Guide a young woman on her quest to become a musketeer in this arcade! FREE on GOTD only today!

#1

The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest:

In Brief:

A time management (TM) game with crafting and mini games.

Kindly donated by Alawar Entertainment. Thank you for this excellent arcade game, it's very much appreciated

If you miss today's game, unfortunately it doesn't appear to be free from any of the other free game sites. If you have a slow connection, please do make sure you start your download as soon as you are able due to the relatively large size of this arcade game. It's not quite half a gigabyte, but for an arcade game that's quite large. If you are still on dial up or a slow broadband, due to the popularity of the game giveaway site, there are always a lot of downloads running concurrently, so download speeds can be slow.

Installation:

The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest downloads to a 451 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped setup activation file (the orange colored file with the key symbol), plus there's a setup file with security (setup.gcd) that's protected from being hacked. This file may case some security software to alert the user to a possible malware attack, but it will be a false positive. The game giveaway team check all game giveaways for malware using several well known anti -malware suites. There has never been a game giveaway infected with malware since the project started back in Dec 2006. The installed game is 461 MB in size and is installed via the following path.

C:\Games\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game

Once installed you can delete the giveaway setup files. As with other Alawar games given away here, there is no shortcut installed, so you will need to create one yourself by following the path above and creating one from the games executable.

The game works on Win 7 and Win 10 computers, unfortunately I can't confirm whether it works on Win 8 (it probably does) as I've now upgraded all of my Win 8 computers to Win 10.

Introduction:

Guide a young woman on her quest to become a musketeer in this thrilling arcade adventure! The classic tale of the musketeers gets a feminist twist as Victoria sets out to save her king and the country she calls home. As you guide her through 17th Century France, you'll rebuild the charming and picturesque land, perform tasks for the people you meet, and recruit help from fellow adventurers. Along the way, you'll steer a massive sailing ship through a pirate blockade, snatch treasure from the jaws of a dragon, and face a slew of enemy rogues!

As you explore caves, castles and more, you'll learn to craft the items you need from the resources you gather. You'll also acquire magic boosters that increase your speed and help you to beat the game's challenging levels. Skilled players can race against the clock to earn a host of trophies, while casual players can enjoy the game at their own pace. With lush visuals, a captivating story, and addictive time management game play, The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest offers an unforgettable saga of high adventure!

* Vibrant and colorful levels
* Over eight hours of captivating game play
* Make your own tools and other items
* Cool boosters that give you an edge
* mini-games

Reference accessed HERE 13th Feb 2016

Reviews:

You can see some Big Fish mini reviews of The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest HERE, just scroll down to the middle of the page. You can also find forum discussions of the game HERE. The game is also available on Steam though as yet there are no forum entries for the game.

The Game:

As with most games of this offshoot of the Time Management genre, the game play is typically straightforward and very similar to all the others in this sub genre. You collect necessary resources in this case, wood, stone and food that help to clear various paths that then give you access to parts of the level that you need to complete the level. The game is fully mouse controlled. There are voice overs in the game which adds to the overall game play. You can turn these off via the options menu if you don't like them. The story boards that pop up between levels for me at least add to the game play as I do like a good story.

There are three modes of game play, 'Normal Mode', which is for community members who have played this type of game before (e.g. Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord), A 'Multi-Click Mode' where you can assign multiple tasks to your workers instead of having to wait till they have completed a task before giving them a new one. This lends itself to attaining three gold stars later in the game when the levels become progressively harder. Then you have, what I consider, the saving grace for this game (because i don't particularly enjoy playing games unless they are relaxing to a certain extent, at least this type of game) that is a 'Relaxed Mode' that has no time limits.

This is an ideal family game because you can create multiple profiles, so that everyone in the family can have their own game. I love the story boards that are inter-dispersed between the levels, that tell the story of Victoria's quest to become a musketeer. The art style reminds me of well done colored pencil drawings.

As you progress through the 50 levels they become increasingly challenging unless you are playing the relaxed mode. I was able to progress through several levels relatively quickly so would dispute the several hours of game play quoted in the introduction, then again, it depends on which mode you are going to play and how fast a player you are. I found it almost impossible to gain the three gold stars in later level when playing on Normal (not tried the multi-click mode yet), but I was't that bothered. The gold stars give the game some re-playabilty as I think attaining three golds on every level on the first play through is going to be very difficult unless you are a seasoned player . I tend to take my time, but for this game I needed to whiz through to get an overall feel for the game so that I could post this review as quickly as possible. Later in the game you really do need to think about using the power-up/boosters; as they can definitely help to attain the goal of three gold stars.

Video:

...........Video footage may contain SPOILERS.......

You’ll find videos of The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest game play HERE (there's also access to 45 more walkthrough videos via this link), HERE, HERE & HERE

Music:

There is no way to change the music, at least not easily. If you can code and have the appropriate editing software you may be able to edit the music, otherwise the only way is to turn it off the music via the options menu, and, if you still want music playing in the background, play something you prefer via your media player.

System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8
CPU: 1.4 GHz
RAM: 1536 MB
DirectX: 9.0
Hard Drive: 478 MB

Conclusion:

If you liked the Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord you'll probably like 'The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest'. It's got the same strategic game play; the main difference between this game and most of the above mentioned is (obviously) the theme (i.e. Musketeers) and the ability to craft items/tools using the items you pick up along the way (e.g. a fishing rod) as well as some excellent mini games to explore. That said, it is pretty linear in the sense that you have to craft specific items to progress through the levels. There's little variation between the tasks you have to do, both in the game and those mentioned above. Still, this is one of those rare Time Management offshoots that I actually enjoyed playing (so far), especially as this game has three modes to choose from, which opens it up to all levels of expertise, from novice to expert players of this genre and because of the relaxed mode is stress free, unlike other Time Management games such as for example Ice Cream Mania, Beach Party Craze or Gourmania.

This is an ideal game for the whole family, both in game play and art style, either to play solo, or to play together. Young children will probably need some supervision.

Scoring

Game play: 8

Graphics: 7.5

Audio: 7.5

Re-playability: 7

Originality: 7

Fun Factor: 8

Overall Score = 45 out of 60 = 7.5 out of 10

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Problems:

If you have any problems installing or getting The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest working, please go HERE for help. I've posted most of the common problems and solutions in a FAQ thread (most of which have been suggested by the community over the years), which you can find in the sticky section of the forums by following the above link. If you do find any other fixes please post them in the FAQ's thread and I'll incorporate them into the thread when I have time (I always attribute fixes posted by the community to the member who posted them. Thank you.

If you think the game is infected - IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ

For those of you who are getting hits by your anti malware suites; it's because they are picking up the Themida based protection, which was put in place to protect the game from unscrupulous community members that were hacking the giveaway wrapper which then gave them unlimited access to a registered copy of the game, which was being put on peer to peer sites. Some community members were even uploading video tutorials on You tube telling you how to do it yourself.

Themida based applications are sometimes seen as a threat by anti-malware. I can assure you this game and hundreds before, that have given community members cause for concern have been totally safe. The game giveaway team have managed to secure well over a thousand games for us since they first started giving away games back in late 2006; firstly via the main site (Oct 2006), then via the game giveaway site (early December 2006). There has never 'ever' been an infected game given away.

If you are able to configure your anti-malware suite to allow the 'seemingly offensive' file through security, the game should then install normally. if you can't, or don't know how to, then the other way would be to temporarily turn off your protection. You do so at your own risk, but please do take into account what I've already said above; in a nut shell, every malware occurrence reported here since the game giveaway went live in Dec 2006 have been false positives due to overly sensitive anti-malware suites.

It would be against the giveaway teams best interest to allow such an occurrence as it would destroy their good standing with the big search engines and I'm sure many who have frequented this site for a long time would leave. The giveaway team use several anti-malware suites to test every game given away here.

Another thing to consider when you think the game is infected, if it really was, there would be hundreds of community members posting about the infection; we rarely more than a few posts for any particular game; though, since the gcd file that contains the Themida code was introduced in 2012 I have seen many more community members reporting infections due to the Themida based code found in the giveaways wrapper protection. However, out of the thousands of downloads each week, those numbers are insignificant and supports the fact that the results they are getting are actually false positives. They have always been proven to be so.

If you are posting late in the day I would also suggest posting in the main giveaway forums; in the game discussion section, because I cannot moderate 24hrs a day over the weekend. I've created a thread HERE for that purpose. If you've installed today's game but it doesn’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at a later date. Unfortunately if your problem is actually downloading it, once the giveaway deadline is reached you will no longer be able to download the game unless you've already started downloading it before the cut-off. Sometimes you can still register the game after the giveaway has ended so long as you managed to start the download before the giveaway ends. I've tested this and the grace period lasts for up to 1 hour. Apart from the above instances; i.e. already installed, but having problems running the game, (with the possibility of receiving help from the community via the giveawayoftheday game discussion forum); or still downloading after the cut off period, but within the 1 hour grace period, or registering within an hour of the cut-off period. Once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done to get the game (unless its available from one of the free game sites) until the game is given away again (though that isn't always guaranteed).

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It's worth checking the giveaway game discussion forums the day before the giveaways go live to see if we are getting a large sized file (I usually post a comment about approximately how large a file is if it's likely to cause problems for those with slow connections; however, if I'm particularly busy I may neglect to do this). It is especially important for those who have slow connections and even more so if the game is popular. We can have up to forty thousand (40 000) community members downloading over the 24 hour period (if the game is popular), with the bulk of community members downloading in the first 12 hours of the giveaway going live, there is always a massive strain on the giveaway servers. The bigger the file size, the more community members will be downloading at any one time. Because the bandwidth is shared equally among all community members, downloads can become excruciatingly slow, so if you do have a slow connection, its important to start your download as early as possible to avoid disappointment. Because these games are free, the giveaway owners cannot invest in more bandwidth without compromising the whole project, so we have to be satisfied with what we have at present.

A download manager can help speed the download up and also protect the download in case of an interruption. There's nothing as frustrating for those with really slow connections to have the connection break after an hour or so, then have to start from the beginning again. I would ask community members if you do have decent bandwidth please avoid using a manager as it does add to the number of downloads occurring at any one time, for example some download managers will download your requested file in up to 32 packets simultaneously, that effectively will take 32 download spots, thus slowing down everyone's download speeds. For those with slow downloads (due to having a slow connection e.g. a 2MB Broadband connection or less) I would advise using a download manager if the file is larger than around 200MB. My broadband connection is 100MBs, so I don't need to use a download manager, (I do have one called Internet Download Manager, but don't use it when downloading files from the giveaway site). For me a 1GB file usually downloads in about 1.5 minutes or less. My connection is quite a long way from the provider so it is slowed a little, but is still quite good at a download speed of around 12 to 14 MB's per second.

I hope the above goes some way in explaining why we sometimes have really slow downloads.

It’s always worth checking out the free games sites because sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them. MyPlayCity (MPC) has the most with over 1400 games to choose from and TooMky Games is highly recommended as well, though sometimes Gametop will have the game when the others don't. The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest isn't available from any of the free game sites I know.

If you do download any games from these free game sites please 'do' watch out for toolbars etc. Make sure you un-check the check-boxes during installation, and, in the case of MyPlayCity, every time you boot the game up, (this may have changed now as these free game sites tend to change the format frequently). I've not downloaded any from these sites in ages so can't confirm whether they have changed....... I've posted links to all of the common free game sites below in the 'games, games and yet more games' section. If you do download a game from any of these sites you do so at your own risk. We cannot be held responsible for problems arising from an installation recommended here. :)

The gamegiveaway site is the safest site I know of where you can get free software and games. (BitsduJour is also great for free applications). The only disadvantages with downloading from here is you have to download and install within the day of the giveaway and if and when you upgrade or buy a new computer legally you aren't allowed to transfer games given away previously, unless they are being given away again after you upgrade, or if you've purchased a license. :)

You just have to look at the sites track record since the game giveaway site was created back in December 2006. No games given away here since the inception of the gamegiveaway site have been infected with malware, there are no toolbars installed, nor home pages hijacked or browsers changed. There is one slight annoyance, but that only occurs if a community member isn't paying attention; i.e. when the final window pops up after installing a giveaway, called 'the Software Informer' installation window. Some community members have complained that they were given no choice in its installation. That is not true; when the final window pops up, there are two buttons, one asking if you want Software Informer installed and the button to close the giveaway window down. Some community members have clicked on the wrong button, probably because they weren't paying attention. Thankfully Software Informer is a genuine application, that can easily be uninstalled by the usual means. It's actually a useful piece of software, especially if you have a lot of applications running on your computer. Basically the program will list the programs that need updating, or programs that have available updates. They wont be automatically installed (thus cancelling many giveaway registrations); you have to click on individual buttons to update each program/application. :D

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Games, Games, and yet more Games:

There are 133 games on sale this week, with a new batch of games to come on Monday. You can find all of the games on sale HERE. I won't bother listing any of the games, but it should be worth visiting as there are games for all tastes. Of course you do need to install the Steam client, but IMO it is well worth it. There are lots of free games (not just free to play online games) available plus there are always games on sale. You'll often find other game distributors will sell games with a Steam key and most of the bundled games on sale usually come with a Steam key as well.

You'll find some excellent deals over on the following Game sites.

GreenManGaming They usually have coupons to the value of 23% and sometimes more off pre ordered games. I've pre ordered lots of AAA games from GMG and saved up to 25% off the pre order prices you find on Steam.

Gamersgate Summer Sale
GOG (DRM free games)
Gamestop
GameFly (soon to be sold off)

I've removed the Desura link because the owners are bankrupt and there has been no activity on the site in many months. The servers are still live (at least until Bad JoJo's subscription to the servers has ended, Bad JoJo are the owners of Desura and Indie Royale, or were until filing for bankruptcy). If you own any games via Desura I advise downloading all of the drm free games you have on that platform and on the Indie Royale site before the sites are taken down.

