I also have Fairies and I enjoy it but I'm stuck on the Lake level. I've never quite figured out what goal you have to reach to get ahead. I just keep playing and hope for the best. Is there any strategy to this game other than getting the biggest match possible?

Bonnie,

I have Fairies (I got it in a wave of 6 freebies in one night from them). The loading is slow but the slow mouse movements may be a "custom mouse pointer" or it may be the game manager. Try the trick of creating your own shortcut to bypass the game manager (explained earlier in this thread) and give it a try.

I didn't give the details of how to see the hidden files earlier because I was directing that post to WhiteRabbit who, I felt, would know how to do it. I'm sorry I didn't give more detailed info for others.

Terri,

I got the game. I was able to use what was needed before I disabled it. All you had to do is click on "What's New", give your email address (twice) and then wait for an email. It contained the "coupon code" to get the game. I helped a friend get it as well and she had the same response - email and then "buy" the game.

I still have the toolbar in both FF and IE8 but it is disabled in both cases. It would not take a re-install to get it back, just a setting in the option and re-cycle the browser. It did not install the toolbar in Opera so I didn't have to fuss there.

I'm glad I could help out others here. I just want to make a note about Vista. Don't be afraid of "old" games. Probably 99% of the games from even Win 95 and Win 98 will work properly in Vista (without compatibility). A few tricks may have to be done (like using admin mode or installing other than Program Files) but they work and work properly.

Can anybody get Voracity to work under Vista, though? It's part of Cosmi's "21 Best Windows Games" from around 2002 or 2003 (CD). The other 20 games work but Voracity can be gotten to run ONCE and then fails!

Diane

Dragon, people on the BFG forums were saying that there is no e-mail. There's a space on the toolbar itself to go to where you get the free game. If you disabled it, you probably can't get it unless you download it again.

Hi all - Speaking of Big Fish games: I recently downloaded "Fairies" and am having trouble getting it to work right (slow mouse movements) i mean snail slow...lol I have Windows XP Pro sp3 - Nividia GeForce 6200. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance
Bonnie

I got the toolbar and simply disabled it at this point (both Firefox and IE8). The disables were easy. I'm still waiting for the email for my code to get it for free.

Maybe it's a good game or maybe not - it's FREE and that's worth a shot. I've been happy with all my other BF games.

Your welcome Midori! I didn't make a thread for this offer due to the toolbar (edit: but I guess it's easy enough to remove with something like Revo). Then realized was posted here for 99 cents too and most who were interested downloaded it then. Maybe someone missed it and will want it for free.

I got it for .99 also... had their toolbar once and deleted it. Just another space-waster. But you could probably get the game for free, download the toolbar then delete it, if you don't already have the game. Appreciate the post, Tailteann!

I was one of the ones who got it for 99 cents (I think I read about the offer here) and I didn't think it was worth even that much but some people seemed to like it. I'm not sure what their new toolbar is and why I would want it.

Campy and Dragonlair: Thank you both so much for taking the time to write out these detailed instructions. I'm saving them for a rainy day when I have some time to organize my games on both my PC and laptop. I love coming to this forum!

I was just at Gamefish and found a new free game....well sort of...if you download their new (ugly) toolbar (lol in the context of this thread) you get a free game:
http://www.bigfishgames.com/toolbar/

The game they are offering for this giveaway is "Treasure Seekers: Visions of Gold." Some posters in their forum were angry because it had recently been offered for .99 cents and most had purchased it. http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/35864.page

Thanks Midori but they were all old games that I thought I had removed from my computer but apparently had just removed the icons and not the games themselves. Lots of old demo versions. But I appreciate the warning.

P.S... @ Dragonlair... very cool site! Thanks for posting it! :)

Hi, Terri... just a note of caution re: hidden files, if I may be so bold. Just be careful what you delete, as they're hidden for a reason... a lot are operating files that you don't wanna mess with. But if they're game related, they're safe to get rid of, etc. But things that you're unsure about, just leave alone. Don't be an over-zealous deleter, as a lot are there for a reason, whether understand it or not. Take it from a former computer spring cleaner messer upper. *&;-)

Just downloaded Moriarity. I'm so excited to start playing it.

Dragon, thank you SO MUCH for all this info especially the hidden files. I found a bunch of stuff that I thought I had deleted but was still on my computer. I also found a bunch of games that had disappeared years ago and I could never find them. Now we just need to get rid of the ads LOL.

Terri,

Kaser's site is at: http://kaser.com/

He's got a lot more than just Sherlock now. I started with Sherlock back in the early 90s (on DOS) but all of them now work on Windows. The latest one is Knarly Hexes as well as an upgrade to Knarly Mazes. I am one of his beta testers. It's a lot of fun!

If you have a shortcut duplicated in several places (Big Fish is famous for that), you can delete the extras. To be sure, you can right click on them and click on Properties to see where the program to be run is located. If they are the same, the shortcuts are just duplicates.

Campy,

My machine is 2.4 GHZ with 2 GB memory. It my be my graphics board because the slowness I see is the mouse movement. As soon as I get the environment out of it, it works fine. I did upgrade the game manager today so it may not be an issue anymore.

Am I correct in thinking that only the icon is duplicated. The game is not stored twice on my hard drive is it?

It worked. You guys are geniuses.

BFG claims the new Games Manager allows you to put the files wherever you want to but I'm not that sophisticated. That's a good suggestion about incorporating the icons since my desktop is running out of room. I just deleted the main BFG one this morning. I should have done it the other way.

Dragon, I downloaded the freeware version of Sherlock years ago and it's one of my favorites. What is the site to get a larger version?

Dragonlair - yes, I agree that it is good to have different ways to manage this to fit your personal preference. Your way of putting the icons in a folder in your start menu rather than in a folder on your desktop is a very good approach.

