By Kieron Gillen on September 27th, 2009 at 2:36 pm.
Walking-gaming-polymath Richard Cobbett brought this to my attention. Wadjet Eye Games’ Dave Gilbert has decided to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur by making their Shivah free to download today. All you need to do is go to the buy page and enter the coupon code “FreeShivah”. And lo! A game will be yours. Why should you do this? “Put simply, if you’re into adventures or games that tell stories, Dave Gilbert is one of the guys you should be watching,” says Richard, before pausing to allow us to put a page-break in.
“His games are very familiar in style, especially if you’re a registered member of the great Point And Clique, but his characters and the quality of his writing utterly blow away almost every commercial attempt of the last few years. The basic concept of The Shivah says it all, chucking out the usual mildly sarcastic pretenders to the Threepwood throne in favour of making a rabbi on the brink of losing his faith the main character of a murder mystery adventure you definitely don’t have to be religious to enjoy. It’s a short, bite-sized game, but the perfect introduction to Gilbert’s style, which would later be honed into the fantastic Blackwell Legacy games. Download it while it’s on offer, and definitely check those out as well. Wait, did I actually get through that without getting his name wrong even once? Hurrah! Achievement unlocked!”
“I’m still petitioning for him to change his name. I’ve never called him Ron Gilbert, but I have called him Dave Grossman a couple of times and had Telltale people mail me to say “Uh…”
Well, you heard. To repeat, you basically go here and enter the coupon code “FreeShivah”. And if you’re coming to this page after the offer has been expired, you should be aware there’s a free demo for you to try out in case you fancy purchasing the feller.
27/09/2009 at 14:46 Mathew Jensterle says:
You have to type “FreeShivah” as one string in the coupon code box or it doesn’t work. Sunday brain couldn’t parse why it wasn’t working as it was.
27/09/2009 at 14:52 nabeel says:
Quite nice how fast word has spread.
27/09/2009 at 15:07 LionsPhil says:
I’m confused. Sinister purposes aside, why put this through the purchasing system, thus needing to “pay” that $0?
27/09/2009 at 15:08 Jonas says:
Still waiting for my email with further information. Been waiting for 2 hours, so… I’m not sure I should still be expecting it to show up eventually :-(
27/09/2009 at 16:11 bookwormat says:
gmail classifies the response mail as spam.
27/09/2009 at 15:15 Supertonic says:
It’ll be in our spam folder. That’s what happened when I ordered it.
27/09/2009 at 15:15 Richard says:
It landed in my spam filter (my link, I mean, not yours). It should show up pretty quickly if it worked.
27/09/2009 at 15:18 dan says:
I don’t understand… it asked me to go through paypal, which then wouldn’t let me go through for 0.00.
I am confused.
27/09/2009 at 15:19 Jonas says:
Ah-hah! Got it, it was indeed in my spam folder. Dunno why I didn’t think to check that, quite a n00b error to make. Thank for the advice, gentlemen :-)
27/09/2009 at 15:20 Supertonic says:
Great minds.. btw meant to say your spam folder obviously. Why can’t we edit? Btw anyone else finding gmail’s spam filter a bit aggressive lately?
27/09/2009 at 15:21 dan says:
Also after going through paypal (i put in 1p as a cost) it then took me to a blank page.
27/09/2009 at 15:37 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
Yeah, same for me. You’ll get the confirmation e-mail, though.
Not really sure why they don’t just post the link on their front-page.
http://www.davelgil.com/riiste/cup43/Shivah_setup.exe
27/09/2009 at 15:22 Richard says:
“I don’t understand… it asked me to go through paypal, which then wouldn’t let me go through for 0.00.”
Use the Credit Card option. It won’t actually ask you for your card details.
27/09/2009 at 15:22 Jaffo says:
Oy vey!
27/09/2009 at 15:30 Supertonic says:
Forget paypal, choose secure credit card thingy.
27/09/2009 at 15:30 Supertonic says:
Forget paypal, choose secure credit card thingy. PS the buying mechanism on that site really isn’t built to handle freebies.
27/09/2009 at 15:32 Supertonic says:
FFS Double posts and lack of edits.
27/09/2009 at 15:55 dan says:
Thanks for the spam folder pro-tip everyone & the direct link kakksakkamaddafakka. Downloading now.
It is strange that they make you go through paypal/credit etc. although I understand that they will want some details. Surely a quick form “enter your email and the promo code and you will get an email check your spam folder though” would have been easier?
27/09/2009 at 16:25 Lack_26 says:
I do love inventing patently ridiculous addresses to put into these things, it’s always fun.
27/09/2009 at 16:54 Mihai says:
“Invalid coupon”
27/09/2009 at 16:59 Mihai says:
Wait, got it. It’s FreeShivah, not Free Shivah.
27/09/2009 at 17:57 Kieron Gillen says:
Yes, its. FIXED.
27/09/2009 at 17:00 Akimbo says:
isn’t really something you “celebrate”, though.
27/09/2009 at 18:58 Clovis says:
Oh, so Jewish holidays aren’t worth celebrating, eh?
Or do you not celebrate Good Friday either, just because it’s about an execution?
