix for your offer and GGotD for securing good clients for our benefit. ;)
~ Swan

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Thank you for your feedback Swan

Have to give you a thumbs up again! I love match three's and hidden objects. This game uses both, no timer and you can click out of the story to get on to the next level. Thank you so much Playrix for this free game.

The game installed easily on my Windows-7 Home Premium 64-bit system with nVidia GTX-460 video card (all standard updates on both).

The plot and game play looks really interesting, but I've only started level 1.

In a week or two I'll return to post my final thoughts, any suggestions I have on the rest of the game, but first an important preliminary observation.

It is really important to me that aspect ratio be preserved when in full screen mode: I like objects to be the same shape when rotated, circles to be circles, and people to look normal.

I think preserving aspect ratio is really important in all games, especially those with hidden objects, human figures, physics, pretty much any game -- and it is often not done.

I had to fiddle with my video card resolution and scaling settings to preserve the aspect ratio with this game.

I suggest that when the game detects a screen size that has an aspect ratio it wasn't designed for, that the game pad the sides of the game window with decorate border before zooming.

Doing this, my 1920x1080 screen would have inca style columns down the left and right sides, but the game window would fill top to bottom. (This would look good and give the impression to the user the game was designed for the size of screen it is being displayed on.)

....................Moderator...................

Thanks for your comment Keith

Downloaded this this morning and the wife played it really enjoys these match three, she finished last weeks enchanted cavern now she starting this one. Thanks giveaway and developers.

Could i be the only one with WinXP here? The installer crashes and i get no game installed.

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

No, there are others still using XP. ;-) Check out the FAQ's section over in the Game discussion forums. I've posted a link to it near the end of my review at comment #3 You may find a fix there. There may be a conflict with something you are running in XP. ry turning off background programs to see if you can find whether this is the case.

Wonderful game. Love it. No problems on download, installation. Running on Quad Core, Window XP Pro SP3. Thank you Playrix and GAOTD.

This sounds like a game I would enjoy, but I can't install it. I download, I extract all three files and that is as far as it goes. I try to install the game but my laptop just sits there no matter which of the three files I click on. I could and have downloaded games that had that wrapper on it but can do nothing since that third file started being used. Any help would be appreciated.


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


It's probably your security software thats causing the problem; though, if you are using Firefox or Google Chrome as your browser make sure Internet Explorer is not set to offline. If neither of these suggestions work try installing the game in Safe Mode with networking. Some users would argue that this is dangerous, but only if the file you were installing was infected with a virus. All giveaways are rigorously tested. since the giveaway project started back in Oct 2006 there has never been a giveaway with a virus. Once installed restart your computer back in normal mode. Please let me know if you fix the issue. thank you.

Not a bad game, if you like the match3/hidden object style games. The graphics are ok. The writing for the storyline is bad; with the past/present tense mixed willy-nilly, even in the same sentences. No glitches in the install or functionality through the first section. Overall, ok.


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They could do with an English speaking editor to correct all the spelling errors and grammar. That said for me such things aren't important. I've always felt spellig was overated. so long as the gist of whatever you are trying to communicate comes over it shouldn't matter. A lot of these games are being created by non English speaking game developers.

Thank you.

Thanks! I love Playrix games! :D

Winner! Nice combo of game play themes. Good graphics. Pulls you in and sure to work on it over time. Modern full screen, sliders. No timer so can bang away everywhere w/o penalty. Hint works fast & easy, reloads quickly. Frustration level very low. 9/10. Thanks.

When I install the game everything is fine except I have no cursor visible and cannot select "Play" this has not happened on other games I have installed. Can anyone help. Thank you, Jeff Bremer


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

follow the link to my FAQ's section over in the game discussion forums. you'll find a link near the bottom of my review at comment #3. Try going into compatibility mode and disabling visual themes. Also make sure your graphics drivers are up to date. NVIDIA and AMD (formerly ATI) both have driver downloads available for free. they are updated fairly frequently, so it's worth checking every month or so. AMD tend to have more updates than NVIDIA.