Free Game Sites:

Toomky Games
MyPlayCity (over a 1000 games to choose from)
Gametop
FreeGamePick (I've been told by Diane that FreeGamePick games tend to revert to demo's, can't qualify this tohugh as i don't download from FreeGamePick anymore.

To be honest there are too many game deals around too list them all. Just visit the sites I recommend above and I'm sure you'll find something that suits you for a very decent price. If like me you prefer Steamworks games, many of the above sites also sell Steamwork games.

If that's not enough, check out the Game Discussion forums HERE for details of other games either free or on deals such as the Indie Game bundles (there's over 20 of them - If you purchased all of them you'd be paying around $80 for around a thousand dollars worth of games); or check out the four day sales at IndieGameStand. you'll find the indie bundles thread HERE. The thread is outdated, but all of the links will still take you to the latest bundles.

The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest

The latest IndieGameStand game is Megatect

Essentially, Megatect is Mario Maker meets Quake 3

Think of Megatect as a level editor without limitation! Use a slew of blocks, objects, and wires to create your own challenge maps, Arenas, sports, whatever you can dream up! Play solo or with friends and share grids online for others to play!

Being in Alpha, Megatect is still in development.

You can get the game for $1; pay over the average to a second game called Attack of the Labyrinth. (The price at the time of writing was $1.71). The game includes a drm free download and Steam keys for both games.
The deal ends Wednesday 18th February 2016 5am (GMT) IGS have extended their period from 4 to five days in between new games.

The latest DIG game is //SNOWFLAKE TATTOO//

Your Dollsteak is in another castle. Straight from the maths paper of the British bedroom programming scene into your imagination. Serial fever dreamers and curio/avant garde masters Railslavegames return with the prequel to //NPPD RUSH// The milk of ultra violet.

Pay £0.99 for the game or you can get two keys if you pay more than the average of $1.00 (at the time of writing ). One Steam key to share with a friend or family member perhaps? You'll find that deal HERE. They also have five bundles of several games that'll cost you less than $1.50 each HERE (DIG Super Bundles 51 & 52, reBundle 10 and DIG Greenlight Bundle 4 and 5 and DIG Indie Bundle 1). You get Steam keys for all of these games apart from the DIG Greelight Bundles. If any of those games are added to the Steam store you will get a Steam key, in the mean time, you can download DRM free copies.

The single game deal ends Midnight Monday 15th Feb 2016 and will be replaced with a new game.

Most of the bundles available retail for around $5 give or take a few dollars (apart from the Daily Indie bundles that only cost $1.49 for six games), but you can pay as little as a dollar for some. There are some excellent bundles out at the moment. I highly recommend the first four sites as they regularly change their bundles, at least weekly. Bundle Stars is the most prolific, usually with at least 10 bundles, but sometimes a lot more. some bundles stay for months, others for only a few days. I also recommend buying the Greenlight bundles as you will get quite a few being Greenlit and save a large amount of money on newly released games. I reckon at least 75% of the games from those bundles have been Greenlit since I purchased my first Greenlight bundle. (I've bought at least 50 bundles with only Greenlight games and they have never cost more than $3 to $4 per bundle, with savings up to 90%. The flying bundle is the only one that will inform you when a game has been Greenlit and will send you your Steam keys, the rest you have to check your accounts page to see if they have added Steam keys. sometimes it may take several weeks after the game has been released before you get your keys, but generally its either the same day or a few days at the most.

Bundle Stars (26 bundles)
Groupees (3 bundles)
Indie Gala (5 bundles)
Humble bundle (2 Bundles)
Indie Royale (this bundle is no longer live)
Blink Bundle (0 bundles)
Play Injector (0 bundle)
Get Loaded (0 bundles)
Games Rage (0 bundles)
Flying bundle (1 bundles)

FREE GAME:

The free game from Origin is now the excellent racing game (at least racing away from the police) Need for speed: Most Wanted. The developer has returned to its roots with this offering. Released just over 3 years ago, this is a superb vehicle based AAA game. Compared to all arcade games i've ever played, this looks amazing and playys brilliantly. Make sure your system is good enough to play the game before you decide to download. That said, it will still be worth adding it to your Origin account because once it's tied to your account, you can download it anytime. Worth registering in preparation for thgat new computer you've always wanted. :)

To be Most Wanted, you’ll need to outrun the cops, outdrive your friends, and outsmart your rivals. With a relentless police force gunning to take you down, you’ll need to make split second decisions. Use the open world to your advantage to find hiding spots, hit jumps and earn new vehicles to keep you one step ahead.
In true Criterion Games fashion, your friends are at the heart of your experience. In an open world with no menus or lobbies, you’ll be able to instantly challenge your friends and prove your driving skill in a variety of seamless multiplayer events. Your rivals will do everything they can to stop you from getting to the top. In this world, there can only be one Most Wanted.

KEY FEATURES
• Open World Action – Lose the cops – your way. Hit jumps and shortcuts, lay low, or shake the cops in surroundings that play to your car's unique strengths. Freedom is everything. Drive anywhere with your friends, discover hidden gameplay or utilize your knowledge of the city to beat them in a never-ending supply of challenges.

• Non-Stop Multiplayer – Pick a car, hook up with friends and jump into a non-stop playlist of tight, competitive events. No lobby screens means the action never stops. Score big, rank up and earn endless rewards and upgrades. Keep the fierce rivalries going between events with endless opportunities to race, battle and explore in a huge open world.

• Beat Your Friends – Autolog 2 ratchets up the intense competition with personalized race recommendations and feeds broadcasting all of your most newsworthy scores, speeds and times to your friends. Earn Need for Speed points at all times on any system as you try to outdrive your friends and become the Most Wanted.

• Racing Without Rules — It’s survival of the fastest as Need for Speed Most Wanted fuses the franchise’s, authentic “real car” feel with the intense speed and aggression of Burnout. Power down, slide out, and battle your way past cops and rivals using pure driving skill, and heavy doses of nitrous.

Check it out HERE.

You do need a free Origin account and install the Origin client to get these free games. Once you've installed the Origin client and signed into your account select 'On the house' from the 'Free Games' drop down menu. Then select download now. The game will then be registered to your Origin account permanently.

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A Request for help:

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 even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain what your reasons were for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with more block types for the levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment, and a big thank you to Alawar Entertainment for sharing and to the game giveaway team for getting these games.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest:

In Brief:

<blockquote>A time management (TM) game with crafting and mini games.
 
Kindly donated by Alawar Entertainment. Thank you for this excellent arcade game, it's very much appreciated</blockquote>

<blockquote>If you miss today's game, unfortunately it doesn't appear to be free from any of the other free game sites. If you have a slow connection, please do make sure you start your download as soon as you are able due to the relatively large size of this arcade game. It's not quite half a gigabyte, but for an arcade game that's quite large. If you are still on dial up or a slow broadband, due to the popularity of the game giveaway site, there are always a lot of downloads running concurrently, so download speeds can be slow.</blockquote>

Installation:

<blockquote>The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest downloads to a 451 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped setup activation file (the orange colored file with the key symbol), plus there's a setup file with security (setup.gcd) that's protected from being hacked. This file may case some security software to alert the user to a possible malware attack, but it will be a false positive. The game giveaway team check all game giveaways for malware using several well known anti -malware suites. There has never been a game giveaway infected with malware since the project started back in Dec 2006. The installed game is 461 MB in size and is installed via the following path.</blockquote>

<blockquote>C:\Games\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game</blockquote>

<blockquote>Once installed you can delete the giveaway setup files. As with other Alawar games given away here, there is no shortcut installed, so you will need to create one yourself by following the path above and creating one from the games executable.

The game works on Win 7 and Win 10 computers, unfortunately I can't confirm whether it works on Win 8 (it probably does) as I've now upgraded all of my Win 8 computers to Win 10. </blockquote>

Introduction:

<blockquote>Guide a young woman on her quest to become a musketeer in this thrilling arcade adventure! The classic tale of the musketeers gets a feminist twist as Victoria sets out to save her king and the country she calls home. As you guide her through 17th Century France, you'll rebuild the charming and picturesque land, perform tasks for the people you meet, and recruit help from fellow adventurers. Along the way, you'll steer a massive sailing ship through a pirate blockade, snatch treasure from the jaws of a dragon, and face a slew of enemy rogues!

As you explore caves, castles and more, you'll learn to craft the items you need from the resources you gather. You'll also acquire magic boosters that increase your speed and help you to beat the game's challenging levels. Skilled players can race against the clock to earn a host of trophies, while casual players can enjoy the game at their own pace. With lush visuals, a captivating story, and addictive time management game play, The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest offers an unforgettable saga of high adventure! 
 
* Vibrant and colorful levels 
* Over eight hours of captivating game play 
* Make your own tools and other items 
* Cool boosters that give you an edge 
* mini-games</blockquote>

Reference accessed <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/390940/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> 13th Feb 2016

Reviews:

You can see some Big Fish mini reviews of The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest <a href="http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/8453/the-musketeers-victorias-quest/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, just scroll down to the middle of the page. You can also find forum discussions of the game <a href="http://forums.bigfishgames.com/forums/show/4166.page" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. The game is also available on Steam though as yet there are no forum entries for the game.

The Game:

<blockquote>As with most games of this offshoot of the Time Management genre, the game play is typically straightforward and very similar to all the others in this sub genre. You collect necessary resources in this case, wood, stone and food that help to clear various paths that then give you access to parts of the level that you need to complete the level. The game is fully mouse controlled. There are voice overs in the game which adds to the overall game play. You can turn these off via the options menu if you don't like them. The story boards that pop up between levels for me at least add to the game play as I do like a good story. </blockquote>

<blockquote>There are three modes of game play, 'Normal Mode', which is for community members who have played this type of game before (e.g. Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord), A 'Multi-Click Mode' where you can assign multiple tasks to your workers instead of having to wait till they have completed a task before giving them a new one. This lends itself to attaining three gold stars later in the game when the levels become progressively harder. Then you have, what I consider, the saving grace for this game (because i don't particularly enjoy playing games unless they are relaxing to a certain extent, at least this type of game) that is a 'Relaxed Mode' that has no time limits.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This is an ideal family game because you can create multiple profiles, so that everyone in the family can have their own game. I love the story boards that are inter-dispersed between the levels, that tell the story of Victoria's quest to become a musketeer. The art style reminds me of well done colored pencil drawings.</blockquote>

<blockquote>As you progress through the 50 levels they become increasingly challenging unless you are playing the relaxed mode. I was able to progress through several levels relatively quickly so would dispute the several hours of game play quoted in the introduction, then again, it depends on which mode you are going to play and how fast a player you are. I found it almost impossible to gain the three gold stars in later level when playing on Normal (not tried the multi-click mode yet), but I was't that bothered. The gold stars give the game some re-playabilty as I think attaining three golds on every level on the first play through is going to be very difficult unless you are a seasoned player . I tend to take my time, but for this game I needed to whiz through to get an overall feel for the game so that I could post this review as quickly as possible. Later in the game you really do need to think about using the power-up/boosters; as they can definitely help to attain the goal of three gold stars. </blockquote>

Video:

...........Video footage may contain SPOILERS.......

You’ll find videos of The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest game play <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8omutdxcWco&list=PL3BVTPmw6kxiVIZCcjWvMlqXsQPrmu5Eh" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> (there's also access to 45 more walkthrough videos via this link), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12m95MyJlw0" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r67aPd9Idow" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> & <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQnkvcQBjc" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>

Music:

<blockquote>There is no way to change the music, at least not easily. If you can code and have the appropriate editing software you may be able to edit the music, otherwise the only way is to turn it off the music via the options menu, and, if you still want music playing in the background, play something you prefer via your media player.</blockquote>

System Requirements:

<blockquote>OS: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8
 CPU: 1.4 GHz
 RAM: 1536 MB
 DirectX: 9.0
 Hard Drive: 478 MB</blockquote>

Conclusion:

<blockquote>If you liked the Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord you'll probably like 'The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest'. It's got the same strategic game play; the main difference between this game and most of the above mentioned is (obviously) the theme (i.e. Musketeers) and the ability to craft items/tools using the items you pick up along the way (e.g. a fishing rod) as well as some excellent mini games to explore. That said, it is pretty linear in the sense that you have to craft specific items to progress through the levels. There's little variation between the tasks you have to do, both in the game and those mentioned above. Still, this is one of those rare Time Management offshoots that I actually enjoyed playing (so far), especially as this game has three modes to choose from, which opens it up to all levels of expertise, from novice to expert players of this genre and because of the relaxed mode is stress free, unlike other Time Management games such as for example Ice Cream Mania, Beach Party Craze or Gourmania.

This is an ideal game for the whole family, both in game play and art style, either to play solo, or to play together. Young children will probably need some supervision.</blockquote>

Scoring

<blockquote>Game play: 8</blockquote>
<blockquote>Graphics: 7.5</blockquote>
<blockquote>Audio: 7.5</blockquote>
<blockquote>Re-playability: 7</blockquote>
<blockquote>Originality: 7</blockquote>
<blockquote>Fun Factor: 8</blockquote>

<blockquote>Overall Score = 45 out of 60 = 7.5 out of 10</blockquote>

Problems:

If you have any problems installing or getting The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest working, please go <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/11647#post-101133" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> for help. I've posted most of the common problems and solutions in a FAQ thread (most of which have been suggested by the community over the years), which you can find in the sticky section of the forums by following the above link. If you do find any other fixes please post them in the FAQ's thread and I'll incorporate them into the thread when I have time (I always attribute fixes posted by the community to the member who posted them. Thank you.

<blockquote>If you think the game is infected - IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ</blockquote>

<blockquote>For those of you who are getting hits by your anti malware suites; it's because they are picking up the Themida based protection, which was put in place to protect the game from unscrupulous community members that were hacking the giveaway wrapper which then gave them unlimited access to a registered copy of the game, which was being put on peer to peer sites. Some community members were even uploading video tutorials on You tube telling you how to do it yourself.

