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

To get a feel for the game you can see almost 200 in game screen captures HERE :)

Vampires vs. Zombies

In Brief

Vampires vs Zombies is a quirky story rich time management game with appropriate mini games included. Game play is basically like any Farm Frenzy game (but with lots more to do, it also has a great story board throughout the game and in my opinion is significantly better than its sister games the Farm Frenzy franchise that was created by the same developer.

Installation Issues:

Vampires vs. Zombies downloads to a 40.1 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 292Mb in size.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Vampires Vs Zombies

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:

Vampires vs. Zombies is a fun but at times difficult Time Management game on the lines of the Farm Frenzy franchise! You have to manage and protect vampires with the aim of stopping a zombie invasion, As you move through 75 levels of mayhem (including several arcade mini game levels) you must earn stars to progress by harvesting goods, selling them, then using the profits to unlock various plans and weapons to help in your progress and to aid in destroying the zombie invasion.

Whiterabbit-uk 20th January 2019

The Game:

As soon as I started playing this game, Farm Frenzy came to mind, then I realized it was the same developer Fivebn and distributor Alawar games that developed and released all of the Farm Frenzy games. If you enjoyed playing any of the Farm Frenzy games; (my favorite time management franchise) you'll love Vampires vs. Zombies which was released over eight years ago in 2011.

There are 75 levels to complete, located at five different areas, which as they are unlocked can be seen on a battle map that is accessible via the laboratory button located in the bottom right of the game screen. There are also eight mini game levels available which are spread throughout the game every several levels apart. Although there are time limits for each level, you don't necessarily need to complete the levels in the required times. There's two levels of time which if attained will give you either a gold or silver bonus stars. However, you can replay any unlocked levels as often as you wish, and can accumulate stars by replaying the same levels over and over. Levels are inter-dispersed with cut scenes adding to the story, and giving you useful information, for example after completing the fifth level the cut scene will inform you that keys to unlock parts of the castle (East Wing access only) have been found, thus giving you access to rooms previously denied to you. You may also find interactive areas in all the cut scenes that don't add to the game progress, but do give more depth to the story, for example, if you click various area's of the scene in the secretary room for example the picture, filing cabinet or computer, you will get different messages flashed along the top of the scene. Each time you click on the same item, a different message appears. To exit a scene either click on it until the last cut scene or by clicking on the flashing arrow. While killing zombies in the sixth level you should get a key for the collections room in the West wing of the castle. In the collections room you'll find 10 different collections to complete. On completing a collection, for example the Rap Collection, you need to collect five different objects in game, that are dropped by enemies when you destroy them. On completion of the Rap collection you are awarded 60 stars. Not all collections give you stars, for example the Vampire collection (requires the Mask, Ring, Bat brooch, book and coffin to complete the collection) you are awarded the Bungler. Other awards will give you the Butcher (Transylvanian collection), Knocker, a weapon when used against zombies stops them from moving for a while (African collection), Shooter (Voodoo Collection) and the Fate Slug (Hooligan collection). The other five collections on completion give from 10 to 80 stars.

This is quite a difficult game if you wish to beat all the levels at the fastest times to achieve the gold times and earn the most bonus stars, especially as you get further into the game because there can so much is going on. Thankfully you can buy as many extra vampires as you think necessary to attain the level goals in the fastest possible times as well as increase the efficiency of any machines and vampires using BLOOD and SLUSH; once they have become available. Do remember that the more you have going on in a level, the more mistakes you may make and the more likely an enemy may kill off one of your vampires. Personally I couldn't beat the gold times at all after the first level, despite being very familiar with this game mechanic. (I beta tested all of the early Farm Frenzy games when I was an official game tester for Alawar a decade ago) If you've never played this type of time management game before, you will probably find it difficult to beat quickly; but its well worth persevering as this is (IMO) a much better game than any of the Farm Frenzy games, which are also great time management games, and (IMO) much easier and less stressful than other types of time management games.

You start the game by following a short story board that introduces the main characters of the story that include a dictator who is responsible for the zombie invasion, Vlad Tzepech the vampire lord and Kalman a member of the underground defense force and the bat battalion later on more characters such as the secretary and Sigmund Ghoulinsky from the Alchemy division (responsible for creating the bomb packer after level 12) and Jovan Kurachek a friend of the doctor, who supplies the Chronosteam. All these and more characters are introduced via the story board. At the start of the game while in the battle map you can turn off hints, but unless you are very familiar with this game mechanic, I would advise you keep hints turned on.