Never mind my previous entry. I was trying to click on the two install buttons that are ads. I found the correct one and just installed it. Going to play now..........thanks a lot.

When I click on install, a window comes up that says I'll be installing a toolbar. I don't want a toolbar, therefore I'm not going to install the game. Too bad, because it sounds like fun.


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

There's no toolbar installation included with this game. Try again. Even if there was there should always ne a checkbox that allows you not to install it. If this was true there would be loads more complaints (including mine).

PS/ I am using windows XP

I downloaded today's game fine but I can't open the GCD file. I went on the internet to try to find info on this type of file. All I could find were tools that scanned my computer then wanted me to buy their service. Please let my know if there is a way to open this file for free.
TIA

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

The GCD file is a security file. you don't open it up. you should click on the orange colored icon with a key symbol on it. that's the wrapped setup file.

As a HOG/Match 3 expert, this game is a bit too tame for me. I am used to HOG/Match 3 games like Heroes of Hellas and so, yes, I am a spoilt brat on that. The layout is boring and the game's power ups are ok but, made the game too easy. I like a bit of a challenge. It downloaded and plays nicely on my ancient xp/pack 2 eMachine (cir 2006). No flickering and this after playing HOH3 for hours. I am not as generous in the ratings dept as Whiterabbit aka Stephen is, I only gave it a 5 because I fell asleep (no joke) playing it. I didn't even have the music on, it was just a sleeper for me. I wanted something to jump out of the shadows, a ghost, a villain the background to change, the game board to melt, anything to break up the boredom.


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

Thank you for your feedback Deborah. Personally I wouldn't purchase this game. I prefer match threes like Puzzle Quest that are mixed in with RPG elements. My scores don't always reflect the way i feel about a game/. I try to be fair and take account of all users feelings over such games. whats brilliant to one person is land fill to another. This makes writing a balanced review very hard. I find such games excellent as time fillers. Usually play them in between playing my bigger games or when i've only got a few minutes or am too sleepy to concentrate on anything that requires thought. If 19642 is your birth date you'd be a couple of years younger than my cousin Deborah. I used to play a Marc Bolan (Tyrannasaurus Rex) track to her when we were kids called Deborahharobed. :)

Downloaded fine on Win 7. Played a few rounds and it seems like a fun game--a keeper for me. Thank you for the game.

Beautiful graphic - very addicting - works perfect on my Win7 Ultimate - only the full screen mode is not working but it seems to be another problem cause it occurs on various games.


Thanks for this game - it's really appreciated.

Nice game all around I like the graphics, and especially the music when you choose the game mechanics. I left the game at Level 7 and will play later on.

The game is easy enough to the casual user, if you don't like one layout you can easily choose another play layout and conquer the game that way. That being said, this broad range of configuration from the get - go potentially makes the game way too easy. The developer could have implemented a change up of different layouts rather then being able to choose from them as part of the difficulty of the game.

Eg - One level would be group mode, the next would be swap mode and so forth.

Once the game would be completed then it would be nice to choose from the layouts.

Okay but not stellar. Graphics are low res. Glad to see Playrix game and hoping for more including repeats of past ones as I'm rebuilding after a crash. As usual, if you have Norton disable before installing as SONAR will pick it up and quarantine it.

I really liked the mechanics of this game. (I bought/played it a few months back.) See, I'm normally a failure at match threes: I can't think ahead, or at least not quickly enough, so generally with these games it gets harder and harder and I have to give up. :(
But choosing the hexagonal tile option, with the 'draw a line' mode of play, means each tile connects to SIX other tiles instead of FOUR, making it, oh, half again easier. Just easiest enough for me to triumph, yay!
So if you don't play match threes for a similar reason, OR you want a game easy enough to be a pleasant break rather than a challenge, get this one.
Thank you Playrix and GOTD!

A game that's good for one run through but I can't see me playing it after that. The match threes get a bit tedious. Perhaps a timer would make it more interesting and give me something to aim at.