Themida based applications are sometimes seen as a threat by  anti-malware. I can assure you this game and  hundreds before, that have given  community members cause for concern have been totally safe.  The game giveaway team have  managed to secure well over a thousand games for us since they first started giving away games back in late 2006; firstly via the main site  (Oct 2006), then via  the game giveaway site  (early December 2006).  There has never 'ever' been an infected   game given away.

If you are able to configure your anti-malware suite to allow the   'seemingly offensive' file   through security, the game should then install normally. if you can't, or don't know how to, then  the other way would be to temporarily  turn off your protection. You do so at your own risk, but  please do take into account what I've already said above; in a nut shell, every  malware  occurrence reported here since the  game giveaway went live in Dec 2006 have been false positives due to overly sensitive  anti-malware  suites.

It would be against the giveaway   teams best interest to allow such an occurrence as it would destroy their good standing with the big search engines and I'm sure many who have frequented this site for   a long time would leave.  The giveaway team  use several anti-malware suites to test every game given away here.

Another thing to consider when you think the game is infected, if it really was, there would be hundreds of community members posting about the infection; we rarely more than a few posts for any particular game; though, since the gcd file that contains the Themida code was introduced in 2012 I have seen many more community members reporting infections due to the Themida based code found in the giveaways wrapper protection. However, out of the thousands of downloads each week, those numbers are insignificant and supports the fact that the results they are getting are actually false positives. They have always been proven to be so.</blockquote>

If you are posting late in the day I would also suggest posting in the main giveaway forums; in the game discussion section, because I cannot moderate 24hrs a day over the weekend. I've created a thread <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/257721" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> for that purpose. If you've installed today's game but it doesn’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at a later date. Unfortunately if your problem is actually downloading it, once the giveaway deadline is reached you will no longer be able to download the game unless you've already started downloading it before the cut-off. Sometimes you can still register the game after the giveaway has ended so long as you managed to start the download before the giveaway ends. I've tested this and the grace period lasts for up to 1 hour. Apart from the above instances; i.e. already installed, but having problems running the game, (with the possibility of receiving help from the community via the giveawayoftheday game discussion forum); or still downloading after the cut off period, but within the 1 hour grace period, or registering within an hour of the cut-off period. Once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done to get the game (unless its available from one of the free game sites) until the game is given away again (though that isn't always guaranteed).

It's worth checking the giveaway game discussion forums the day before the giveaways go live to see if we are getting a large sized file (I usually post a comment about approximately how large a file is if it's likely to cause problems for those with slow connections; however, if I'm particularly busy I may neglect to do this). It is especially important for those who have slow connections and even more so if the game is popular. We can have up to forty thousand (40 000) community members downloading over the 24 hour period (if the game is popular), with the bulk of community members downloading in the first 12 hours of the giveaway going live, there is always a massive strain on the giveaway servers. The bigger the file size, the more community members will be downloading at any one time. Because the bandwidth is shared equally among all community members, downloads can become excruciatingly slow, so if you do have a slow connection, its important to start your download as early as possible to avoid disappointment. Because these games are free, the giveaway owners cannot invest in more bandwidth without compromising the whole project, so we have to be satisfied with what we have at present.

A download manager can help speed the download up and also protect the download in case of an interruption. There's nothing as frustrating for those with really slow connections to have the connection break after an hour or so, then have to start from the beginning again. I would ask community members if you do have decent bandwidth please avoid using a manager as it does add to the number of downloads occurring at any one time, for example some download managers will download your requested file in up to 32 packets simultaneously, that effectively will take 32 download spots, thus slowing down everyone's download speeds. For those with slow downloads (due to having a slow connection e.g. a 2MB Broadband connection or less) I would advise using a download manager if the file is larger than around 200MB. My broadband connection is 100MBs, so I don't need to use a download manager, (I do have one called Internet Download Manager, but don't use it when downloading files from the giveaway site). For me a 1GB file usually downloads in about 1.5 minutes or less. My connection is quite a long way from the provider so it is slowed a little, but is still quite good at a download speed of around 12 to 14 MB's per second.

I hope the above goes some way in explaining why  we sometimes have really slow downloads.

It’s always worth checking out the free games sites because sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them.  MyPlayCity (MPC) has the most with over 1400 games to choose from and TooMky Games is highly recommended as well, though sometimes Gametop  will have the game when the others don't.  The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest isn't available from any of the free game sites I know.

If you do download any games from these free game sites please 'do' watch out for toolbars etc. Make sure you un-check the check-boxes during installation, and, in the case of MyPlayCity, every time you boot the game up, (this may have changed now as these free game sites tend to change the format frequently). I've not downloaded any from these sites in ages so can't confirm whether they have changed....... I've posted links to all of the common free game sites below in the 'games, games and yet more games' section. If you do download a game from any of these sites you do so at your own risk. We cannot be held responsible for problems arising from an installation recommended here. :)

The gamegiveaway site is   the safest  site I know of where you can get free software and games.  (BitsduJour is also great for free applications). The  only disadvantages   with downloading from here is you have to download and install within the  day of the giveaway  and  if and when you  upgrade  or buy a new computer  legally you aren't allowed to transfer  games given away previously, unless they are being given away again after you upgrade, or if you've purchased a license.  :)

You just have to look at the sites track record  since the game giveaway site was created  back in December 2006.  No  games given away here since the inception of the gamegiveaway site  have been infected with malware, there are no toolbars installed, nor  home pages hijacked or browsers  changed. There is  one slight annoyance, but that only occurs if  a community member isn't paying attention; i.e. when the final window pops up after installing a giveaway, called 'the Software Informer'  installation window.  Some community members have complained that they were given no choice in  its installation.  That is not true;  when the final window pops up, there are two buttons, one asking if you want Software Informer installed and the button to  close the  giveaway window  down.  Some community members have  clicked on the wrong button, probably because they weren't paying attention.  Thankfully Software Informer is a genuine application, that can easily be  uninstalled by the usual means. It's actually  a useful piece of software, especially if you have a lot of applications running on your computer.  Basically  the program  will list   the programs that need updating, or programs that  have available updates.  They wont be automatically installed (thus  cancelling many giveaway registrations); you have to click on individual buttons to update each program/application.  :D

Games, Games, and yet more Games:

There are 133 games on sale this week, with a new batch of games to come on Monday. You can find all of the games on sale <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. I won't bother listing any of the games, but it should be worth visiting as there are games for all tastes. Of course you do need to install the Steam client, but IMO it is well worth it. There are lots of free games (not just free to play online games) available plus there are always games on sale. You'll often find other game distributors will sell games with a Steam key and most of the bundled games on sale usually come with a Steam key as well.

You'll  find some excellent  deals over on the following Game sites.

<a href="http://www.greenmangaming.com/hot-deals/" rel="nofollow">GreenManGaming</a> They usually have coupons to the value of 23% and sometimes more off pre ordered games. I've pre ordered lots of AAA games from GMG and saved up to 25% off the pre order prices you find on Steam.

<a href="http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">Gamersgate Summer Sale</a>
<a href="http://www.gog.com/" rel="nofollow">GOG</a> (DRM free games)
<a href="http://www.gamestop.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">Gamestop</a>
<a href="http://digital.gamefly.co.uk/#!/pc" rel="nofollow">GameFly</a> (soon to be sold off)

I've removed the Desura link because the owners are bankrupt and  there has been no activity on the site in many months.  The servers are still live (at least until  Bad JoJo's subscription to the servers has ended, Bad JoJo are the owners of Desura and Indie Royale, or were  until  filing for bankruptcy).  If you own any games via Desura I advise  downloading all of the drm free  games  you have on that platform  and on the Indie Royale site before the sites are taken down.

Free Game Sites:

<a href="http://toomkygames.com/" rel="nofollow">Toomky Games</a>
<a href="http://www.myplaycity.com/" rel="nofollow">MyPlayCity</a> (over a 1000 games to choose from)
<a href="http://www.gametop.com/" rel="nofollow">Gametop</a>
<a href="http://freegamepick.net/en/" rel="nofollow">FreeGamePick</a> (I've been told by Diane that FreeGamePick games tend to revert to demo's, can't qualify this tohugh as i don't download from FreeGamePick anymore.

To be honest there are too many game deals   around too list them all.  Just visit the sites I recommend above and I'm sure you'll find something that suits you   for a very  decent price. If like me you prefer Steamworks games, many of the above sites also sell Steamwork games.

If that's not enough, check out the Game Discussion forums <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/forum/17" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> for details of other games either free or on deals such as the Indie Game bundles (there's over 20 of them - If you purchased all of them you'd be paying around $80 for around a thousand dollars worth of games); or check out the four day sales at <a href="https://indiegamestand.com/" rel="nofollow">IndieGameStand</a>. you'll find the indie bundles thread <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/100253#post-202848" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. The thread is outdated, but all of the links will still take you to the latest bundles.

The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest

The latest IndieGameStand game is Megatect
<blockquote>Essentially, Megatect is Mario Maker meets Quake 3

Think of Megatect as a level editor without limitation! Use a slew of blocks, objects, and wires to create your own challenge maps, Arenas, sports, whatever you can dream up! Play solo or with friends and share grids online for others to play!

Being in Alpha, Megatect is still in development.</blockquote>
You can get the game for $1; pay over the average to a second game called Attack of the Labyrinth. (The price at the time of writing was $1.71). The game includes a drm free download and Steam keys for both games.
The deal ends Wednesday 18th February 2016 5am (GMT) IGS have extended their period from 4 to five days in between new games.

The latest DIG game is  //SNOWFLAKE TATTOO//

<blockquote>Your Dollsteak is in another castle. Straight from the maths paper of the British bedroom programming scene into your imagination. Serial fever dreamers and curio/avant garde masters Railslavegames return with the prequel to //NPPD RUSH// The milk of ultra violet. </blockquote>

Pay £0.99 for the game or you can get two keys if you pay more than the average of $1.00 (at the time of writing ). One Steam key to share with a friend or family member perhaps? You'll find that deal <a href="http://www.dailyindiegame.com/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. They also have five bundles of several games that'll cost you less than $1.50 each <a href="http://www.dailyindiegame.com/bundle_2.html" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> (DIG Super Bundles 51 & 52, reBundle 10 and DIG Greenlight Bundle 4 and 5 and DIG Indie Bundle 1). You get Steam keys for all of these games apart from the DIG Greelight Bundles. If any of those games are added to the Steam store you will get a Steam key, in the mean time, you can download DRM free copies.

The  single game deal ends   Midnight  Monday 15th  Feb  2016 and will be replaced  with  a new game.

Most of the    bundles available retail  for around $5 give or take a few dollars (apart from the Daily Indie bundles that only cost $1.49 for six games), but you can pay as little as a dollar for some.   There are some excellent  bundles out at the moment. I highly recommend the first four sites as they  regularly  change their bundles, at least weekly.  Bundle Stars is the most prolific, usually with at least 10 bundles, but  sometimes a lot more. some  bundles stay for months, others  for only a few days.  I  also recommend buying the Greenlight bundles as you  will get   quite a few  being Greenlit and save a  large amount of money on newly released games.  I reckon at least 75% of the   games from  those bundles have been Greenlit since I purchased   my first Greenlight bundle.  (I've bought at least  50 bundles  with  only Greenlight games and  they have never cost more than $3 to $4 per bundle, with savings up to 90%.  The flying bundle is  the only one that will inform you   when a game has been Greenlit and will send you  your Steam keys, the rest you have to check your accounts page to see if they have added   Steam keys. sometimes it  may take several weeks after the game has been released before you get your keys, but generally its either the same day or a few days at the most.

<a href="https://www.bundlestars.com/en/games?page=1&types=bundle" rel="nofollow">Bundle Stars</a> (26 bundles)
<a href="https://groupees.com/" rel="nofollow">Groupees</a> (3 bundles)
<a href="https://www.indiegala.com/" rel="nofollow">Indie Gala</a> (5 bundles)
<a href="https://www.humblebundle.com/" rel="nofollow">Humble bundle</a> (2 Bundles)
<a href="http://www.indieroyale.com/" rel="nofollow">Indie Royale</a> (this bundle is no longer live)
<a href="https://www.blinkbundle.com/" rel="nofollow">Blink Bundle</a> (0 bundles)
<a href="http://www.playinjector.com/" rel="nofollow">Play Injector</a> (0 bundle)
<a href="http://getloadedgo.com/" rel="nofollow">Get Loaded</a> (0 bundles)
<a href="http://gamesrage.org/" rel="nofollow">Games Rage</a> (0 bundles)
<a href="http://www.flyingbundle.com/" rel="nofollow">Flying bundle</a> (1 bundles)

FREE GAME:

The  free game from Origin is  now the excellent  racing game (at least racing away from the police) Need for speed: Most Wanted.  The developer has returned to its roots with this offering.  Released just over 3 years ago,   this is a superb vehicle based  AAA game. Compared to  all arcade games i've ever played, this looks amazing and playys brilliantly.  Make sure your system is good enough to play the game before you  decide to download. That said, it will still be worth adding it to your Origin account because once it's tied to your account, you can download it anytime.  Worth  registering  in preparation for thgat new computer you've always wanted.  :)

<blockquote>To be Most Wanted, you’ll need to outrun the cops, outdrive your friends, and outsmart your rivals. With a relentless police force gunning to take you down, you’ll need to make split second decisions. Use the open world to your advantage to find hiding spots, hit jumps and earn new vehicles to keep you one step ahead.
In true Criterion Games fashion, your friends are at the heart of your experience. In an open world with no menus or lobbies, you’ll be able to instantly challenge your friends and prove your driving skill in a variety of seamless multiplayer events. Your rivals will do everything they can to stop you from getting to the top. In this world, there can only be one Most Wanted.