As to to resource issue, I also agree that could be an issue for people with slower machines. Personally, I make my own computers that are capable of running flight simulators and current graphic intensive games so haven't ever noticed the issue. Still for those with slower machines, avoiding the BFG games manager could help.

Thanks for the ideas and information Dragonlair.

Campy,

Personally, I don't use desktop icons at all. My desktop is blank black (DH's preference and it's a small issue so I let him have his way)! I use the "Start Menu" and it works fine for me. I have a "Games" folder and a "Big Fish Games" sub-folder with all the "customized" icons there. I have similar folders for other games, such as those from here, Alawar, eGames, Cosmi ....

The only exception is Everett Kaser Software. He insists on creating his own folder at the "main" level of the menu and since I have all his games (25 or so), I let him have his own way. I do have several sub-groups to his folder to group them by type (Knarly, Sherlock, Tile, ...)

It's nice that there are different ways of handling the situation for each person's personal preference.

As for Big Fish's game manager - I find that several of the games run a LOT slower if using the manager. It has enough overhead to steal resources from the games. You do need the manager to actually install the games, which is enough of a pain. I complained to them about the "cache" file they have at the ROOT level of the drive and you have NO control over it. You can control where you want the games and once that is set, it is used always. I suspect the only way to change where games are installed is to uninstall the manager and re-install it.

Personally I don't find the BFG manager too invasive and I like that as Tailteann suggests it is one way to keep your desktop neater. I just keep the "Play My Games" icon on my desktop and get rid of all their other shortcuts.

However, if you want to follow Dragonlair's suggestion and my directions to run the games directly and still keep a clean desktop, one way to do this is to create one BFG Games folder on your desktop and then drag all of the individual shortcut icons you create to that one folder. Then to run a game you open the folder and select your game. To create a desktop folder in either XP or Vista, right click on the desktop, select new, select folder and then type in the name you want for the folder like "BFG" or "Big Fish Games".

Terri & others that want to do what Dragonlair suggested to bypass the BFG games manager:

First you need to make sure that you can see hidden files. Some files are marked with the hidden property which means that they are not visible unless you have set up windows to allow you to see hidden files.

How you do this depends on which operating system you are running. Below are links to the Microsoft pages telling how to do this for XP and Vista:

XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/hiddenfiles.mspx

Vista: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/27e9a81a-fac7-457f-896b-e0017a04a59f1033.mspx

Once you can see hidden files, the BFG games will show up in windows explorer. Mine are in a directory labeled "Big Fish Games". They should be easy to find, but if you are having any trouble just do a search for one of the games using it's name. Once you have located the games, you can run them directly by just directly running the executable, e.g. double click on "Madame Fate.exe".

If you want to set up a shortcut on your desktop that is done in the normal way. Actually there are several ways to do this, but here are instruction from Microsoft for one way that works with both Vista and XP:

"To create a shortcut

1. Open the location that contains the item to which you want to create a shortcut.
2. Right-click the item, and then click Create Shortcut. The new shortcut appears in the same location as the original item.
3. Drag the new shortcut to the desired location.

You can also move the new shortcut to the desired location by cutting and pasting. To do this, right-click the shortcut, and then click Cut. Then right-click within the location where you want to move the shortcut, and then click Paste. The shortcut appears in the desired location."

Let me add that after creating the shortcut, you can rename it by right clicking on it, selecting rename, and then changing the name to whatever you want like "Madame Fate" rather than "Madame Fate.exe - Shortcut".

Just curious... but why does the BigFish game loader need to access them every time I open or close a game? I refuse to give them automatic access through my firewall, so I know each time, lol.

On the one hand I like having them all under one icon as it keeps my desktop tidy but that seems a small positive compared to the negative invasiveness. I mean I paid for some of these games and all the others came giveaways and sales. They're mine now, right?

Dragon could you please give a little more information on how to do that. Thanks.

Ditto from me, wrabbit! So glad you're having a good time, AND crossing off a few life-long wishes! What more could you ask from a vacation? Hope your family is enjoying it as much as "dad" is, but I can bet that they are. And yes... Steam will just have to wait for this, now won't it. Lol! 8:-D (humm, can that pass for a minnie mouse bow? couldn't quite get the mickey ears)

That sounds like so much fun ; gosh swimming with dolphins?
Visiting Cape Canaveral?
Marvellous indeed!
(oh that is too bad about not being able to access your games but definitely
they can wait...)
Have fun and we will be looking forward to your return!
:)

I never thought to try that Dragonlair; thanks for the tip.

To Merri,

Yes, I'm still here in Florida; having a great time, though I'm having to take a day off after every excursion. Yesterdays trip to discovery cove was marvellous, though generally I'm not into beach environments. The dolphin experience was a blast. I never thught I'd ever get to actually swim with a dolphin, so just to do that was brilliant. If you've never done Discovery Cove I'd certainly recommend it.

I've about half way through my vacation, though it only feels like I've just arrived still. The only downside to being here is that I can't use any of my online financial services as they detect that I'm not at home so lock me out, lol. That means no games from Steam till I get home. :) That can wait. I'm off to Cape Canaveral on Sunday. A life long wish (well since the Appollo missions back in the 1960's)

They may have a games manager but you can play the games without that in the mix at all. Their link has the manager only at the tail end, which I find really weird.

All you have to do is turn on to see hidden files to find the REAL executable and make a shortcut from it. No manager coming or going!

LOL Terri218; clever idea!
You are welcome, franki!
That's right midori..we need our deals and our games..lol
(love the hat!)
:)

Lol, Terri... I thought of doing that also. Hey, we can't be missing any deals here! *&:-D