Great reviews, and great game! I can't even tell you how many hours I've spent playing this one as well as Age of Japan 2. These are keepers!

Your welcome, funkymom.

thanks funkymom

thanks whiterabbit and bobby619 for the reviews.
:D

I am having a problem installing. It keeps giving me a fatel error "key is invalid"

Thanks for the help

Hey whiterabbit; thanks for another great and insightful review - this old broad would have very few games if not for you!

D/I no problem on XPsp2. I got Age of Japan a few months back but wasn’t on the site when this was given away - so Thank You for the repeat. This is a very cool game!! I too love match 3 games like Jewel Quest 1 and 2 and have played Jewel Match at least 3 times through on all 150 levels.

Love the varying formats of the Age of Japan layouts, windowed mode and volume/sound controls. The choice of pieces/symbols allows for easier contrast for my low vision. I know Age of Japan 2 had some interesting twists (like the blackout and flashlight levels) so I hope this has some good surprises as the levels progress!

Overall this is a KEEPER! THANK YOU REALORE AND GGOTD!!

good point Robert. Despite having to adjust my screen res' several times during the early hours of this morning while writing todays review (in between smashing my forehead on the keyboards I might add, and wondering why I was doing this at the same time, lol) and never thought to mention it in the review. Though it only did this after the game was closed down due to taking screen captures. If I shut the game down normally the screen resolution always reverts back to my preferred resolution.

WR

Okay, lucky Maizey, now tell me what the creature is. Zooplankton or some sort of ratfish or is the commenter's id correct - a rainbow chode(sic), Stylephorus chordatus.

RM - I can hear the music on the sea creature video at Spiked...Hump!

Wabbit, thanks for the link to spikedhumor. Found a nice deep sea creature vid (way to brief) elsewhere on that site. The last animal shown was new to me.
Bonus (for me)... after downloading and saving the vid, I reran it on my own FLV player. There's a background music track I hadn't heard originally.

Very nice “match three” game with a Japanese touch to it.

Installation & Activation: Activates with no problems and installs just as easily. No problems here. Also note that this is not an extraction. So it will create a desktop icon if you wish.

Instructions: Just like any other match three game: align three or more of the same shape/color to make them disappear from the board.

Gameplay: You can choose between three difficulties: Easy, Medium, & Hard. Obviously, the higher the difficulty, the harder the game is. The gameplay is split into two different game modes: Arcade & Puzzle.

Arcade: In this mode, you will see some silver panels across the board. Make a combination over the silver panels to shatter the silver panels. There will be a bar on the left side of the screen. It will lower slowly. Once it is all gone, you lose. The objective is to destroy all sliver panels before the time runs out. After every 5 or so levels, a bonus round will occur. After you get a lot of combos, you get a broom. A broom will automatically dust off one panel. If used correctly, you can start a chain reaction.

Bonus Rounds: Here, the time bar will decrease more faster. A lot of combinations will be seen very easily. The point of it is to get a lot of combinations to get a broom.

Puzzle: You have a limited amount of turns to eliminate all blocks on the field. The time bar will decrease every time you make a move.

Graphics: They aren’t too bad. They really look like they were made in Japan.

Music: The stereotypical Japanese music will be heard. That is all that will be heard, besides the little sound effects.

Conclusion: A very nice Japanese themed match three game. I will definitely keep this. Since I am kinda new at this, I didn’t get the first one, so I’ll keep this one here.

The Verdict: Two thumbs up, 4.5/5, 9/10.

In a Nutshell: A Japanese themed match three game that installs nicely.

Whiterabbit -uk

The one thing that nags me ,is that *on exit* your screen resolution needs to be auto
re-adjusted and all desktop icons are messed up.
These games seem to insist on having 800x600 res :)

Not yet :(

hey! you checked out my baencd post yet?