KEY FEATURES
• Open World Action – Lose the cops – your way. Hit jumps and shortcuts, lay low, or shake the cops in surroundings that play to your car's unique strengths. Freedom is everything. Drive anywhere with your friends, discover hidden gameplay or utilize your knowledge of the city to beat them in a never-ending supply of challenges.

• Non-Stop Multiplayer – Pick a car, hook up with friends and jump into a non-stop playlist of tight, competitive events. No lobby screens means the action never stops. Score big, rank up and earn endless rewards and upgrades. Keep the fierce rivalries going between events with endless opportunities to race, battle and explore in a huge open world.

• Beat Your Friends – Autolog 2 ratchets up the intense competition with personalized race recommendations and feeds broadcasting all of your most newsworthy scores, speeds and times to your friends. Earn Need for Speed points at all times on any system as you try to outdrive your friends and become the Most Wanted.

• Racing Without Rules — It’s survival of the fastest as Need for Speed Most Wanted fuses the franchise’s, authentic “real car” feel with the intense speed and aggression of Burnout. Power down, slide out, and battle your way past cops and rivals using pure driving skill, and heavy doses of nitrous.</blockquote>

Check it out <a href="https://www.origin.com/en-gb/store/free-games/on-the-house" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>.

You do need  a free Origin account and  install the Origin client to get these free games.   Once you've installed the Origin client and signed into your account  select 'On the house'  from the 'Free Games' drop down menu.  Then select download now.  The game will then be registered to your Origin account permanently.

A Request for help:

<blockquote>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 even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain what your reasons were for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with more block types for the levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment, and a big thank you to Alawar Entertainment for sharing and to the game giveaway team for getting these games.</blockquote>

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

Save | Cancel

Reply | Comment by Whiterabbit – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+12)

Whiterabbit
Bonjour,
Pour jouer en français :
1-Télécharger et installer le demo http://www.bigfishgames.fr/jeux-a-telecharger/31446/the-musketeers-victorias-quest/download.html
2-Copier les dossiers
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\Resources\images"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\Resources\localization\fr"
et les fichiers
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\Resources\xml\config.xml"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\Resources\xml\fonts.xml"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\Resources\xml\strings.xml"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\The Musketeers - Victorias Quest\game.pack"

3-Les coller respectivement dans le répertoire de jeu à la place de ceux existants :
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\Resources\images"
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\Resources\localization\fr"
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\Resources\xml\config.xml"
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\Resources\xml\fonts.xml"
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\Resources\xml\strings.xml"
"\TheMusketeersVictoriasQuest_Game\game.pack"

(Comme d'habitude vous pouvez conserver et renommer les fichiers de départ avec l'indice EN )
Bon jeu

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

Merci pour vos commentaires , toujours les bienvenus .

Reply | Comment by bricolou – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

#29

Thanks for this game! I have no problem recommending a game and GGAOTD as I am on FB already with a limited number of friends and am selective about what is shared. This is a great opportunity to have a game for free that is full featured and fun to play. I was a bit frustrated at first because the count for items to build or gather can be tricky. I have always been able to achieve full stars in these road type games though I do have to repeat and check on a walk through. However, this game allows you to get all stars on all levels in Relaxed mode. The achievements are not based on time but on performance so when you finish the level in relaxed mode, you also get 3 stars. There are level walk-throughs available on you tube, which I do not like, and on game sites that have it written out (my preferred way to do a walk through). It has turned out to be fairly addictive! Victoria is the main musketeer but when you get an addition one, it is a man and all the comments are in a male voice for him. Some of the phrases are funny but topical "all for one" "and one for all" "it's an honor" " at your service" "mon dieu!" to name a few. In the higher levels, there are longer phrases I haven't heard enough times to remember. thank you again.

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

Thank you for your feedback Barbara, please forgive the very late moderation. Been really busy this week.

I was using my sons old F.B. account, but when i cleaned the computer a few weeks ago, I lost the password and was too lazy to bother getting a new one. I found that if I clicked on the Facebook button then cancelled it before logging in it would still open up the download button.
blockquote>

Reply | Comment by Barbara – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#28

I've enjoyed this game, relaxed mode is my preference.

The only part I don't care for is having to change from the shoulder bag to the gloves to get extra goods, I would rather have it be automatically changed or not so many changes back and forth on the wood and stone, it becomes annoying after a while, I can only image how it would be in a timed mode having to change back and forth.

Thanks for the good game !

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

Thank you for your feedback Kirk

Reply | Comment by Kirk – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#27

Dont bother with this game. There is a fault at Level 10.

Reply | Comment by Suzanne – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Suzanne
Level 10 requires you to equip the shoulder bag you earned a level or two ago. It gives you an extra stone with every boulder/obtacle you break. It is found in the inventory section.

Reply | Comment by Suzanne – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Suzanne
Hi Suzanne,

I finally got through Level 10. It is kind of dumb the way they make you go and select that special power .... when you click on the INVENTORY icon in the lower right corner there is a screen that pops up. On the left edge of that screen is a tab with a purple hat on it.

I missed seeing that tab several times because of the placement of that tab. It blended into the background so I didn't even see it until I went back and hunted for it.

Anyway, select that tab, and an inventory screen will open and you will see the should bag that you collected on an earlier level (the level where you had to remove your wanted posters so the guards wouldn't recognize your face). Now, select the shoulder bad and put it in her LEFT HAND by clicking on her left hand.

Once you have done that, then that power (to add an extra stone to every stone pile that you have to pick-axe) will be activated. The shoulder bag only adds one extra stone to the piles that you have to pick-axe... it does not add an extra stone to piles that you just pickup.

It is really a dumb way to do that in my opinion. It was not intuitive to me.

Do not remove the pits that lead to the SAWMILL until you have successfully entered through the gates. Once you have entered through the gates of the castle grounds, then you can remove the two pits that lead to the SAWMILL (then it will provide you with the wood you need going forward).

Lastly, after you enter the gates, there is a split in the path (a fork in the road, so to speak). Make sure you do not pick up anything on the side to YOUR left (the character's RIGHT). That path ends in a dead end. Do not take the path that goes to the dead end. If you do, you will give away your last gold bar and then you will not be able to continue to the castle. Just stay on the path that leads to the castle.

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

Glad it was sorted

Suzanne 
Hi Suzanne,

I finally got through Level 10. It is kind of dumb the way they make you go and select that special power .... when you click on the INVENTORY icon in the lower right corner there is a screen that pops up. On the left edge of that screen is a tab with a purple hat on it.

I missed seeing that tab several times because of the placement of that tab. It blended into the background so I didn't even see it until I went back and hunted for it.

Anyway, select that tab, and an inventory screen will open and you will see the should bag that you collected on an earlier level (the level where you had to remove your wanted posters so the guards wouldn't recognize your face). Now, select the shoulder bad and put it in her LEFT HAND by clicking on her left hand.

Once you have done that, then that power (to add an extra stone to every stone pile that you have to pick-axe) will be activated. The shoulder bag only adds one extra stone to the piles that you have to pick-axe... it does not add an extra stone to piles that you just pickup.

It is really a dumb way to do that in my opinion. It was not intuitive to me.

Do not remove the pits that lead to the SAWMILL until you have successfully entered through the gates. Once you have entered through the gates of the castle grounds, then you can remove the two pits that lead to the SAWMILL (then it will provide you with the wood you need going forward).

Lastly, after you enter the gates, there is a split in the path (a fork in the road, so to speak). Make sure you do not pick up anything on the side to YOUR left (the character's RIGHT). That path ends in a dead end. Do not take the path that goes to the dead end. If you do, you will give away your last gold bar and then you will not be able to continue to the castle.  Just stay on the path that leads to the castle.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator comment.....................</blockquote>
<blockquote>Glad it was sorted</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by AZEXPLORER – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

AZEXPLORER
Thanks, AZ! Finally made it through Level 10, and even through Level 11 with just one restart. You really have to be careful with resources in this game.

Reply | Comment by Maureen – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Maureen
Yes as you go along you will receive more gifts to add to the Inventory. Read everything and the game becomes enjoyable. I am nearly finished but am hooked on it already. Going to hate it when finished. :)

Reply | Comment by Suzanne – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#26

THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH LEVEL 10. Sorry for the capitals but someone else has mentioned it and no answers yet.

I am playing the game in relaxed mode and I had to revert to walkthrough to try and sort out what went wrong. There are two problems. One the pile of stones outside the gate says it will give you 3. The walkthrough says 4. Two the pile of stones inside the gate says it will give you 3. The walkthrough says 4. This means you can not get through Level 10

I am about to play the normal mode and hope that it is different there. Otherwise the game can go in the bin.

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

Thank you for your feedback Suzanne

Reply | Comment by Suzanne – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#25

It is nothing compared to Weather Lord and it is a fun and VERY simple little game with lots of running around paths and picking up stuff.
I certainly hope these very sexist caricatures of women would just fade away and the brave, strong women we are includes the wearing of practical clothing for the tasks ahead.

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

Well said. Sadly we are still a ways to go before equality is reach.

Reply | Comment by NashvilleSuz – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

NashvilleSuz
I am sick and tired of women being depicted with BIG BOOBS and running with their arms flailing about like complete idiots. These kinds of games are insulting and demeaning to women of all ages, races, etc.

Can you imagine if a game depicted certain ethnic races in a similar demeaning and insulting manner? Everyone would be outraged. But we are so conditioned to accept the way MEN depict women (as helpless idiots that cannot function without a big strong man) that we don't even bother to mention it.

It is funny, because I noticed the demeaning depiction immediately, but didn't say anything... I just accepted it and played the game (begrudgingly) ... but it REALLY bothered me. Then, I came to this forum and see that someone was brave enough to speak up. Thank you for that!

As for saying "Sadly we are still a ways to go before equality is reach" it is really sad to me that that kind of statement is even acceptable in 2016. It is not acceptable to me. Women are at least 50% of the entire population of the WORLD, yet women are STILL disrespected by the OTHER 50% of the population, and no one seems to give a flip about it.

So, when there is a GAME that further promotes the disrespectful portrayal of women, it just disgusts me. The women in these games are portrayed the way a MAN wants a women to behave and appear (helpless, stupid, big boobs, scanty clothing) .... not the way a REAL woman behaves in real life.

Seriously, I have never gone out to work in my yard in short revealing panties with my boobs hanging out. And when I go toward the backyard, I don't run there with my arms flailing about and my hair blowing in the wind.

It is just insulting. Made by men, for the benefit of men.

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

I agree and I'm a man. There was a special bundle available on one of the bundle sites, I think it was the Groupees site where all of the games, were basically cartoon pornography in the Anime style. One of the only bundles I've not purchased from them.

NashvilleSuz 
I am sick and tired of women being depicted with BIG BOOBS and running with their arms flailing about like complete idiots. These kinds of games are insulting and demeaning to women of all ages, races, etc.

Can you imagine if a game depicted certain ethnic races in a similar demeaning and insulting manner? Everyone would be outraged. But we are so conditioned to accept the way MEN depict women (as helpless idiots that cannot function without a big strong man) that we don't even bother to mention it.

It is funny, because I noticed the demeaning depiction immediately, but didn't say anything... I just accepted it and played the game (begrudgingly) ... but it REALLY bothered me. Then, I came to this forum and see that someone was brave enough to speak up. Thank you for that!

As for saying "Sadly we are still a ways to go before equality is reach" it is really sad to me that that kind of statement is even acceptable in 2016. It is not acceptable to me. Women are at least 50% of the entire population of the WORLD, yet women are STILL disrespected by the OTHER 50% of the population, and no one seems to give a flip about it.

So, when there is a GAME that further promotes the disrespectful portrayal of women, it just disgusts me. The women in these games are portrayed the way a MAN wants a women to behave and appear (helpless, stupid, big boobs, scanty clothing) .... not the way a REAL woman behaves in real life.

Seriously, I have never gone out to work in my yard in short revealing panties with my boobs hanging out. And when I go toward the backyard, I don't run there with my arms flailing about and my hair blowing in the wind.

It is just insulting.  Made by men, for the benefit of men.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator comment.....................</blockquote>
<blockquote>I agree and I'm a man. There was a special bundle available on one of the bundle sites, I think it was the Groupees site where all of the games, were basically cartoon pornography in the Anime style. One of the only bundles I've not purchased from them. </blockquote>

Save | Cancel

Reply | Comment by AZEXPLORER – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#24

Hi,

I'm with everyone else preferring the old set up! These are not my favorite type of game and tend to follow the same format, where they become boring after a few rounds to me. It downloaded easy and set up quickly. At first I received a notice to not allow, then it set up. The game runs smoothly. At the third level, I believe I failed because I did not use the power up, so it looks like I'll be starting over. I did not understand where it says player and players. Not sure can enter a name etc. Maybe younger ones would like it more. I wasn't going to bother, but thought would try with new format. I was on the laptop that I can't load the games to for some reason when accepted for Facebook, so then went back and clicked mail to have it sent to upload on other computer and it worked fine!
Have a great week and thanks for another good game!
Lee

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

Thank you for your feedback Lee

Reply | Comment by Lee – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#23

There is something wrong with level 10. You cannot get past level 10. There are simply not enough stones provided to complete the level.... therefore you are permanently stuck and cannot proceed to any other levels. I have gone through the walk-throughs and I can clearly see that the version of this game that those people have is different than the version I have. Their version has stone piles that provide more stones than the stone piles in my game for level 10. If you check the BigFish page for this game you will see many others are stating the same think I encountered. It is too bad that this giveaway is broken like this. Is there anyway to contact the developers and report this? It seems like this problem has fallen on deaf ears even on the BigFish website. The first 9 levels were fun. But now I am sad that I cannot go any further. Please help.

Reply | Comment by AZEXPLORER – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

AZEXPLORER
I can't get through level 10 either, AZ! I've enabled the Shoulder Bag extra-stone bonus, and I've tried different things four times, but I still can't get through -- even after watching the YouTube walk-through.

