If you had any issues with yesterdays game 'Artist Colony' please see JBoys comment posted after the game had ended that may have a fix for you. You can access the giveaway page HERE

This has never been given away before.

Where Angels Cry

In Brief
Where Angels Cry is a point and click medieval adventure game with a few elements of hidden object.

Introduction:
Strange events are taking place in an isolated medieval monastery, set high in the Alps. Monks are vanishing without a trace, mysterious persons are being sighted running through the dark passages of the monastery in the still of the night, Templars have now been assigned to stand watch and there are even reports that a statue in the center of the village is crying the tears of blood! Strange events are taking place in an isolated medieval monastery, set high in the Alps. Monks are vanishing without a trace, mysterious persons are being sighted running through the dark passages of the monastery in the still of the night, Templars have now been assigned to stand watch and there are even reports that a statue in the center of the village is crying the tears of blood!

Accessed HERE; originally posted on Steam Feb 27th 2014, reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 24th April 2021

You can see a mixed bag of reviews both positive and negative via the Steam community reviews HERE

Review 1
Where Angels Cry is another puzzle-adventure game from Cateia Games, the same developers behind The Man with the Ivory Cane. In this great instalment, you play as a monk investigating a mysterious disappearance in a medieval monastery, isolated in the Alps.

As with previous instalments from Cateia Games, you can navigate Where Angels Cry entirely through the touchscreen, or by using the right analogue stick and ZR button. You can freely go between both these methods and I do recommend utilising both. There are three difficulty settings – Casual, Adventure and Expert – but the changes between each setting are relatively minor.

The mechanics are simple in that you point and click around the game’s various environments to find necessary items, talk to other characters and combine items in your inventory. There are also 21 well-hidden angel statues to find throughout the game, and particular achievements can be unlocked by accomplishing certain tasks, like completing a set number of mini games without skipping.

While the mechanics of Where Angels Cry may be easy enough to grasp, some items in the game are notoriously difficult to spot. It’s not always clear what objects can and can’t be picked up, so some areas may have you going in circles and fruitlessly tapping your screen hoping to come across something useful. This can frustrate, but fortunately, there’s a Hint feature to keep you from getting completely stuck. The Hint bar takes some time to recharge once you’ve used it, which is unusual, but keeps you from relying on it too much.

Your objectives and notes can be found together in the protagonist’s journal, helpfully written out to keep you from losing your thread. This is particularly useful if you play the game over several sittings.

Where Angels Cry has a brilliant atmosphere from the off. The beginning cut-scene, while stiffly animated, pulls you right into the action with no deliberating and is more than enough to draw you in. The world-building is quite exquisite, with snow-capped mountains, the looming monastery and sprawling chapel all working together to make the setting immersive and, best of all, entirely convincing.

This is helped, of course, by the high quality of the in-game graphics. The characters are a little wooden, but the backgrounds that make up the game are beautiful. Not only does Where Angels Cry look good, there’s a sense of creeping unease throughout that fits the narrative of a religious conspiracy. Uncovering the truth is a genuinely intriguing puzzle that will keep you hooked until the end, and with a man disappearing under mysterious circumstances, hidden crypts, and a statue apparently shedding tears of blood, the unease rarely lets up.
The ending of the game, however, feels somewhat rushed. After the tension and build-up to the major reveal at the end, you might find that it’s over quite suddenly with little of a climax at all. It’s a brilliant story until this point, but it will leave you feeling a little cold.

The music in Where Angels Cry is well done and fitting for the feel of the game, with good use of strings and choral backing. The voice-acting, on the whole, is decent enough, with most of the characters having fairly convincing Italian accents. However, some of the voice-acting really is questionable, with false accents that stick out like a sore thumb and some less-than-stellar delivery of lines.

A drawback of the game may be its puzzles. While half of them are completely doable but difficult enough to provide a sense of achievement, the other half is incredibly challenging. This may not be a problem for some players more adept at puzzles, but for those who struggle, you might skip more than a few. The Skip feature means you can skip as many mini games as you want, but it’s a shame that Where Angels Cry may feel inaccessible to some players on this front.

All in all, Where Angels Cry is an intriguing puzzle-adventure game wrapped up in a beautiful dark murder mystery. The religious themes are a point of interest and everything about the game, from the world-building to the puzzles, has been done with care. Games of similar genres have been done by Cateia Games before, like Twin Moons and Mystery of the Opera, so if you’re a fan of this particular developer or of puzzle-adventure games in general, you’ll enjoy Where Angels Cry. Simply put, this game is great, and certainly worth your time.

Where Angels Cry is an intriguing puzzle-adventure game wrapped up in a beautiful dark murder mystery. The religious themes are a point of interest and everything about the game, from the world-building to the puzzles, has been done with care.

Review accessed HERE; originally posted by Liv Gamble, reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 24th April 2021

Review 2
I’ve always had a soft spot for point and click games, and Where Angels Cry is no exception. This game relies on you to solve people’s problems by fining cleverly hidden items, and using them in a certain order. However, the only reason why I liked Where Angles Cry was due to the game’s genre. Other features such as the aesthetics and voice acting are laughable, which actually made the game really fun.

