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

It only just occurred to me that some of the community may not be aware that since November we have been getting games during weekdays as well as weekends, sometimes every day and even twice a day occasionally; {e.g. over the last two weeks, the weekday games have included - Expelled, Fighter of Evil, Sly Pigs, Sloppy goat, Peace Duke, Deadly Sky, Fifteen Fairies, Stone Flower, Pizzantropia , Debtor, Hardnoid and Starving}. Check back Mondays to Fridays as well as the weekends for a range of games covering most genres. Also, Indie Gala have almost 20 games for free at the moment and the latest Epic Games freebie has been changed again. See end of review for details.

Vacation Mogul

In Brief

A reasonably entertaining nine year old Time Management game; that's ideal for the family and is similar to the Ski Resort Mogul game we received a few weeks ago. It even includes the occasional hidden object mini game. :)

Installation Issues:

Vacation Mogul downloads to a 48.2 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper the set-up file and a read me). The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed if you wish. The installed game is approximately 53.2 MB in size.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Vacation Mogul

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop; the Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and shortcuts to a free online game; the name of which may vary each week can be deleted once the game has been installed. The Themida wrapper may alert your security and even block the installation. There are details in the read me about this issue.

Introduction:

The tourism business has never been easier or more fun than in Vacation Mogul, a Time Management game that challenges you to make more money than you ever dreamed possible! You'll become one of the rich and powerful as you buy and sell land, turn bungalows into ritzy hotels and build specialty shops and other attractions, all with a click of your mouse. Just be sure to keep one eye on your resources and the other on your bottom line!

Reference accessed HERE. Re-posted by Whiterabbit-uk 8th March 2019

The Game:

Through a lawyer, two sisters learn of their uncle’s recent passing. Apparently, the uncle they’ve never met has left a mansion and five islands to the sisters, but not without a couple of twists. One sister disappears and the uncle’s sleazy lawyer has taken over the inheritance in Vacation Mogul, a real estate-style game that shuns being another Build-a-lot clone.

Despite worries about her missing sister and the strange goings-on with the inheritance, the second sister must run the tourism business to get the needed money to reclaim the house. With an intuitive point-and-click interface, she builds and upgrades different kinds of buildings including hotels, spas, volleyball courts, casinos and ice cream shops. The story updates occur between a handful of levels in cut-scenes.

The sister works her way through 38 places on the five islands, following directions such as building three hotels and upgrading them to two stars, attracting at least 10 tourists and earning $50,000 per week. For each level, you aim to reach the given goals as fast as you can so you can earn the gold or silver cup, or you can move at a leisurely pace and still advance without earning bonus coins. However, you need those coins for investing in research.

Go to research to have your architects work on creating plans for new and bigger buildings as well as upgrading their stars from one to three. All of this costs money that you earn from completing the levels. Also, it takes time for the architects to draft up a new building, so buy the buildings before you need them so they work while you handle the next level.

You begin with a bungalow and work your way up to three different styles and sizes of hotels. The bigger the hotel means bigger profits. Hotels also bring in tourists, and many levels set a goal for the number of tourists you must attract.

However, tourists will not come if you don’t provide "Line" accommodations. These entertaining activities range from the cheap beach chair to the elaborate catamaran and yacht rentals. All they do is bring in tourists, no money. Then you can add shops to bring in income based on the number of tourists on site. The sushi bar, for example, brings in $1600 for every tourist staying on your island. You can also set up a karaoke bar and a stage.

Like in other real estate games, you can buy land, sell buildings for needed cash and demolish buildings to make room for others. Buildings break down requiring repair, which costs money for materials. The more materials you buy in one sitting, the more you save. The same applies for hiring construction workers.

You repair buildings, buy lumber and hire construction workers without setting up a school or lumberyard. Instead, go to research to buy bonuses that give you more materials for less, speed up workers, give you extra time and up the ante for saving drowning tourists. You can make at least $1500 every time you save someone from drowning. All of this action happens with simple point-and-click and it’s fun without the tediousness.

The game has a cool twist of including two mini-games that fit right in with the story. Alas, it only happens twice. In one mini-game, you look for your sister’s missing items and in another, you search for matching flowers and petals. It’s nice to see mini-games that have a purpose rather than be there for the stake of having them. Vacation Mogul‘s having just two mini-games feels incomplete. With a little brainstorming, the developers could have more to round it out.