Error, I think; and too bad, 'cause I've enjoyed it to level 10.

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

What mode did you play?

Reply | Comment by Maureen – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Maureen
Hi Maureen,

I play in Relaxed Mode.

I wonder if I tried it in another mode, if it might work. I will give it a try and report back.

Although, I only like these games in Relaxed Mode. But, at this point I can scream through everything in the proper order since I have done it so many times and watched the walk-throughs so many times.... I should be able to easily beat the clock for level 10. Then I can resume relaxed mode for the other levels.

Thank you for giving me this idea Maureen. :)

Deb

Reply | Comment by AZEXPLORER – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Maureen
Well rats.... In order to find out if there are enough stones in the piles in Level 10 in Timed Mode I would have to start over at Level 1 and play all levels in the regular Timed Mode to see if Level 10 works, then I would have to continue to play in Timed Mode if I wanted to go past Level 10 ... and that is no fun for me at all.

I was hoping I could just play Level 10 in Timed Mode... but I was wrong.

I might even get to Level 10 and find that there are not enough stones in Timed Mode, too.

So, I guess at this point, my more specific report is that there are not enough stones in the piles in Level 10 when playing in Relaxed Mode.

Thanks again for your suggestion. I am just not going to play all future levels in Timed Mode just to get past Level 10. That is not fun for me at all. I play these games to relax, and Timed Mode is not relaxing for me at all.

Thanks anyway.

Deb

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

Thanks for your feedback Deb :)

Reply | Comment by AZEXPLORER – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#22

Thanks for all your hard work. Even with the changes (which must be hard for you because it's often not what we want but someone above us), keep up the good work you do for us! :)

Reply | Comment by Holly – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#21

Win10 64bit Home. Loaded fast but I could not get it going. Cant remember what it said so I Ran as Administrator and away it went. All up, a good game. I like these types and this was has more graphics I got lost. LOL Improvements? Yeah, the bit down the bottom (what's it called) where the part that says what Task we need to do, well that could be a little bit bigger. These old eyes had to lean in close to see it.

Reply | Comment by Suzanne – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#20

There's a problem with the GCD file.
I could not extract it.
Downloaded the zip file twice already.
Checksum error. Archive is corrupt.
Windows 8.1 is giving error 0x80004005 when extracting.
Too bad, I realy wanted to try this game.

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

Hi Wanderer, thousands of community members have already downloaded this game with no issues. It's probably your security settings that are blocking the game installation. The giveaway wrapper has Themida code protecting the games executable. some security will block this. I bet if you temporarily turned off your security you'd be able to install the game. The game giveaway team have given over a thousand games since Dec 2006 and none have been infected. They check every game given away with several anti malware suites to ensure we get clean downloads. Once you've installed your game (assuming you follow my suggestion), make sure you turn your security back on.

Reply | Comment by Wanderer – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Wanderer
Hi Stephen,

I did not reach the installation phase yet. My problem is the archive file itself. I could not extract it, due to a checksum error. I just downloaded for the tird time, with my antivirus OFF. Still gave me same problem.

Would you double check it plase.

I scanned it with my antivirus (Bitdefender), it gave me no problem, but the archivers, all of them gave me corrupt error, I could not extract it.

Thanks.

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

Which archivers did you use? Try one or more of the ones I link to in the FAQ;s thread. I had a similar problem some years ago after buying a large game as a digital download. No matter how many times I downloaded it, I got errors saying the file was corrupted. I contacted the developer who said he had checked the file being downloaded and it was okay. I happened to have a second file archiver installed that I'd not used an found that it unpacked the wrapper file with no errors.

Reply | Comment by Wanderer – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Wanderer
Thanks Stephen.

If you did not change anything on your side, then the problem solved itself when I used internet explorer to download the file, it extracted OK, and, installed OK. That was before you post your last reply.

Previously, I was downloading using a browser called Maxthon, and, it's built-in download manager.

Sorry for troubling you with this.

Have a wonderful day.

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

No problem at all Wanderer. :)

Reply | Comment by Wanderer – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#19

Hi, thanks WR for Your Review and Guidance of Today's Game. As it happens, like on some occasions in the past - not my favorite type of Game, although the usual Alawar's really decent graphics look tempting.. Further to that - I cannot even download it simply (like before) straight to my desktop and without being asked to supply my address for a link. If I'm already on the GGOTD page, where my address is here ready for posting Comments, and that SAME e-mail address exists on main GOTD page and WORKS there, without asking me again and again for it to post a link (yes, I did check today just in case!) - WHY won't it automatically WORK (stick) here!!? Both Sites, may I observe - can be easily visited for Downloads from links to one another on Giveaway pages, so what 'gives'?

I'm sorry Stephen if it looks like I'm directing these observations Your way, as You couldn't have been asked for more than You've done Hosting GGOTD all these years and doing BEST You can!! I just simply don't know where to place them. Everything posted to Blog falls on deaf ears!! We were invited to join discussion after 'Rebirth' last October and.. did it matter one proverbial iota?? Did anything changed for return of better experience on GOTD, and now GGOTD? I will not mention indignity of Comments waiting for publishing in month's long que, ignored, or removed. What's more, we were made to believe the difficulties with new page format were due to people having 'wrong' Browsers.., when the truth is simple: just another case of developers forcing mobile design standards onto a desktop environment. Wasn't that what our fellow User Ben basically said last weekend? Could some of it (at least!) had been avoided if people were treated with more respect and less kiddology? I dare say - YES!! It's amazing how much more understanding and cooperation can be achieved in fair play that goes both ways!? If it matters at all - Please, please keep BOTH - 'desktop users' and 'mobile phone users' happy, giving us a CHOICE of Formats.

And oh, last Saturday heading for our usual weekend Game venue called GGOTD and finding what 'Always Yours' have done to it this time - felt like this amazing Community Game Club was raided, familiar warm, welcoming design stripped of it's wallpaper, walls sprayed with white paint, everything scattered to glory, Skipper struggling to get in onboard.. Just simply AWFUL!! I'm glad You are back thou Whiterabbit!! Good Luck to You and all of us!

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

Thank you for your kind words Fran; it's community members like yourself that has kept the light burning inside me with respect to continuing here.

Unfortunately I doubt we will see a return to the old format despite the large number of protests we've seen since the change occurred last week (sadly). This new format has me running through rings compared to what I did with the old layout. I have to add code manually at every paragraph otherwise everything blends in together. This has extended the time I have to spend, both writing my reviews (at least until I've created a new standard template for my reviews but also for moderating. I dare say I'll carry on as usual even though I am unhappy with the changes. Last weeks comment by Ben did hit it on the nose as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, it was like a game club, with friendly members and yes I agree it feels like it's been raided. Nothing I can do will change what has happened. I just hope you and everyone else continues to come here. The game giveaway team have managed to bring us some excellent games over the last several months, with fewer repeats than what we had become used to. Lets hope this continues to be the norm. I think it started when Immanitas entertainment became a regular, though both Alawar and Playrix have opened up their catalogue over the last several months, with fewer repeats and newer games. Of course, we are still getting a lot of HOG's, TM games and match three's, but that's only because they are still the most popular arcade genres and consequently a lot more of them are being created.. We are now getting a lot of games that are posted over on Steam, though we don't get the Steam keys.

Hi, thanks WR for Your Review and Guidance of Today's Game. As it happens, like on some occasions in the past - not my favorite type of Game, although the usual Alawar's really decent graphics look tempting.. Further to that - I cannot even download it simply (like before) straight to my desktop and without being asked to supply my address for a link. If I'm already on the GGOTD page, where my address is here ready for posting Comments, and that SAME e-mail address exists on main GOTD page and WORKS there, without asking me again and again for it to post a link (yes, I did check today just in case!) - WHY won't it automatically WORK (stick) here!!? Both Sites, may I observe - can be easily visited for Downloads from links to one another on Giveaway pages, so what 'gives'?

I'm sorry Stephen if it looks like I'm directing these observations Your way, as You couldn't have been asked for more than You've done Hosting GGOTD all these years and doing BEST You can!! I just simply don't know where to place them. Everything posted to Blog falls on deaf ears!! We were invited to join discussion after 'Rebirth' last October and.. did it matter one proverbial iota?? Did anything changed for return of better experience on GOTD, and now GGOTD? I will not mention indignity of Comments waiting for publishing in month's long que, ignored, or removed. What's more, we were made to believe the difficulties with new page format were due to people having 'wrong' Browsers.., when the truth is simple: just another case of developers forcing mobile design standards onto a desktop environment. Wasn't that what our fellow User Ben basically said last weekend? Could some of it (at least!) had been avoided if people were treated with more respect and less kiddology? I dare say - YES!! It's amazing how much more understanding and cooperation can be achieved in fair play that goes both ways!? If it matters at all - Please, please keep BOTH - 'desktop users' and 'mobile phone users' happy, giving us a CHOICE of Formats.

And oh, last Saturday heading for our usual weekend Game venue called GGOTD and finding what 'Always Yours' have done to it this time - felt like this amazing Community Game Club was raided, familiar warm, welcoming design stripped of it's wallpaper, walls sprayed with white paint, everything scattered to glory, Skipper struggling to get in onboard.. Just simply AWFUL!! I'm glad You are back thou Whiterabbit!! Good Luck to You and all of us!

<blockquote>.............................Moderator comment............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Thank you for your kind words Fran; it's community members like yourself that has kept the light burning inside me with respect to continuing here.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Unfortunately I doubt we will see a return to the old format despite the large number of protests we've seen since the change occurred last week (sadly). This new format has me running through rings compared to what I did with the old layout. I have to add code manually at every paragraph otherwise everything blends in together. This has extended the time I have to spend, both writing my reviews (at least until I've created a new standard template for my reviews but also for moderating. I dare say I'll carry on as usual even though I am unhappy with the changes. Last weeks comment by Ben did hit it on the nose as far as I'm concerned.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Yes, it was like a game club, with friendly members and yes I agree it feels like it's been raided. Nothing I can do will change what has happened. I just hope you and everyone else continues to come here. The game giveaway team have managed to bring us some excellent games over the last several months, with fewer repeats than what we had become used to. Lets hope this continues to be the norm. I think it started when Immanitas entertainment became a regular, though both Alawar and Playrix have opened up their catalogue over the last several months, with fewer repeats and newer games. Of course, we are still getting a lot of HOG's, TM games and match three's, but that's only because they are still the most popular arcade genres and consequently a lot more of them are being created.. We are now getting a lot of games that are posted over on Steam, though we don't get the Steam keys.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by fran – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

Thank You very much Stephen for finding time to write Your kind words. Guess we have to brave all weathers and try to learn how to walk here again wearing.. over-sized cloths, shoes that are too big and wrong pair of glasses to view everything properly?? Some might find it challenging enough, before concentrating on Games and adding feedbacks. For how long - time will tell. Hope these new 'drafty' surroundings can be sealed little bit to resemble country walk, rather than a ride on motorway without firm control over breaks.. Bidding Everyone good night:)

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

Very well put Fran. Thanks. :)

Reply | Comment by fran – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#18

Installed this game and it bombed when I went to start it. So I deleted it, re-downloaded and re-installed, and the exact same thing: I get the message, "The Mustketeers: Victoria"s Quest.exe has stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem...." then nothing. Got a screen capture but can't figure out how to add the photo of the screen here. Any help would be most appreciated!

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

Have you read the FAQ's thread over in the game discussion forums? It may be that your security is the problem. The game giveaway wrapper contains Themida code which is sometimes seen as a threat by anti-malware suites and therefore blocked. The only way to overcome this is to either configure your anti-malware/security to accept the giveaway wrapper or temporarily turn off your security. As mentioned in my review above, there has been well over a thousand games given away since Dec 2006 and no game has ever been infected with malware that has been given away here. That's because the giveaway team check all files that are to be downloaded using several different malware suites to ensure the files are free from malware. Once the game has been installed, you can then turn your security back on

.

If the above doesn't solve the problem check the FAQ's thread, which i link to in the problems section of my review. (See the first comment above). Please let me know if either of the above solved the problem. Thank you.

Reply | Comment by drkenb – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

drkenb
I had the same error and fixed it by running the game in windows xp sp3 compatibility mode and as an administer at the same time. Also thanks to white rabbit for the great review and everything else you do.

p.s. I am running the game on my microsoft surface pro 4.

Reply | Comment by bobbygiovannucci – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

I've tried re-downloading the program, making sure my Avast virus software was OFF, ran the program in various compat modes and as an Administrator, and nothing works. I double-click on the game icon, my screen goes black and instantly a white box opens, and then I get the Windows 10 box indicating that the program created a problem.

Shame, I really wanted this one!

Reply | Comment by drkenb – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#17

As much as I appreciate the fact that Whiterabbit is passionate about this and does a lot of hard work, I find it ridiculous that I have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll before I can see comments from other users. Can't you just post a link to your review, please? I find the quick comments by other user more useful than pages of screenshots.

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

Unfortunately i can't please everyone Kevin. My reviews have evolved over the last nine years in response to the communities requests. I've already considered posting some parts of my review, at least the non related parts associated with the giveaway in the forums, but that's still something for me to decide on. I've also got to consider newcomers to the giveaway community. I feel duty bound to give them the information that i feel they would need as new members (for example the installation section and for those who don't find the giveaway enticing I post details of other games you can get for free or dirt cheap from safe sites). If I didn't include these, I'd get more questions that would take more of my valuable time answering. The review has evolved to accommodate as many community members as I can . For those who find my reviews to long, all you need to do is grab the side scrolling button and drag it to the next comment. That's much quicker than using the scroll wheel on your mouse.

Reply | Comment by Kevin – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-8)

#16

Stephen -- As I have said, I like your reviews just the way they are, but I trust your judgement and the opinions of the good folks commenting here, and I'll be happy whatever you decide.

