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Fear for Sale

Posted By: Mad

Fear for Sale - 02/10/19 07:03 PM

Started on the first of the "Fear for Sale" series now. I didn't realise I hadn't yet played any of them laugh

I'm liking what I've experienced so far, apart from some of the hidden objects being quite difficult to see because the "drab" scenery (where I've been so far, anyway) makes it hard to differentiate what's what !!

But "onward and upward, eh ?? lol
Posted By: Sparkle

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/10/19 07:09 PM

One of my favorite series. Enjoy.
Posted By: Marian

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/10/19 07:14 PM

There are 12 games in this series so far. I seem to remember the first one or two games in the series having more hidden object scenes than the others, which makes sense considering their age.

The twelve games are:

Fear for Sale: Mystery of Mclnroy Manor
Fear for Sale: Sunnyvale Story
Fear for Sale: Nightmare Cinema
Fear for Sale: Phantom Tide
Fear for Sale: The 13 Keys
Fear for Sale: Endless Voyage
Fear for Sale: City Of The Past
Fear for Sale: The House on Black River
Fear for Sale: The Dusk Wanderer
Fear for Sale: Hidden in the Darkness
Fear for Sale: The Curse of Whitefall
Fear for Sale: Tiny Terrors

I haven't played them all but have enjoyed the ones I have played. smile
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/10/19 09:32 PM

Thanks, Marian.

I just have three at the moment :

Mystery of Mclnroy Manor [Which is the one I'm currently playing.]
The 13 Keys
And
The House on Black River

Good to know though that the number of hidden object screens gets less as the series progresses and hopefully, also, the objects might become a little less difficult to "see" !! wink
Posted By: Marian

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/10/19 09:41 PM

I did play the first game, and it definitely had more hidden object scenes than most of the rest of the games in the series. I thought it was a pretty good game but would also say that the series improved as it went along.

I have played The House on Black River and enjoyed it. I don't remember the hidden objects being difficult to see either. smile
Posted By: Reenie

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/11/19 07:05 PM

Mad, this series is one that has an arc to it. It started with a stumble (Sunnyvale felt positively primitive, even at the time), but they got better, more challenging and clearer with their HO scenes. A couple of the games were buggy or wouldn't fill my screen properly or cut off part of the game screen, no matter how I tweaked the settings, and I had to bail out on the Demo. All of the games I did play tended to be satisfyingly long, but most are too easy to challenge you. I can only speak for ten of them, but my favorite was Curse of Whitefall. Coming in close seconds would be Dusk Wanderer and Phantom Tide.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/11/19 07:42 PM

Thanks, Marian AND you, Reenie grin
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/12/19 03:28 PM


I remember I liked Sunnyvale, but thought it was short.
I should probably replay the series soon.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/12/19 05:29 PM

Thanks, Jenny100 thumbsup
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/16/19 05:51 PM

I do really like the story in this game but some of the "too many" hidden object screens are ridiculously difficult - for me, anyway.

Drab backgrounds with often lots of very tiny drab objects to find in them crazy

I will persevere to the bitter end but am hoping the other two games I have in this series are much improved !!
Posted By: Marian

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/16/19 06:28 PM

I think you will like the other two games more, Mad. This was the first installment in the series and it improved as it went along. wave
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/16/19 10:57 PM

Hopefully it improved in a BIG way then !! lol Thanks, Marian smile
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/21/19 10:33 PM

I started Mystery of McInroy Manor and got a dead end -- objects in two Hidden object puzzles did not appear -- a handcuffs in the Hidden Object scene under the stairs and an Eiffel tower in the Hidden Object scene when you step forward after going upstairs. I tried various things, reinstalling through the Big Fish client, deleting all old profiles and playing from a new profile... The best I got was having the items appear, but not be clickable so I couldn't pick up either the handcuffs or Eiffel tower, whether I could see them or not. Some people on Big Fish forums mentioned having the same problem with these same objects in these same two Hidden Object scenes, but no usable solutions.

http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/150983.page
http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/133712.page
http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/133636.page
http://forums.bigfishgames.com/posts/list/127361.page

So I gave up trying to play that game. I got really good at the Hidden object puzzles up to that point after repeating them 4 times in 4 replays. I don't remember which computer I originally played Mystery at McInroy Manor on, or whether it was on XP or Vista.

Now I'm playing Sunnyvale Story, and it's not the way I remembered it. I didn't remember the horrible colors at all. At least I haven't encountered any bugs. If I want to play a game about a house that teleports around, I think I'd rather play the House of 1000 Doors series, and have the house on my side.

Sometimes old games hold up and sometimes they don't.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/21/19 11:15 PM

Heck !! I think I'm glad I haven't got either of those two, then, Jenny100 eek
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/22/19 02:09 AM

I just tried Mystery of McInroy Manor again, this time on 32-bit Vista, and did not have issues with those two Hidden Object scenes. The handcuffs and Eiffel Tower showed up just fine and were clickable. So I guess I'll finish the game on Vista. I also had a hotspot for entering the kitchen that wasn't there in previous replays (or maybe I just missed the hotspot, but the problem in the Hidden Object scenes was also related to hotspots). I'm thinking it was a video driver issue and the Vista drivers were better.

I finished the Main game in Sunnyvale Story (not the Bonus game yet). I didn't think much of it, mainly because the ugly colors spoiled it. Cyan/teal/yellow/brown for everything is not to my liking.