Level one is pretty easy to complete, (though it took a couple of turns to earn gold as I hadn't played this game mechanic in ages and was relearning the system). You initially get two vampires wandering around aimlessly, occasionally planting pumpkin seeds, which once watered can almost immediately be harvested as fully grown pumpkins. Your level one goals include collecting these pumpkins and earning a certain amount of gold. As you move from level to level, these level goals will include more goals and larger numbers of items to collect. You can purchase more vampires at a cost of 100 gold by clicking on the vampire symbol that is located along the top of the game field next to your gold counter. You can also purchase two types of helpers, the first is a mole/rat like creature with a haversack strapped to its back that costs 300 gold and who will collect any produce you have to harvest and a man that protects your vampire workers from zombies at a cost of 150 gold.

To earn gold, you have to sell your pumpkins and other products, which is done by sending your products to the store house by clicking on them. If you don't click on them within a short period they start to rot and attract slugs. The rotten pumpkins earn you 5 gold pieces, but if you wait slugs will appear to remove the rotten pumpkins. Clicking on these slugs will earn you an extra 20 gold pieces. Once in the storehouse you can send all produce to the market to sell. As the store house fills you need to sell off as much as you are able otherwise you may find after level five that you can't place produce that has been harvested until you empty the store house. This is when extra storage may be useful (if its available, or if you have enough stars to purchase it (cost 1000 stars) As you progress through the levels it will be possible to upgrade to speed up transport and increase storage space further. You earn extra stars by completing the level goals, but even if you don't complete the level goals in the gold or silver times you'll still earn some stars. you can also earn various awards (almost 20 of them) , for example the philosophers stone which is earned by getting a gold rank on every level, the Pumpkin Farmer for harvesting 100 pumpkins or the coffin on wheels for purchasing every upgrade for the transport vehicle

As you progress through the levels you unlock various blue prints of which there are 27 and include a bomb maker (turns Jack O Lanterns into explosive pumpkins that explode zombies), bomb packer, scrabber, Golem factory, pumpkin cutter, military man (protects your workers from zombies), Chronsteam (can compress time and in the blink of an eye all your products are ready), the market (increases the amount of money you earn for your produce), catapult factory (weapon for killing enemies), spinnery, web factory, vaporizer, juicer, life giver, storehouse (that increases the number of items you can store before having to send them to the market to sell) , transport (allows faster transport times to the market), refinery, helper (speeds up collections), chronosteam, S.L.U.S.H, (an elastic substance that is derived from the bile of the Transylvanian hyla. A few ounces enables machines to double their output) B.L.O.O.D, (Vampires work faster and produce twice as many goods when given this, you get three vials for 100 stars, once unlocked this is not always available), armory (for purchasing special weapons), that cost from fifty, up to a thousand stars. Initially you earn 50 stars for completing a level completed even if you don't attain the silver and gold times, with an additional 50 stars if you attain a gold time or 25 stars if you attain the silver time; (you get a warning when approaching the time limit for each star award). As you progress, you gain more stars for attaining the gold and silver levels for example at level five you get 100 stars for completing the level and 100 or 50 stars if you attain gold or silver respectively. By level nine this has increased to 150 for completing the level, 150 and 75 respectively for gold and silver. Level 12 earns you 200 stars plus 200 and 100 respectively for Gold and silver times. At this point I'd been playing the game for over 4 hours and still only attained gold on the first level one silver time plus a gold for the shooting gallery mini game despite working as fast as I could)

Most blue prints are up-gradable to more than one level apart from the bottom row of blue prints i.e. B.L.O.O.D. Chronosteam, S.L.U.S.H. Express Delivery and Chronostop. All blue prints come with an explanation of what they are for and are unlocked when you have enough stars to purchase the blue print. Also, you can upgrade some of these up to three times, for example the military man who is used to protect workers from zombies and other monsters, (though not from vandals or gryphons), can be upgraded with the sabre, which enables the military man to cut down zombies twice as fast, the helmet that protects the military man and the Transylvanian carbine that works well against attacking undead birds. All three cost 100 gold each. The pumpkin cutter has three upgrade levels, each of which reduces the time and/or processes more pumpkins to jack-o-lanterns.

If you don't earn enough stars to purchase plans, it will delay your progress from one level to the next as you are required to buy specific plans to progress from various levels, (you can't cherry pick the plans you want). For example to progress from level two to three you need to create jack-o-lanterns by purchasing an up-gradable pumpkin cutter (cost 50 gold). To convert a pumpkin to a jack-o-lantern you click on the pumpkin cutter. In later levels (from level 4) you can upgrade the cutter to work faster while in level, or buy the upgrade via the laboratory so that it will become permanent. For some items of equipment that are purchased with stars, you may need to replay previous levels to gain enough stars. Thankfully, even if you don't attain gold or silver times you still earn stars.