I had a thought. Your commitment to this site and those of us that visit is astounding. Eight years of giving up weekend time for no pay at all! You add such value to the site that you deserve more than just our thanks. How about working out a way to get some compensation for your work? The simplest I can think of would be to add a "Contribute" button to your review, but maybe others have other ideas.

What do you say, folks?

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

Thanks for your comment Dan, I could never do that as I would feel like it devalued the work I do here. It's always been voluntary. I did consider a separate game review site several years ago when a fellow community member suggested we join together, he with his web site expertise and my knowledge of gaming to create a site where you could read reviews and find details of free and discount games. That window passed some years ago as there are now far too many excellent sites that do exactly that. Also, i don't think my reviews are that good. My written English isn't the best and my prose is rater lax, plus I'm too slow to work on it further to make it a worthwhile enterprise.

I'd make a terrible business man. case in point, years ago I spent the equivalent of thousands setting up a model railway. I build a control box with switches for electric points and made my own stop and go lights out of brass tubing, brass plate and green and red LED's and connected them all up using telecommunications cable that a relative who worked for British Telecom gave me. The whole thing took me several moths to build. I built it mainly for my children, but they never showed interest, so I decided to advertise it in the local press. Not for money, but for educational toys for my children. I ended up swapping it for a console that had an alphanumeric keyboard and several games (this was way back in the early 80's). A week after I made the exchange the thing stopped working. I phoned the guy who had swapped it, but the telephone number he gave me wasn't a real number.

Another example, when I was at university (mid 80's) a friend saw that I had some Frank Zappa albums. He was collecting Zappa albums and was shy three of them, two of which I had (one was a live album that was apparently really hard to find at the time). He offered me a substantial amount of money for the two albums I had that he didn't have. I gave them to him for free, because to me those two albums I didn't particularly rate and even though the money (around £75 each) would have fueled my passion for the local rock club in Manchester for at least a month, I could never have taken money for something I didn't think was worth more than what I originally paid for them (a few pounds second hand)

.

Stephen -- As I have said, I like your reviews just the way they are, but I trust your judgement and the opinions of the good folks commenting here, and I'll be happy whatever you decide.

I had a thought. Your commitment to this site and those of us that visit is astounding. Eight years of giving up weekend time for no pay at all! You add such value to the site that you deserve more than just our thanks. How about working out a way to get some compensation for your work? The simplest I can think of would be to add a "Contribute" button to your review, but maybe others have other ideas.

What do you say, folks?

<blockquote>.............................Moderator comment............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Thanks for your comment Dan, I could never do that as I would feel like it devalued the work I do here. It's always been voluntary. I did consider a separate game review site several years ago when a fellow community member suggested we join together, he with his web site expertise and my knowledge of gaming to create a site where you could read reviews and find details of free and discount games. That window passed some years ago as there are now far too many excellent sites that do exactly that. Also, i don't think my reviews are that good. My written English isn't the best and my prose is rater lax, plus I'm too slow to work on it further to make it a worthwhile enterprise. </blockquote>

<blockquote>I'd make a terrible business man. case in point, years ago I spent the equivalent of thousands setting up a model railway. I build a control box with switches for electric points and made my own stop and go lights out of brass tubing, brass plate and green and red LED's and connected them all up using telecommunications cable that a relative who worked for British Telecom gave me. The whole thing took me several moths to build. I built it mainly for my children, but they never showed interest, so I decided to advertise it in the local press. Not for money, but for educational toys for my children. I ended up swapping it for a console that had an alphanumeric keyboard and several games (this was way back in the early 80's). A week after I made the exchange the thing stopped working. I phoned the guy who had swapped it, but the telephone number he gave me wasn't a real number. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Another example, when I was at university (mid 80's) a friend saw that I had some Frank Zappa albums. He was collecting Zappa albums and was shy three of them, two of which I had (one was a live album that was apparently really hard to find at the time). He offered me a substantial amount of money for the two albums I had that he didn't have. I gave them to him for free, because to me those two albums I didn't particularly rate and even though the money (around £75 each) would have fueled my passion for the local rock club in Manchester for at least a month, I could never have taken money for something I didn't think was worth more than what I originally paid for them (a few pounds second hand)</blockquote>.

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Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Stephen, If I may be a little persistent -- What I'm proposing is a free-will donation, not a charge for your services. There are many many people who value your contribution, and some will be able to give you a "tip" of a few dollars/pounds/euros whatever. You wouldn't have to conduct any business.

It has nothing to do with the literary quality of your writing. Your reviews are valuable just the way they are. You help to connect us all into a gaming community.

Dan O

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

:)

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#15

I am glad this TM game has a relaxed mode. Otherwise I would not have considered it. I play games to relax, not to be competitive. I prefer to listen to news programs or watch TV while I am playing a game, and I am frequently interrupted in the course of playing one, so I appreciate games where intense focus does not matter a whole lot. In short, I prefer to play games that do not require a whole lot of thinking--lol! I do that so much at work and with my family anyway. I am not a big game player, and appreciate simple diversion. I guess it takes all types!

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

:)

Reply | Comment by blueboomerang – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

blueboomerang
I also prefer relaxed mode. I normally do not have free chunks of time to dedicate to games nor even TV. My other work occurs simultaneously as well. I do however like exploring and complicated strategy and logic games. It's just the matter that a few games have no way to pause for persistent interruptions (ah to be a kid again!).
I've installed the game but am working on spreadsheets and have no ETA, when I can actually touch then rate the game. :/
Thanks Alawar and WR!

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

Thanks for your feedback Jahn, I've been retired for over 10 years now due to a serious accident and really miss work. Mainly the interaction with other people, but thankfully I still have a young family living with me who keep me on my toes, plus I have lots of projects either on the go, or planned that keep me occupied. I am even thinking of developing a game of my own. I've purchased lots of game development tools, 3D modelling and art programs to actually be able to create something, all I need now is a kick/incentive to get me started.

Good luck with your work.

Reply | Comment by Jahn – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#14

A HUGE thank you to GGAOTD for listening to all of the comments last weekend and making all of the important changes that were requested. :-)

Reply | Comment by Daniel – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

#13

Boy sure is a Looong way down to this comment section. Liked the review. Comments not to high on this game though but I was already in d/l so. Maybe the relax and multi-click option will keep me in a bit. The Viking Brothers still pulls me back in now & then for the humor remarks that have begun after some levels. Like how the old guy in mountain sort of dismisses them by saying he has so much to do and they should get one with it. Stay warn this weekend if on East Coast. NYC bitter even w/ sun.

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

Thanks for your comment beergas. Things have been wet and cold, but not freezing here in the UK. I think this has been the wettest winter I can ever remember. Our gardens already have daffodils and one of the camellia's has started to bloom early as have several other flowering plants, including several of the trees which have blossomed and already shed their petals.

Reply | Comment by beergas – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#12

Dear Stephen,

Please do not change a thing about your reviews, especially by moving them or anything else to another area. I'm sorry that it annoys CSR but my guess is that the overwhelming number of us enjoy every bit of what you post here.

Maybe it's because I've gotten used to the format but it works me and gives me an informed answer as to whether the newest offering is right for me. Sometimes a comment might intrigue me enough to give a game a second look and I wind up enjoying it.

I would rather have to skip over than regret having missed something. I like having everything all in one place being able to pick and choose what catches my interest at the moment.

I must have misconstrued something I read previously about you being dropped from GGotD. I was ready to leave this site because of it. I'm glad I gave it one more try today.

As to the new format, It is much easier to read although I enjoyed the previous one which seemed to have a friendlier feel to it.

I enjoy the family, friendly, feel which you have helped to create here.

Regards.

HisSon.

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

Thank you for your comment HisSon.

I'm still trying to decide what to do. I do think posting some of the stuff such as the installation and the extra games as well as the request for help in the forums. It would give the review a more rounded and concise appearance. Those area's that I'd be linking to would also include a return link to take you back to the main review, so it would only be a couple of clicks for those who wanted or needed to read those sections.

I may give the idea a trial run to see how it goes and see what the reaction is. we shall see. :)

Reply | Comment by HisSon – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+9)

HisSon
I agree. It's not at all difficult to scroll down if you don't want to read the whole thing, and I see things I wouldn't have if they were posted elsewhere.

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

HisSon
I agree with HisSon, I very much appreciate the thoroughness and format of the reviews. I think it is quite informative for newcomers to the site, and for people not all that familiar with game play. I like having a good amount of information about something that I download onto my computer. There are times I read it and times I skip, but am always glad you take the time and effort to make it clear for all kinds of people. I scroll down pages everyday, and it is no convenience at all to do so on this site.

Reply | Comment by blueboomerang – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

#11

Downloaded and runs fine on my Win7/64 laptop. One kind of odd thing - after I clicked 'install' I hardly noticed anything happen. I actually thought it failed and was going to try again, but on a hunch I used the start button search box and found it.

I'm definitely a relaxed player. I don't want a huge challenge as much as a fun time, so I appreciate the 'Multi-click' and 'Relaxed' modes. I have played the first few levels - it's simplistic for sure, but I'm assuming it will progress in difficulty.

My complaints/suggestions so far: the character says the same 2 things over and over when she sets off on a task. I got sick of that right away and turned off the sound. So give her a variety of interesting things to say. Also. the graphics are quite small in it's non-full screen mode, enough that it left me squinting. Would be better if that screen was re-sizable.

I don't think this game stands up to some of the other TM games we've had here lately, like Viking Brothers and Weather Lord, but it's a fun game with enough variety to hold my interest, so it's a keeper for me.

Thanks GGOTD, and thanks Whiterabbit.

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

Thank you for your feedback Dan.

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#10

The new download method is a bit of a pain. I do not and will not Facebook or Google anything.

Reply | Comment by kvn – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

kvn
I agree. As I said in a previous post, not today, I do not and will not have anything to do with Facebook. I also do not participate in any social websites which would be of any interest to this website. We are being held hostage to something given to GGotD to give away for free. Ask me. Stop acting like a bully!

Reply | Comment by HisSon – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

HisSon
I don't use any social media and probably never will. If that was the only option, I would be gone in a heartbeat.

I have used the email option several times and experienced no ill results, like spam. But if you're worried, you can use a temporary email address.

GGOTD and GOTD are commercial enterprises, and we get "free" games in return for something of value to them. That is how most "free" software operates. Some bundle their sw with crapware, some build in ads. GOTD sites do neither. We get to decide if the exchange they offer is acceptable. I find the trade more than fair enough to keep utilizing the site.

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

Thanks for your comment Dan.

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)

kvn
Same here. I just came looking if downloading method changed back to 'normal'.
I was one of the first users of gaotd, but now deleted my bookmark.
Apparently I'm a asocial networker.

Will come back in a year's time to have another looksee. (if still exists?)
And thanks for all the fish...
:-)

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

Hi Casey, sorry to here you are leaving. A disposable email is all you need to continue getting these games for free. Once you've created the email and registered it there's no need to ever visit the email for download links. Once you've added the email, you can then get the download button activated automatically.

Reply | Comment by Casey – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Dan O
With you Dan. I use a lot of disposable emails. If the spam gets overwhelming you delete the account. Just prefer direct download or _2_, where _ is the same letter. Sad to see GAOTD go there.

Reply | Comment by kvn – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

kvn

As I have said, I have used the email option several times and had *no* increase in spam. And I pay attention to these things.

And just to be clear, I totally prefer the simple, old one-click method. But every business needs to change with the times and maximize profits while keeping a majority of the customers satisfied. In this age of social media, many busineses live or die by their facebook/twitter/etc presence, and it just doesn't do much good to rail against it. Especially here, where there's an easy solution.

I'm wishing that the GOTD staff would weigh in here and talk about the changes. It would feel less like the bullying HisSon perceives if they would discuss it with us.

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#9

I gave this one a good run but didn't care for it. To say it's like other Time Management games is an unfunny joke, you know, the kind you just raise one eyebrow and say "huh."...that is this game. Running Win 7 here and the extraction was easy, game installed and ran well so not a problem there. The story line is no more ridiculous than some of the other TM games so that wasn't an issue. I agree with some of the other reviews that it is painfully slow. The first few levels you are running in so many different directions, it takes forever to get from one end to the other, there's no option to add another person for assistance, if you don't figure out what the buildings are in the beginning and decide which direction to go for the correct amount of resources you have to restart the level. The only way to get resources is the ones on the path, no trees you can cut for wood or food to grow (early levels) so it's a trial and error of time and aggravation to get to the end of the level. I did do the relaxed mode, as someone had already reviewed the timed level a bit.

By level 4 you have helped someone and get the option to have a helper. Although, again, you have to chose just the right paths to get enough resources to get him in each level, you can't just start with his assistance. By level 5 and 45 minutes of play I was anything but relaxed and far from enjoying the game. I made it as far as I could and still needed 1 stone, which I could not get because I had somewhere made a wrong judgement call and would have to repeat every step as before but be certain to chose left instead of right.

I think it's interesting that you can craft things, there's a que and there's a story line to break up some monotony of the standard TM game but overall if this game were not free I would not buy it. In fact, I deleted it before I started the review. If ever there is a second game I would hope they get some testers before going live with it.

I'm a very laid back kind of gal but even the relaxed mode made me want to punch my screen. You have extremely limited areas to grab what you need. It takes FOREVER for the bakery or other places to finish making the items you need. You spend way more time sitting in your tent waiting for something to happen than you need to which is okay in relaxed mode but anything timed would be useless. Speaking of useless, the bonus stuff at the bottom to help you speed up, etc, totally and completely garbage. Sure you can move a tad bit faster but what's the point if you get one or two things and have to sit in the tent until enough food is baked for you to go after one more thing? Once you gain a helper I can understand having to upgrade the tent once but every level is ridiculous. Eventually, if the dude is going to travel with you he needs to put his rear to work too so he should be available at the first of the level. After putting in 10 minutes on level 5 and getting two spots from the end and realizing it was going to be restarted, I decided it was not worth going back over the level again. Even in relaxed mode a person should not be so bored they want to lay their head back on their chair with their arms dangling at their sides like an ape. I had time to go get coffee while waiting for food at their bakery.