The game I was thinking of when I said
Originally Posted by Jenny100
I remember I liked Sunnyvale, but thought it was short.
was apparently not Sunnyvale Story. I don't know what that game was, maybe something with a similar name or maybe a game I played around the same time as when I first played Sunnyvale.


EDIT --

Stayed up late finishing Mystery of McInroy Manor on Vista and didn't encounter any further problems. I actually like the game and it's too bad about that bug spoiling it for some people. The Bonus game is a long one.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/22/19 04:57 PM

Well I'm glad you got all that sorted Jenny100 !!

I only play Big Fish games on my Win7 machine these days but I do still encounter problems occasionally. The last ones being with two of the "Fishdom" series. Which is a shame, because I like that series.
But you can't have everything, eh ?? whistle
Posted By: Marian

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/22/19 08:12 PM

I am running Windows 7 and all of the Fishdom games I have from Big Fish work just fine - I wonder what the problem is, Mad?
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/22/19 10:04 PM

I started the 3rd game in the series, Fear for Sale 3: Nightmare Cinema (Collector's Edition).
They aren't kidding about it being a "Collector's" edition. Besides the usual morphs (apparently there are 66 of them in the game), there are 5 each of cards, origami, tin soldiers, runes, snow globes, butterflies, and cupcakes.

It's unfortunate that the graphics are almost as bad as in Sunnyvale, grainy and limited to shades of brown/cyan/ecru/grey. So far the first game in the series (McInroy Manor) was the best looking game up to that point and had the best story. I notice it was four years before I bought any more games in this series, and then I bought several. So I'm thinking I got fed up with the ugly colors after playing Sunnyvale and Nightmare Cinema and quit the series -- until hearing that the later ones were better, or at least didn't have the vomitous colors.

I have Standard Editions of the 4th through the 9th in the series.
No more of their "Collector's" versions for me.

I don't have any of the Fishdom series so I can't help you with that. Are they the first two or a later two? If they're the first two maybe they'd work on your XP computer.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/23/19 08:46 PM

Hi Marian.
I did contact Big Fish about it at the time and their only suggestion was "driver update".
But I didn't follow through on that because for one thing I have no idea how to update drivers and for another, doing so might upset other games.
[I don't actually know if it would or not. But my zillions of other games play just fine with the driver as is rolleyes]

Hi Jenny100.
oops I think I'll stick with the Fear for Sale games I already have, then !!
The problem with the Fishdom games was freezing and crashing. It happened in both the second and third games of the series when I had progressed far enough to open up new aquariums.
[And I can't try either on my WinXP machine because it no longer has an internet connection.]
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/24/19 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by Mad
I think I'll stick with the Fear for Sale games I already have, then !!

You should probably try the demos for them to see what you think -- especially the two latest ones that I haven't tried yet. At least check out the beginning of the games in someone's YouTube playthrough to see what you think of the graphics.

The 13 Keys and Endless Voyage seem to have a lot of puzzles, but they've all been pretty easy IMO. I haven't gotten around to replaying any of the later ones yet.

Originally Posted by Mad
[The problem with the Fishdom games was freezing and crashing. It happened in both the second and third games of the series when I had progressed far enough to open up new aquariums. And I can't try either on my WinXP machine because it no longer has an internet connection.]

"Trying" the beginning of them is easy enough because you can copy the game folder over from the Windows 7 computer. But if they don't act up until later, you'd have to root around until you found your save file on Windows 7 and see if it was transferrable.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/24/19 07:06 PM

Thanks, Jenny100. I'll certainly look at the screenshots. But I never bother with demos wink

As for the Fishdom games ....
ALL my Big Fish games are downloaded directly to a big external drive and then activated on my Win7 machine. And t's my understanding that Big Fish games can only be played "off-line" on a machine where they've previously been activated ??
[I'm sure you told me that.]
Posted By: Jenny100

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/24/19 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by Mad
And t's my understanding that Big Fish games can only be played "off-line" on a machine where they've previously been activated ??
[I'm sure you told me that.]

Yes, they'll play as a demo and time out unless they've been activated.

I think how the activation works is to take a "snapshot" of your computer hardware and save that information somewhere on your hard drive (sometimes in the game folder but not always). So if you copied the save folder from a Windows 7 computer to an XP computer, the activation information would be wrong for it, even if the activation information is saved in the game folder and copied over to the XP computer. It doesn't say "the game is activated on this computer." It says "the game is activated on a computer with these specs: ..." And if the computer doesn't match the information, the game plays as a demo and times out.

That's been my experience moving a Big Fish game folder from one computer to another -- the game only works as long as a demo unless it's been activated on that computer -- and it may need to use the game folder created by the game manager on that particular computer too if activation information is placed in the game folder. I sometimes see activation files in Big Fish game folders and sometimes I don't, so it may vary with the game where they're placed.

Playing as a demo is not good enough for testing if technical problems happen later in the game, after the demo is over.
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 02/25/19 06:42 PM

Thanks for all that info, Jenny100 thumbsup
Posted By: Mad

Re: Fear for Sale - 03/08/19 04:10 PM

Playing Fear for Sale : The House on Black River, now, and finding it a better experience and MUCH kinder on the eyes dance
Posted By: Marian

Re: Fear for Sale - 03/08/19 05:06 PM

Yes, I liked that Fear for Sale game too, Mad. smile
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