The game has an interesting idea behind it, but unfortunately ruins the delivery of the story. Your job is to investigate a “miracle” and a murder of a monk from a little monastery in the Alps. You have to help, and in some cases bribe, an array of horrifying clay looking characters. No matter how silly the problem may be, it’s the only way to find all the answers you’re looking for. For a basic game the story is actually half decent, it was good enough to keep me playing. Overall the story was mediocre, but the ending made it a whole lot worse. It made no sense and the game could have been concluded so much better. The reason I was so over the moon with the ending when I finished, was because I knew I’d never have to go through this experience ever again.

The main point (no pun intended) why I love these types of games, is because of the cleverly placed items that challenge my hawk eyes time after time. This game, like most point and click games, had 3 different types of items: the really obviously outlined objects that you can see from a mile away, the smartly hidden items that take a suitable amount of time to find, or those that blend in so well you’d have to consult a walkthrough which not only hurts my gaming experience but also my dignity. This game did a good job of finding a happy medium.

There was an attempt to ‘spice up’ the game. While sifting through landscapes to find just visible objects, you also find puzzles. Puzzles are activated when you find the coloured ball, for example, to initiate them. Although it was a nice Professor Layton like feel to it, I found it a lot easier just to skip the puzzles when they were too hard. The problem was that skip option popped up after around one minute so there really wasn’t much point of these puzzles apart from the brief change of genre.

Another cool aspect, which unfortunately appeared once to my mind, was the battle mode. When you run in to a templar your only choice is to fight him. No, not through a S mash Bros type battle style; but through a little mini game. This was a nice fun break; though it’s a shame it was so short though as a few more battle sections would have been a treat. I would love a longer game with more of these sections as Where Angels Cry took me around 3 hours to complete.

One amusing factor along with the incredible voice acting is the amazing language. It’s almost like one of the developers made up a load of words that sounded like they were used back in the day, but actually make no sense at all. Words like “Sooth”, “Fie!”, “Hark!” and “Alack!” However, if these words are true, then I give you my deepest apologies.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this game is better than Mugen Souls Z. But I believe this deserves a 7, as it brought back great memories as a child playing these sorts of games. This game was surprisingly fun to play and I actually enjoyed it. I’d recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the genre, and anyone looking to take a nostalgia trip back to the good old days. Overall it was a fun game to play; I’d personally suggest getting a buddy to play is with you. Otherwise you’re not going to have a good time.

Review accessed HERE; originally posted by Nicky Coales, reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 24th April 2021

Review 3
Investigate a supposed miracle and a missing monk at a remote monastery located in the Alps
Why do they do it to us? Why do developers tantalize us with cool-sounding game ideas and then fail miserably to realize them? Where Angels Cry, the new hidden object game by Cateia Games, has the potential to be a dark religious mystery along the lines of Umberto Eco’s incredible novel, The Name of the Rose. Instead, it’s an ill-conceived, shabbily constructed narrative, weakly propped up by a collection of unattractive graphics and predictable puzzles.

Where Angels Cry starts with an interesting premise, and I admit to being excited during the intro. The game starts in the Middles Ages (1286 to be precise) in Rome. You’re a monk in this scenario, and in the opening cinematic you’re sent to a monastery in the Alps to investigate the disappearance of another monk called Brother John. Your first priority is to discover the fate of Brother John; your second is to debunk a miraculous statue that’s reported to shed tears of blood. Set on unraveling these mysteries, you gather your few belongings and turn your horse toward a remote monastery nestled deep in the snow-capped Alps.

At first I loved all this. I loved the mysterious intro and the fact that finally, I was getting to play something other than a reporter or a detective (okay, the monk’s basically a detective, but my hope was that the context would alter his motives and his methods). Although the graphics in the intro weren’t mind-blowing, they were moody enough and featured full animation. Imagine my disappointment when five minutes in, I realized I’d been the victim of a total bait and switch.

Great graphics aren’t an absolute requirement for a great game, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Hidden object games in particular are known for them (well, the good ones are), so I couldn’t help but be let down once I got a better look at Where Angels Cry. Put bluntly, it’s an ugly game. I don’t know if it’s due to a lack of time and money or if the art team simply doesn’t have the skills to do better, but visually speaking, it’s like lunch in a hospital cafeteria: a veritable buffet of bland. Brown, gray and beige dominate in some of the feeblest 3D work I’ve seen in ages. Textures are boring, modeling is simplistic; there’s just nothing for your eyes to grab onto. And what’s hilarious about this is that at game start, you’re asked if you’d like to turn on HD graphics. Kind of brings to mind an old adage about putting lipstick on a pig.