If you want to try the game to prove the reviews wrong, waste a few minutes of time or just to try something new, go for it and download the game. I can't bring myself to recommend it to anyone though.

I really appreciate Alawar for allowing us another free game, they are usually fantastic games. And I appreciate GGOTD and the mods for all they do. *You do get a little winded on the depth of the games, I don't always read them. I know it takes ages to review something in the way that you do and while it's appreciated that you take the time to be thorough, giving us the basics on here, the other game links and 3-5 screenshots should do it. If folks get stuck they can check out the forums but it's a waste of your time if no one really reads everything.

I gave this one a good run but didn't care for it.  To say it's like other Time Management games is an unfunny joke, you know, the kind you just raise one eyebrow and say "huh."...that is this game.  Running Win 7 here and the extraction was easy, game installed and ran well so not a problem there.  The story line is no more ridiculous than some of the other TM games so that wasn't an issue.  I agree with some of the other reviews that it is painfully slow.  The first few levels you are running in so many different directions, it takes forever to get from one end to the other, there's no option to add another person for assistance, if you don't figure out what the buildings are in the beginning and decide which direction to go for the correct amount of resources you have to restart the level.  The only way to get resources is the ones on the path, no trees you can cut for wood or food to grow (early levels) so it's a trial and error of time and aggravation to get to the end of the level.  I did do the relaxed mode, as someone had already reviewed the timed level a bit.

By level 4 you have helped someone and get the option to have a helper.  Although, again, you have to chose just the right paths to get enough resources to get him in each level, you can't just start with his assistance.  By level 5 and 45 minutes of play I was anything but relaxed and far from enjoying the game.  I made it as far as I could and still needed 1 stone, which I could not get because I had somewhere made a wrong judgement call and would have to repeat every step as before but be certain to chose left instead of right.

I think it's interesting that you can craft things, there's a que and there's a story line to break up some monotony of the standard TM game but overall if this game were not free I would not buy it.  In fact, I deleted it before I started the review.  If ever there is a second game I would hope they get some testers before going live with it.

I'm a very laid back kind of gal but even the relaxed mode made me want to punch my screen.  You have extremely limited areas to grab what you need.  It takes FOREVER for the bakery or other places to finish making the items you need.  You spend way more time sitting in your tent waiting for something to happen than you need to which is okay in relaxed mode but anything timed would be useless.  Speaking of useless, the bonus stuff at the bottom to help you speed up, etc, totally and completely garbage.  Sure you can move a tad bit faster but what's the point if you get one or two things and have to sit in the tent until enough food is baked for you to go after one more thing?  Once you gain a helper I can understand having to upgrade the tent once but every level is ridiculous.  Eventually, if the dude is going to travel with you he needs to put his rear to work too so he should be available at the first of the level.  After putting in 10 minutes on level 5 and getting two spots from the end and realizing it was going to be restarted, I decided it was not worth going back over the level again.  Even in relaxed mode a person should not be so bored they want to lay their head back on their chair with their arms dangling at their sides like an ape.  I had time to go get coffee while waiting for food at their bakery.

If you want to try the game to prove the reviews wrong, waste a few minutes of time or just to try something new, go for it and download the game.  I can't bring myself to recommend it to anyone though.

I really appreciate Alawar for allowing us another free game, they are usually fantastic games.  And I appreciate GGOTD and the mods for all they do.  *You do get a little winded on the depth of the games, I don't always read them.  I know it takes ages to review something in the way that you do and while it's appreciated that you take the time to be thorough, giving us the basics on here, the other game links and 3-5 screenshots should do it.  If folks get stuck they can check out the forums but it's a waste of your time if no one really reads everything.

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Reply | Comment by Keisha – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Running into the same issue. I usually like this type of game, i.e. the Rescuer series, but am finding this particular game painful as there aren't enough resources to complete the tasks. Have had to restart levels several times because I didn't have enough lumber or food. Now on a level, almost to the end, and don't have rocks to continue.... but I've needed all the existing rocks to get to where I am. Not enjoying this particular game. Very frustrating!

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

Hi Deb, which level are you stuck on?

Unfortunately this game is rather liner in that most levels can only be completed by completing various tasks in a certain order. If you fail to find the order, you'll find you lack certain resources that stop you completing the level. I don't mind this type of game especially with the relaxed mode as I can spend as much time as I wish figuring out the correct path. Unfortunately not everyone will like this method.

Reply | Comment by Deb – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#8

Kudos to Whiterabbit for the improvement in readability of your review. I'm not sure if there's a font change or not, but the off-white background makes everything much more eye-friendly. Now, if the submitted comments could also have that background...
And I really appreciate the info at the beginning of the review that defines the genre and sets my expectations for the gameplay. The new organization of the review is also much easier to follow, with the headings to define the feature being discussed. Over all, well thought out, well executed, thanks.
I personally like the Alawar games, even if they are Time Management (one of my least favorites). I have a full day today, and since this is a long download, I'll have to set the computer to download and hope it finishes without asking for some kind of user input along the way. When I get back to the download, it will be late this evening and I won't likely have time to re-load it.
p.s. I guess everyone has gotten over the new format and as accepted it :-) I don't see any bellyaching over it today. (You can edit that last line out if you want)

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

Thank you for your feedback bebop.

Reply | Comment by bebop – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

#7

I'm having a problem with extracting the file, but I can't find a way round it despite trying several times.

Windows gives a message that setup.exe has stopped working and closes the programme at about the same time as the notification from the website appears on the screen to say it's been successfully activated.

Does anybody have any idea what's going wrong?

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

It may be your security that is blocking the executable. It is protected by themida code, which is often seen as a threat by some anti-malware software. Try temporarily turning off your security, then, as soon as you've installed the game, turn it back on.. If that fails Tty using a different file archiver

Reply | Comment by Mum23 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Mum23
If that does not work, Right Click and run as administrator.

Reply | Comment by kvn – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#6

Game will not install. I have clicked on it twice. I have Windows 10.

Reply | Comment by Michael – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Michael
Try searching for it on your harddrive. I had the experience of not realizing it had installed, and only found out by searching. Found it in my Games file.

Reply | Comment by Dan O – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#5

Another TM game!

First out of the gate… it installs and runs fine on Win10

Second, Alawar--'nuff said there with quality.

I didn't have a problem with the install and went through a few levels of it. Honestly? I don't say this about many TM games, but it's boring. I mean, really boring. I adore TM games and have played tons, but this one just didn't catch my attention in any ways.

The scenery is fine, thought a tad small and you can't enlarge it. The talking, as they are saying the same thing over and over and over ad nausium, so it gets old very fast. You can cue up tasks, if you pick that mode, but it doesn’t do much good as it's just slow, tedious and boring. The tasks are mostly the same with little change up, making it worse. While it's a bit challenging as there is only one way to go about it without running out of resources and having to restart, it didn't help. I just shut it after the level where you built the stone whatever and haven't gone back.

Suggestions to make it better are first, vary the talking and what they say. Second, make the scenery a bit bigger. Vary the tasks rather than the same thing over and over. Change up plenty and add interesting bits, more than they've done here.

I gave this a thumbs down for the reasons stated. After a TM game like the Royal Envoy last week which was a great one, this just falls flat and isn't engaging.

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

Thank you for your excellent feedback DAMyst.

Reply | Comment by DAMyst – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

#4

Whiterabbit. Francly spoken I hate your reviews, but I know that others love them so I never mentioned my concerns. But now that GGotD changed the layout, you have less space for your text (horizontally) and so review is much longer. If someone tries to find your conclusion it is hard to find. Can you, please, link the copy paste parts of your text to posts in the forum? To reduce the length a little bit?

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

Hi again CSR, Hate is a little strong, but, you are entitled to your opinion. Thankfully, you don't have to read my reviews if you hate them so. As for your suggestion, I have actually been considering that, i.e. posting the bulk of my reviews over in the forums, at least the games, games games section. In fact I think I mentioned it last week. I just haven't got around to it yet because I've been too busy with more important things.

My reviews follow a basic formula, but that is mainly to save me time as I can spend upwards of six or more hours on a review; time I'd much rather spend with my family, or doing things personal to me, but I've always felt obliged to carry on as a thank you to the giveaway team and the community for being such a pleasant one.

I have a copy of the review, with everything that is repeated every week, such as titles, the installation section (apart from the details specific to a game) etc. It saves me a lot of time and effort, especially being a one fingered typist, and now with the new admin panel I can no longer automatically apply the necessary codes to create underlines, bold type etc, it all has to be typed manually. So a basic former of the review is a very useful tool for me.

b.t.w. are you the same CSR that sent my children some Swiss chocolate and other sweets several years ago?

Whiterabbit. Francly spoken I hate your reviews, but I know that others love them so I never mentioned my concerns. But now that GGotD changed the layout, you have less space for your text (horizontally)  and so review is much longer. If someone tries to find your conclusion it is hard to find. Can you, please, link the copy paste parts of your text to posts in the forum? To reduce the length a little bit?

<blockquote>................................Moderator comment............................................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi again CSR, Hate is a little strong, but, you are entitled to your opinion. Thankfully, you don't have to read my reviews if you hate them so. As for your suggestion, I have actually been considering that, i.e. posting the bulk of my reviews over in the forums, at least the games, games games section. In fact I think I mentioned it last week. I just haven't got around to it yet because I've been too busy with more important things.</blockquote>

<blockquote>My reviews follow a basic formula, but that is mainly to save me time as I can spend upwards of six or more hours on a review; time I'd much rather spend with my family, or doing things personal to me, but I've always felt obliged to carry on as a thank you to the giveaway team and the community for being such a pleasant one.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I have a copy of the review, with everything that is repeated every week, such as titles, the installation section (apart from the details specific to a game) etc. It saves me a lot of time and effort, especially being a one fingered typist, and now with the new admin panel I can no longer automatically apply the necessary codes to create underlines, bold type etc, it all has to be typed manually. So a basic former of the review is a very useful tool for me. </blockquote>

<blockquote>b.t.w. are you the same CSR that sent my children some Swiss chocolate and other sweets several years ago? </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

CSR
Hopefully 'Reply' works this time... CSR replies to CSR ... see post beneath this one.

b.t.w. are you the same CSR that sent my children some Swiss chocolate and other sweets several years ago?
Yes, that's me.

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

I've never forgotten your kindness, despite my memory problems. Cal and Em loved those sweets. We were very touched at your gift. Can't believe it's been 8 years.

Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

CSR
Stephen, if you want to know why I 'hate' your reviews, you can contact me via email, use the old address not this one, and I will try to take some time and write down my thoughts about it. 'Hate' is a strong word, but considering that English is not my main language, it comes very close to how I would describe it.
In my comment I tried, but failed, to explain that the length of your post (described as 'review' in my previous posts) is too long. It used to be better, but with the new layout of the website one has to scroll down a very long time to find your conclusion or other posts. The content of the review part is good if your are a player who is playing to relax or seeking games for children, the copy paste part (themida, adware, free games, feedback etc.) is also worth mentioning. But the length of both parts together...

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

I take your point. As I said earlier and last week, I am considering posting the bulk of the stuff I post, mainly that which is not really associated with the actual game over in the forums and will then link to it for those who like to see what games are on offer elsewhere. I've just not had the time since we changed the site last week to even think about it as I have other concerns on my mind at the moment. Thank you for posting your thoughts. As for language, yes, I tend to forget that a percentage of community members only have English as a second or even third or fourth language. Dislike would see a more appropriate work rather than hate; or, considering your game preferences less informative as I don't tend to go into great detail these days (as I used to a few years ago). Also, the arcade games I really like to play are rarely given away here, so I may not be as enthusiastic about the games I'm posting about.

Have a good weekend, I will email you sometime soon.

CSR 
Stephen, if you want to know why I 'hate' your reviews, you can contact me via email, use the old address not this one, and I will try to take some time and write down my thoughts about it. 'Hate' is a strong word, but considering that English is not my main language, it comes very close to how I would describe it.
In my comment I tried, but failed, to explain that the length of your post (described as 'review' in my previous posts) is too long. It used to be better, but with the new layout of the website one has to scroll down a very long time to find your conclusion or other posts. The content of the review part is good if your are a player who is playing to relax or seeking games for children, the copy paste part (themida, adware, free games, feedback etc.) is also worth mentioning. But the length of both parts together...

<blockquote>..........................................Moderator Comment.................................................</blockquote>

<blockquote>I take your point. As I said earlier and last week, I am considering posting the bulk of the stuff I post, mainly that which is not really associated with the actual game over in the forums and will then link to it for those who like to see what games are on offer elsewhere. I've just not had the time since we changed the site last week to even think about it as I have other concerns on my mind at the moment. Thank you for posting your thoughts. As for language, yes, I tend to forget that a percentage of community members only have English as a second or even third or fourth language. Dislike would see a more appropriate work rather than hate; or, considering your game preferences less informative as I don't tend to go into great detail these days (as I used to a few years ago). Also, the arcade games I really like to play are rarely given away here, so I may not be as enthusiastic about the games I'm posting about.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Have a good weekend, I will email you sometime soon.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

CSR
Cannot quite understand why you "hate" Whiterabbit-uk's reviews... As Whiterabbit-uk says, he spends quite a bit of time every weekend here making those reviews, time that could be spent with his family instead. But as such he makes this site even better. I always read them and take a sneak peak at the game via his screenshots posted. As Whiterabbit-uk so kindly put it, hate is quite a strong adjective and you are entitled to your opinion but please just skip over his reviews.
The sister site giveawayoftheday.com doesn't seem to have any moderators the like of Whiterabbit-uk and I rarely bother typing up anything to post there as the moderator(s), for whatever reason, typically never allow my comments (a problem even Whiterabbit-uk had a while back when trying to recover his moderator account), so why should I bother to take the time to type something up when it's just going to be deleted anyways? At least Whiterabbit-uk is fair and allows / welcomes any and all comments (but tries to keep it a family-friendly site in the process).