The first three levels are relatively easy, with no enemies appearing apart from the sun rays/cactus plants. From level four onward zombies and other enemies will appear and you will need to deal with these quickly otherwise the produce your vampires are tending will either be rotted away and eaten by slugs or in the case of jack-o-lanterns, just disappear. Thankfully, if you purchase the rat/mole helper you don't have to worry about clicking on the produce to collect it as your helper will automatically do this.

To kill zombies and other enemies initially you just click on them a few times. Once dead you can pick up magic powder that the zombies drop or other items that are dropped by different enemies . These can be sold for extra cash, but later magic power can be used to create weapons that are more effective against the zombies. The jack-o-lanterns are used to slow down zombies because zombies perceive the jack-o-lanterns to be real heads and will try to eat their brains, thus slowing their progress. Once you get past level six you need to watch out for smoking zombies. If you click on these with the intent to kill,instead you'll find they will duplicate, creating two zombies. Once level nine is completed you get your fist mini game by way of a shooting galley. You are invited via a cut scene to try out a new weapon (the catapult) and partake of some target practice. Each zombie you hit will earn more stars and the occasional parachute with different ammo will drop. To select different ammo you need to click on the icons that will appear in the bottom right of the screen. After level ten you can earn more gold by completing orders that appear as sealed scrolls. To complete an order collect all the products and goods from the list then send them to the customer.

You can find various weapons in the armory, though at the start of the game you'll only find a gun, which does moderate damage to zombies. This doesn't cost any stars and can be freely picked up via Dr Ghouls blue prints once you have military men or other helpers to protect the vampires etc, though it's not required early in the game as the zombies are not introduced until you've played a few levels and you require 500 stars to buy the military man.

Between levels you are able to walk though a castle with access to various doors – some of them are locked until you find the correct key, (i.e. Secretary, Awards, Collection, Cinema Hall and Balcony); others lead to the laboratory or the battle map, which are accessible from the start of the game.

You have to protect the wandering vampires from sun rays. These appear occasionally and can be identified via the cactus plants that appear. When they appear you need to destroy them as quickly as possible by clicking on them. This uses dark water that is available from a bottle dispenser located at the top of the game board. Initially you only have access to three bottles; when these run out you need to purchase more by clicking on the bottle dispenser, which produces three more bottles. If you forget to do this and there are no bottles left you cannot destroy the cactus and thereby stop the sun rays, which will burn your vampires. It takes several seconds for these rays and the cacti to be destroyed before they can no longer harm your vampires. Each vampire has three lives; once they have crossed the path with a sun ray three times they burn up and disappear. You can buy more vampires in the game to speed up production of your items at a cost of 100 gold pieces each.

By Whiterabbit-uk 20th January 2018

Conclusion:

Vampire vs. Zombies is a well-constructed game with lots of replayability and as you can create multiple profiles an ideal family game. The graphics and animation are cartoon like, and the music and sound FX all add to the games atmosphere. As mentioned previously I'm not really into time Management games, but I did love the early Farm Frenzy games. The developer of those games has mad ea fresh take on the game mechanic and I highly recommend you download this game. As you progress the game can become a little chaotic with loads of things to remember as you fight to protect your vampires. Each area of the map has a different environment and new monsters to avoid. I score this a decent 8.5 out of 10 for fun game play, with a game mechanic that is at times very challenging, plus decent cartoon like graphics, a decent story board, with interactive parts, and the inclusion of appropriate mini games that enhance the overall feel of the game as well as break up the main game.

Other Reviews and Videos of Vampire vs. Zombies :

You can see other good reviews of Vampire vs. Zombies HERE and HERE, plus community opinions of the game via Big Fish games HERE

You can see a few in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE (there are various language versions ; 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 Vampires vs. Zombies to work please visit the FAQ's Thread HERE and read through the communities comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted. If you get a virus warning from your security, it's almost certainly a false positive. In the almost 13 years this game giveaway site has been operating there has 'never' been a game given away that was infected with malware. It's usually the Themida wrapper that sets of various security suites because Themida code can also be used to hide malware, so anti-malware suites may block it as a precaution. There are ways to fix this issue; i.e. white-list the giveaway files with your security software, or reboot in safe-mode with networking, then install, then reboot in normal mode, or temporarily turn off your security until the game has been installed.

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

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Vampires vs. Zombies 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).