Anyway, the environments aren’t the only aesthetical offenders. The game’s characters are uninspired and since they don’t animate at all, they look like creepy shop window mannequins. The same goes for any horse or cow you might run into. It’s utterly bizarre to be shoeing and grooming a horse, only to have it stand there as if it had just undergone a taxidermy. The biggest issue with graphics, though, is the shameful overuse of 3D models. Within a single scene you’ll see multiples of the same vase or cup or barrel, and this doesn’t just make for dull scenes; it sets you up for lots of laborious pixel-hunting.

Bland, repetitive models mean the game’s scenes aren’t alive and with minimal visual cues to guide you through them, your only recourse is to drag the mouse pointer over every inch of the screen. Exacerbating the problem, the game’s objectives—though clearly defined in your journal—often expect you to complete many seemingly unrelated actions before achieving them. I admit without shame to frequently using the Hint button rather than subjecting my wrist to the painful “fine-tooth-comb” technique, and to once or twice using the Skip button rather than bothering to solve shop-worn selections from what must be a very thick book entitled Most-Used Puzzles. The only interesting bit of gameplay for my money, is a duel enacted via match-three mini-game that plays something like a sluggish, simplified version of Puzzle Quest.

In addition to the duel, the other somewhat likable element of the game is the music. On occasion it reminds me of the more dramatic themes from the old Gabriel Knight adventure games; at other times, it veers into Harry Potter territory. The voice acting is also pretty good, except for one or two absurdly over-the-top characters and one lad that speaks, inexplicably, with an Irish accent (his mother is Italian). Unfortunately, while the voice performances aren’t that bad, the writing definitely is. The dialogue is silly, wooden, and peppered with words like “Fie!”, “Alack!”, “Hark!” and “Sooth” – I guess in an attempt to make things sound medieval. All it does, though, is make you feel as if you’ve been stuck for hours at a particularly bad Renaissance Faire.

The game’s final issues are its attention to detail (or lack thereof), and its clumsy, confusing ending. Throughout the game, dialogue subtitles exhibit typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. Further, chapter intros flash on and off the screen far too quickly, and this ends up looking more like a glitch than something intended. After suffering from ugly art, dull gameplay and goofy writing, Where Angels Cry is already in bad shape, but then its badly-handled ending comes along and finishes it off. Early on you’re told there’s an Evil Agenda that you must prevent. Then, in the last scene, you do exactly what you’ve been told to prevent, and for no discernible reason. There’s really no explanation of why you do it, or what the consequences really are, and then voila—the game ends. This not being a Collector’s Edition, you can’t even count on a bonus chapter to straighten things out.

After losing three hours of my life I’ll never get back, I’ve decided there should be a list of key adjectives that must be used when recommending Where Angels Cry to other gamers. Among these are: “dull, uninspired, and derivative,” as well as “arduous, bland, and aggressively unattractive.” Yeah that’s harsh, but outside of an intro cinematic and two minutes of sort-of-interesting match-three gameplay, entirely accurate. If you still don’t believe me and insist on trying the game, note that once you’re finished, although you might not know where angels cry, you’ll definitely know when: when they play this game.

Review accessed HERE; originally posted by Neilie Johnson Oct 7th 2012, reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 24th April 2021

Walkthroughs & Game Play Videos
You can see written (first two links) and video walkthroughs HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE.

Other free games worth adding to your game library
The latest Epic freebies include Alien: Isolation, A first person psychological/survival horror game based on the Alien movie franchise and set in an atmosphere of constant dread and mortal danger. It was previously given away on the 21st December last year. This is an opportunity for those who missed it the first time to grab it now. I bought Alien: Isolation when it was first released on Steam back in October 2014 as I love the Alien movie franchise and have purchased all of the games related to the franchise. My favorite game in the series is Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 that was originally released 21 years ago, and which always gave me the same adrenaline fuelled rush I got when I first watched the original franchise. It was later re released on Steam and is now only £3.99. The re imagined version Aliens vs. Predator released in 2010 looks better visually, but IMO does not have the same scary moments when Aliens suddenly pop up in front of you coming down dark corridors. Even today the original scares me and I get the same feelings I used to get as a child when hiding behind the sofa trying to watch Dr Who.

We also get Hand of Fate 2, an RPG roguelike deck builder card game; Master a living board game of infinitely re-playable quests - unlock new cards, build your adventure, then defeat your foes in brutal third person real-time combat! (combined cost of both games is over £50/$70/€58).

From Thursday, 4pm UK time, the games changes to Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms with add-ons. All players who log into Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms through the Epic Games Store between Thursday 29/4/2021 at 11AM Eastern and Thursday 6/5/2021 at 11AM Eastern will receive the Epic Champions of Renown add-on worth over $100.

Please see Delenn's threads for other Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. There won't be new freebies added every week from these sections apart from the Epic games, but it is worth checking them regularly for details of any games going for free. Delenn usually posts details when a game is being offered free for a temporary period. These include games from Good Old Games (all DRM free), Ubisoft's uPlay client, Valves Steam client, EA Games Origin client and other indie developers.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a few more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favorites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)