@Whiterabbit-uk:
Perhaps you can add javascript somehow so that the folks that don't want to read your review can skip over it easily? Like over on the evil Microsoft site- I remember when I'm going to download an update/patch/whatever, the screen had multiple plus signs "+" on the page that, when clicked, expanded to let you read the details. Maybe that's feasable?

As for today's game, I hate TM games so I'll pass.
Whatever method you decide Whiterabbit-uk, there are many of us who do appreciate you and your reviews very much here and I for one just want to say thanks!

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

Thank you Avid Gamer. I have tried to give a balanced review of the games given away here.

Unfortunately I'm not as happy with them as I used to be. Maybe I'm just getting a little tired as I've been doing it virtually every weekend for 8 years. I'm not going to stop; though I may look at different ways of posting the information.

I think CSR meant well. The reviews including all of the extraneous stuff do take up a much larger space in these new look comments section. It does seem a good idea to post the stuff I repeat every week (only repeat it due to new community members joining) over in the forums. It should make the reviews more manageable and hopefully erudite.

CSR 
Cannot quite understand why you "hate" Whiterabbit-uk's reviews... As Whiterabbit-uk says, he spends quite a bit of time every weekend here making those reviews, time that could be spent with his family instead. But as such he makes this site even better. I always read them and take a sneak peak at the game via his screenshots posted. As Whiterabbit-uk so kindly put it, hate is quite a strong adjective and you are entitled to your opinion but please just skip over his reviews.
The sister site giveawayoftheday.com doesn't seem to have any moderators the like of Whiterabbit-uk and I rarely bother typing up anything to post there as the moderator(s), for whatever reason, typically never allow my comments (a problem even Whiterabbit-uk had a while back when trying to recover his moderator account), so why should I bother to take the time to type something up when it's just going to be deleted anyways? At least Whiterabbit-uk is fair and allows / welcomes any and all comments (but tries to keep it a family-friendly site in the process).

@Whiterabbit-uk:
Perhaps you can add javascript somehow so that the folks that don't want to read your review can skip over it easily? Like over on the evil Microsoft site- I remember when I'm going to download an update/patch/whatever, the screen had multiple plus signs "+" on the page that, when clicked, expanded to let you read the details. Maybe that's feasable?

As for today's game, I hate TM games so I'll pass.
Whatever method you decide Whiterabbit-uk, there are many of us who do appreciate you and your reviews very much here and I for one just want to say thanks!

<blockquote>..........................................Moderator Comment.................................................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Thank you Avid Gamer. I have tried to give a balanced review of the games given away here.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Unfortunately I'm not as happy with them as I used to be. Maybe I'm just getting a little tired as I've been doing it virtually every weekend for 8 years. I'm not going to stop; though I may look at different ways of posting the information. </blockquote>

<blockquote>I think CSR meant well. The reviews including all of the extraneous stuff do take up a much larger space in these new look comments section. It does seem a good idea to post the stuff I repeat every week (only repeat it due to new community members joining) over in the forums. It should make the reviews more manageable and hopefully erudite.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by Avid Gamer – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)

Whiterabbit
I must say I agree with CSR. Even if I don't read your reviews anymore because most of it is) copy-paste, largely not even related to the giveaway of that day, I have to scroll past them every time I want to read the other comments. Which I consider to be a serious nuisance. With the (lack of) quality on most of the giveaways on the main site and the (IMHO) terrible new layout, to me this whole project is past it's "sell-by date", and I'm not going to waste any more time here.
And frankly, if you really spend up to six hours every weekend day on this project, when you've got children who need their father's attention, as a mother I think you need to get your priorities straightened out. I commend your dedication to the project, but imo your balance is off. However, that's just my personal opinion...

Reply | Comment by IngeZ – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-5)

CSR
"If someone tries to find your conclusion it is hard to find. "

Personally I've just gotten adept over the years with the mouse scroll wheel, NOT because of WR's reviews, but just in general to more quickly find what I want. That's not a critique by any means, but explanation that I don't know how well this would work in practice, but have you tried the Find option in your browser? In Firefox it's under the Edit menu or Ctrl+F.

I actually like the review in the new format better from a readability standpoint, & the background color tint makes it easier to find the end of the review & move upward -- WR may include parts of reviews & such that others have written, but the bottom end is usually all his, & what I'm more interested in.

Reply | Comment by mike – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

CSR

Since this has come up, let me 'vote' to keep Stephen/WR's 'opening reviews & comments' exactly as they are: Besides being very informative, interesting & -- especially -- useful (to me), their being done and placed the way they are, and have been for years, is a significant part of that usefulness, because I save the "comments" for every game I get from this site, and if most of this useful info & commentary had to be sought out in the Forums or somewhere else, it would be a great inconvenience, both to save and to read later on.

So, I hope those who prefer to skip WR's intro can see their way to just using the scroll bar to get past this part (which shouldn't be that much of an effort); personally, I would prefer that very much, since all the comments on the site are usually useful, and skipping any which aren't, or are personally annoying (which some are, to me, sometimes), is a small price to keep the whole 'gestalt' which I think many do love, and would use an ever-rarer resource which Stephen always labors to offer for all (and, when parently activities interfere with that, he always has let us know and not neglected them).
And, after we've successfully got the Giveaway of the Day site owners to keep things as they are (except the white background), why throw that away, now?

Reply | Comment by Alexyu – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

@Avid Gamer
Please don't argue about my usage of the word 'hate'. My dictionary offers for what I would like to express the phrases 'to blow up', 'to lift the lid' among others.
I don't like his reviews because of various reasons which I will write down for Stephen as soon as he will have contacted me. It is constructive criticism.
I do like him moderating this comment section. I have a few issues with how he is handling it which might offend some users and that is why I seldom post here. The gamegiveaway site it a much friendlier website that the giveaway site, I wholehartly agree.
I know Stephen for about 8 years, since his very first post on gamegiveaway and his reviews about arkanoids were awesome. Very well written. His later reviews, just like this one, lack this quality just because it's not his genre. No problem with that here, but still...
A lot of years past since then and Stephen added more and more content to his posts which made then less readable. Informative content for someone who is just looking for specific content is less visible, superfluous content kills anything else.
As I have already mentioned his reviews are good for casuals gamers who play in relaxed mode or players who are looking for games for children. Players like me, who would like to know if a game is hard to beat, if one can get gold stars too easily or whatever, don't find this information. I need the comments of other users and those are hard to find.
Maybe he will take some of my points, maybe not. In any case it is ok for me. :-)

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

Thanks for your comment. I agree, my best reviews are from those games I really love. I find it hard to be inspired by TM games or Hidden object games, and this is reflected in the reviews I post. Actually I wouldn't call them reviews.

I must admit I have become rather disillusioned with my own efforts over the last few years. I wish I could find a couple of other community members who I could share this load with. We could then apportion the reviews to those best qualified to write for a particular game.

Maybe once I've sorted out the issues we have here at home things will improve.

@Avid Gamer 
Please don't argue about my usage of the word 'hate'. My dictionary offers for what I would like to express the phrases 'to blow up', 'to lift the lid' among others.
I don't like his reviews because of various reasons which I will write down for Stephen as soon as he will have contacted me. It is constructive criticism.
I do like him moderating this comment section. I have a few issues with how he is handling it which might offend some users and that is why I seldom post here. The gamegiveaway site it a much friendlier website that the giveaway site, I wholehartly agree.
I know Stephen for about 8 years, since his very first post on gamegiveaway and his reviews about arkanoids were awesome. Very well written. His later reviews, just like this one, lack this quality just because it's not his genre. No problem with that here, but still...
A lot of years past since then and Stephen added more and more content to his posts which made then less readable. Informative content for someone who is just looking for specific content is less visible, superfluous content kills anything else.
As I have already mentioned his reviews are good for casuals gamers who play in relaxed mode or players who are looking for games for children. Players like me, who would like to know if a game is hard to beat, if one can get gold stars too easily or whatever, don't find this information. I need the comments of other users and those are hard to find.
Maybe he will take some of my points, maybe not. In any case it is ok for me. :-)

<blockquote>.............................Moderator comment............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Thanks for your comment. I agree, my best reviews are from those games I really love. I find it hard to be inspired by TM games or Hidden object games, and this is reflected in the reviews I post. Actually I wouldn't call them reviews.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I must admit I have become rather disillusioned with my own efforts over the last few years. I wish I could find a couple of other community members who I could share this load with. We could then apportion the reviews to those best qualified to write for a particular game. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Maybe once I've sorted out the issues we have here at home things will improve. </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#3

If you liked the Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord you'll like The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest.
Eemm...No...
Victoria's quest is a decent game. An ok plot and ok gameplay, and its nice for a change, but I wouldn't recommend it. The above mentioned alternatives are in a lot of ways much better.
I have played Victoria's Quest several months ago. And I hope they haven't changes the game file just like last time when I posted about a games and mentioned that it would be very hard and noticed later that the gotd version was much easier than my version... Victorias Quest is sometimes extremely hard... I can't remember the level, but at some point at the game I stopped trying to achieve gold time. It was about 1 or 2 seconds and my gameplay was already optimised, did the same as in the walkthroughs found in the bigfish forums..
Very weird is the movement speed of the characters. In some directions they seem to run faster than in others.
But don't hestitate to grap a copy while it is for free here. Maybe you'll like it better than I did. :-)

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

Hi CSR,

It really depends on what you like in a game. This game has three modes, one of which is a relaxed mode, which IMO for those who don't like TM games for the usual 'un-relaxed' game play modes, this is a welcome change. I don't generally like TM games, but I do think this one is easier to play than the ones i quoted for the reason it does have a relaxed mode, so you can take your time and play at your leisure instead of having to beat the clock. thankfully the game also has timed modes for those who do like the challenge and are not stressed out by having to beat the clock.

Also, you can pick up power ups to speed up Victoria, so it's possible to finish faster to attain the gold stars.

If you liked the Rescue Team franchise, The Viking Brothers, New Yankee in Santa`s Service or Weather Lord you'll like The Musketeers: Victoria's Quest. 
Eemm...No...
Victoria's quest is a decent game. An ok plot and ok gameplay, and its nice for a change, but I wouldn't recommend it. The above mentioned alternatives are in a lot of ways much better.
I have played Victoria's Quest several months ago. And I hope they haven't changes the game file just like last time when I posted about a games and mentioned that it would be very hard and noticed later that the gotd version was much easier than my version... Victorias Quest is sometimes extremely hard... I can't remember the level, but at some point at the game I stopped trying to achieve gold time. It was about 1 or 2 seconds and my gameplay was already optimised, did the same as in the walkthroughs found in the bigfish forums..
Very weird is the movement speed of the characters. In some directions they seem to run faster than in others.
But don't hestitate to grap a copy while it is for free here. Maybe you'll like it better than I did. :-)

<blockquote>................................Moderator comment............................................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi CSR,

It really depends on what you like in a game. This game has three modes, one of which is a relaxed mode, which IMO for those who don't like TM games for the usual 'un-relaxed' game play modes, this is a welcome change. I don't generally like TM games, but I do think this one is easier to play than the ones i quoted for the reason it does have a relaxed mode, so you can take your time and play at your leisure instead of having to beat the clock. thankfully the game also has timed modes for those who do like the challenge and are not stressed out by having to beat the clock.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Also, you can pick up power ups to speed up Victoria, so it's possible to finish faster to attain the gold stars. </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

CSR
I am a player who seek challenges. I never ever play in relaxed mode. So I thought it could be worth mentioning that Victoria's Quest is hard at a certain stage in the game. And sorry that I don't remember which mode I took when I played it, most of the time I start any game with 'Timed' or 'Normal' (or whatever it might be named in a game) and repeat it later in a harder setting e.g. 'Expert'. I know for sure that I just completed this games only once.

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

I'm almost certainly a polar opposite to you as i love relaxing game play; it enables me to become immersed without stress. I do play challenging games at times, but I much prefer a relaxing and absorbing RPG, or RTS game. I don't play arcade games as often as I used to, but still enjoy returning to some of the older games in my collection, which I've been doing increasingly over the last few months.

Recently I reinstalled an 11 year old FPS game called 'Men of Valor' and then purchased 15 copies of it to pass on to friends as I had an hankering to play it online. It's so old most of my friends have either never heard of it, or no longer have copies of the game. I'd previously contacted Valve (several years ago) asking if there was any chance the game would be released on Steam. Three weeks after I purchased the job lot of 15 games, they released it on Steam three days ago. Brilliant for me as it was one of and still ranks as one of my top five multiplayer games I've ever played. The hard copies won't allow you to create an online server for some reason, but the Steam version appears to have been fixed as you can create your own server via the game to play with friends online.

Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

Addition to first post of this comment thread
As I have mentioned the musketeers weren't fascinating enough to keep me nailed on the chair and try to figure out how to get the perfect score. = 3 stars in this game.
I very rarely need walkthroughs, I can figure out the best strategy on my own and I have played a pleathora of games of this kind of genre.
The level I was struggling with was level 17. A walkthrough can be found in the bigfish forums:
http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/358434.page
A video of the developer can be found here on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiq62SBzeCA
Please notice the time bar on the top of the screen with the marker for the golden time...
If you are past this stage and received three golden stars you can ignore my warning. Wish you good luck. :-)

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

:)

Reply | Comment by CSR – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#2

Downloaded and extracted, made a link onto the desktop and tried (win8.1): cute game, not really difficult - a girl running and collecting things. I think it is fine to relax...