Introduction:
Age of Japan received a positive 89% of 210 votes when it was first given away back in May 2007 and prompted 66 comments which you can read by following the link below; in particular read Merril’s comment #36 and also Swans comment # 35
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/age-of-japan/#

The following is the introduction to the game given at Realores home page:

Quote:

Age of Japan is an incredible puzzle entertainment, which shines with unique graphics. All 40 game levels are rendered with Japanese style and show different seasons of the year. The objective of the game is to swap game pieces to clear filled cells. You have a choice of two modes. In the Arcade mode you must clear cells in a limited time. A more relaxing play experience comes with the Puzzle mode, which lets you clear cells at your own pace

Ref: Realore Studios: http://realore.com/ageofjapan/ March 15th 08

The game

Arcade Mode:

There are two game modes with bonus levels; 40 levels in all for each mode. The arcade mode is timed. The aim of the game is to remove sets of three or more jewels which are overlaid with filled elements. This must be accomplished within a predetermined time, which is different for each of thee three difficulty settings which you can choose from the main menu. Each level has a different shaped board and filled elements pattern. New power ups are introduced as you progress through the levels and include such delights the multicolor bonus, score multipliers, the quake bonus a gem of a bonus that when collected in a matched set will cause the whole board to shake and destroy all matched pairs on the board; there’s also time bonuses and extras moves. You’ll find special elements such as the broom that can be used to clean away any elements you choose from the playing field (apart from locked elements) and two types of locked element that requires 2 and 3 matches to remove as well as a trash element that cannot be destroyed under any circumstance.

There are bonus levels which differ from the main game in that the aim is to make as many combinations as possible in a given time as opposed to getting rid of specific elements and which can earn you bonus brooms, which are accumulative and may later help you through the more difficult stages.

Puzzle Mode:

The Puzzle modes game play is basically the same apart from it’s not timed. Instead you have to remove all the filled elements within a specified number of attempts, which decrease from 43, to 35 to 30 depending upon whether you choose to play the game on hard, medium or easy difficulty settings.

Leaving the Game:

You can leave a game at any time though your progress for that level will be lost. You have two options, to abort the game and return to the main menu where you can choose to start the same level again, play earlier levels, including the bonus rounds or choose to change modes. Or the second option is to exit the game that takes you straight to the exit screen and thence to windows.

The Help Menu:

The help menu shows you the basic moves, describes each bonus item and elements as well as differentiates between the three modes, (puzzle, arcade and bonus levels). The options menu has relatively few options to speak of. There are the usual sound and music sliders as well as a window toggle and also a toggle to change the elements of which there are two choices; either translucent jewels or more day to day objects such as leaves, fans and scrolls.

Images & Video's: (A picture says a thousand words sometimes)

Images: All on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Age%20of%20Japan/?start=all

Images: As a Slideshow:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Age%20of%20Japan/?albumview=slideshow

Images: Googled:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=Age+of+Japan+game&btnG=Search+Images

Video: (you need to search about half way down the page for the Age of Japan video)

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/123527/Age-Of-Japan.html

System Requirements

Operating System…………….Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
CPU…………………………..Pentium 200 or higher
System Memory………………64 MB RAM;
Video Memory-------------------2 MB
3D emulation………………….DirectX 3.0 or higher

Conclusion:
There are many of games similar to today’s giveaway (as there are for most genre's), for example, Jewels of Cleopatra and 10 Talismen, which are remarkably similar, though the former does have an excellent twist in the form of Dr Turnstone in which you have to guide the doctor across the playing board. I do love Age of Japan for it’s polished finish, though there are better. I actually missed this the first time around due to being in hospital, though it didn’t matter as I’d already bought it :lol: I unfortunately lost the second version, Age of Japan 2 almost as soon as I’d got it on boxing day, though I have all of the ones mentioned here, so really don't need any more. There’s also loads of others amongst which are Jewel Quest and Jewel Quest 2, Jewel mines and an excellent one called Jewel match that is nearly as good as today’s offering as well as that superb jewel matching game Treasures of Montezuma to add to this sub genre of match three games. Though I think the best of this genre partly because of the fish is the Big Kahuna Reef and it’s sequel. Ultimately I’d go for at least one of those plus 10 Talismen, Montezuma and Jewels of Cleopatra in preference to Age of Japan; that said, it is a worthy game to have, especially for free and in my opinion well worth 7 out of 10 for playability. Every level has a different board shape and, as an added bonus, each time you replay a level, or start a new game, that pattern of elements is always random, adding a lot of replayability to this game.

I love the introductory music, but find the in game music a little tiresome after awhile as it becomes too repetitive. I'd much rather hear sounds of waves crashing upon a beach or whale song, lol. Thankfully you can change the music provided you convert whatever you wish to use to the ogg format first then rename it to the file you’re changing. You can find a couple of audio converters in the freeware library:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/cat/Audio_Video_Audio_Encoders_Converters/

Thank you very much Realore and to the game giveaway team for repeating this giveaway. To everyone; have a great weekend. :)

p.s.

I have to label the uploaded images I've posted links to above. I'll do it later after I've has a sleep.