27/09/2009 at 19:17 Joe says:
He makes a fair point. “Observe” might be the better verb, if it didn’t reek of correctness. Hmm…
27/09/2009 at 19:21 Joe says:
Also, Christians do celebrate the death of Jesus, as without said blood sacrifice they would still be wallowing in sin like the rest of us chumps. That said, Easter Sunday (resurrection) is the real party time blowout. From what little I read of that Wiki link, Yom Kippur has no such rejoicey connotations.
27/09/2009 at 19:24 Heliocentric says:
The tense of the bible always implied that it was christians up to that time who were spared, as opposed to future christians.
I realise that wouldn’t have been many people at the time.
27/09/2009 at 23:47 Akimbo says:
All I’m saying is that in Hebrew, we make a verbal distinction between days you celebrate, and days you observe/commemorate. I thought it’d be the same in English. I wasn’t trying to note the political correctness of the phrasing, merely the grammatical one.
28/09/2009 at 00:19 Clovis says:
Oh, I was just joking around…. I couldn’t figure out how to fake ignorance of what you meant without giving away what the link was saying… oh, drat! I thought the Good Friday thing was funny since, as Joe mentioned, it really is celebrated.
27/09/2009 at 17:02 qrter says:
Worked fine for me just now – copy the exact coupon code (without the parentheses) and do as mr. Cobbett says, use the credit card option and the e-mail will inevitably end up in your spam folder.
I’ve read good stuff about this game, so this is very nice.
27/09/2009 at 17:26 Chobes says:
I can’t believe they’re still advertising Shodan on the subways after the mess it made out of my space station. Christ, it was almost as bad as Vista64.
27/09/2009 at 17:50 Pags says:
I saw the name ‘Gilbert’ and the words ‘adventure game’ and automatically assumed things. I’m only a little bit disappointed, but free games make up for it.
On the subject of Richard Cobbett, is his crippling arachnophobia the reason he had a column at PCG where his face was crudely photoshopped onto a spider’s body? ie. do PCG hate him?
27/09/2009 at 18:18 Richard says:
No, that was more the pun potential. At least, that’s what they told me.
27/09/2009 at 22:01 Nick says:
It was better than Netwarewolf at least.
27/09/2009 at 17:54 Pags says:
Oh well this is a fine howdy doody, I can’t get it for free with PayPal because, naturally, PayPal doesn’t quite understand why I’m using it to not pay for something.
27/09/2009 at 18:06 Chobes says:
I just selected Fax and got it.
27/09/2009 at 22:57 Pags says:
Ah, I wasn’t that clever. So I paid a single cent, Radiohead-style.
27/09/2009 at 17:55 Mike Russo says:
Rabbi, Run, surely.
27/09/2009 at 19:15 Joe says:
How generous!
27/09/2009 at 19:22 malkav11 says:
The advantage of going through the purchasing system vs having a download link on the site or a quick webform:
You are now a registered owner of The Shivah, and if you should ever need to download it again, you’ll either be able to do so through Plimus or be able to bother someone at Wadjet Eye to fix you up with it again. I don’t know how likely that is – it’s a lovely game but it is very short and there’s nothing that would constitute “replay value” other than simply wanting to experience it again.
27/09/2009 at 21:07 biscotti says:
I grabbed this early this afternoon and had it finished by tea time. Most definitely an enjoyable few hours. The story, writing and voice acting are all really good as stated elsewhere many times.
I think I might check out the Blackwell series.. anyone have an opinion on them?
27/09/2009 at 22:56 Dave Gilbert says:
Oh, fun! A write-up by RPS. Thanks for the shout-out, everyone! I hope you all enjoy the free game.
27/09/2009 at 23:11 bookworm8at says:
Thank you for this game. It has been a great experience so far.
28/09/2009 at 00:24 Zelig says:
Yah, no relation to Ron Gilbert.
I got more entertainment out of the bloopers and commentary of The Shivah than the game itself since it’s too short. Would love for it to have been a 5 or 10 hour game.
The Blackwell series is also excellent. Longer and higher quality production.
28/09/2009 at 00:38 simonkaye says:
Great game. Short and sweet.
28/09/2009 at 05:01 Frank says:
Thanks, guy. I’ve been meaning to try one of your games for a while now. I’m too busy to start one now, but…anyway.
28/09/2009 at 06:48 Korgan says:
Joos! Joos! Joos! Joos! Joos! Joos! Joos!
28/09/2009 at 15:12 Dave Gilbert says:
Funny thing? The massive rush of traffic to my website has wrecked havoc with the store’s accounting system.
http://www.davelgil.com/32bill.png
For a free game, it’s earning quite a lot of money!
Maybe I should buy a villa in the south of France before they realize what happened.
28/09/2009 at 19:17 Kieron Gillen says:
RICH!
KG
28/09/2009 at 17:58 Janek Mann says:
A quick note that it might be best not to use Paypal as they may be charged the minimum fee per transaction which would not be very nice for them… Though I did as that’s my default rather than entering Credit Card numbers but I made a $0.60 payment to cover that.
28/09/2009 at 21:47 Dave Gilbert says:
For those using paypal and are getting errors, just select “credit card.” Even if you don’t have a credit card, the store won’t ask you for your number because the price is $0.