Vacation Mogul started unacceptably slow on a new laptop running Windows 7 that has handled many games without a problem. Switching to a desktop, the game performed better. So before buying the game, try it out to see how it performs because it makes a big difference. While the storyline is decent, its occasional awkward grammar and weird description of the two sisters is off-putting.

You click the screen to move forward with the dialogue. However, it flakes out at times, reading like it skipped a dialogue box here and there especially in the confusing ending. If you miss any dialogue, too bad. You can’t back it up. However, the game play will entertain plenty to the point where you’ll want to revisit previous levels to go for the gold. Winning the gold is tough even for experienced players. It’s better to play through the whole game before going back to replay any level because the clock is ticking. The only time you must replay a level is when you need more money for research or else you can’t advance.

Vacation Mogul will entertain players of all levels and more than satisfy real estate game fans. Unlike many Build-a-lot copycats, Vacation Mogul succeeds in standing on its own two feet with its good pace, variety, colorful graphics and challenge.

Reference accessed HERE. Originally posted by Meryl K. Evans on Jan 15, 2010, re-posted by Whiterabbit-uk 8th March 2019

Conclusion:

Vacation Mogul is an easy to medium difficulty Time Management game with decent graphics and lots of replay value (trying to attain gold standards on each level). As I've said many times, of all game genres, time management games are one of my least enjoyed genres; however, I did enjoy playing Vacation Mogul. The amount of time you get (at least in the early levels) is generous enough to allow slower players like me to attain some gold awards. Also, there's plenty of different things to do from building and updating your properties, buying land to build more, adding features such as sushi bars, karaoke bars, catamaran and yacht rentals, as well as saving drowning kids, plus more; all to earn more cash, so that you can expand your empire over the five islands you inherited.

I definitely give this a thumbs up. There are a couple of mini games to break up the time management theme. I found no real issues apart from some of the grammar, but that should be acceptable considering this was a Russian made game. When I lived in Germany, I struggled with the grammar significantly. I'd give this an 8 out 0f 10 for decent game play and replayability.

Other Reviews and Videos of Vacation Mogul:

You can see several in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE and a written walk through HERE.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play today's giveaway please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback; for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, or how it could be improved. If you don't like the genre at all, please explain why and if any, what improvements would change your mind? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience, thank you. If you wish to post a review or comment about the game later, you can access the comments section by going to the game giveaways home page, then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review. Alternatively, you can google the name of the game and include Gamegiveawayoftheday in the search. This should give you a list of links to whenever this game was given away.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it HERE via Big Fish games.

Problems getting the game to work:

If you're having problems installing or activating or getting Vacation Mogul to work please visit the FAQ's Thread HERE and read through the communities comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted, for example, a common issue seen since the Themida wrapper was introduced three years ago is that some community members installation of the game are blocked by their security because Themida code has been known to hide malware, (usually an error message is flagged for example 'The executable is corrupted' even though in reality it is not); so as a precaution some anti malware programs will block and even delete the suspect installation files even though the files (i.e. the setup, read me and setup.gcd files are actually totally free from malware. This issue can be solved either by rebooting your computer in safe mode with networking or a quicker method is to temporarily turn off your security software to allow the installation. You could also try white-listing the setup.gcd file. In the almost 12 years this game giveaway site has been operating there has 'never' been a game given away that was infected with malware.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, you have a game to offer the community, or are unable to download the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve you can do so HERE

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Vacation Mogul and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Vacation Mogul doesn't interest you, but you still hanker for something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but most of the links still take you to the latest deals).

The rest of the information that used to be posted in the game review can be found in the forums HERE. Finally, check out Delenns threads for details of other free games and offers HERE and elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (usually on the first page of the game discussion forums). The free game over at epic games is Slime Rancher a first person sandbox action adventure game with management elements and a female protagonist. It's free until March 27th. worth £14.99/$19.99/€19.99. Indie Gala also have a new showcase section with 18 free games listed at the moment including adventure, RPG, Simulation, strategy and casual games i.e. AntiSquad, Dreaming Sarah, False Birth, GOR - Gorilla Office Rampage, Home is where Chip is, Age of Fear: The Free World, Die Legende von Saya: Befehl aus der Dunkelheit - (The Legend of Saya: Command from the Dark), What Never Was, The Last Humans: Awakening, Childhood, Dunwell, Safe Not Safe, Hi Hotel, Bugs Must Die, Cuadradito y Circulito, Hellino, Hovership Havoc and Wake Up , or you can find them all HERE. Finally, there are some excellent bargains on sale via Steam HERE (71 pages with 25 per page).