14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome back to a new edition of our weekly freeware picks. This week we've got a great free game for you to try out, as well as a couple of utilities that simply shouldn't miss from your hard drive. Check them out and download them all, if you want!
Ovid the Owl - adventure game
Ovid the Owl is currently at its first act. In Ovid the Owl Act I, players immerse themselves in a lovely adventure to help Ovid get back his wings. “Ovid the Owl’s wings have been clipped, and he’s on an adventure to find a surgeon that can help him to fly again,” says Leeran Z. Raphaely, the game's developer. “This game combines platforming, adventure, and puzzles and features a unique, cartoony graphic style,” Raphaely adds.
While the gameplay can be a little simple and slow, the entire experience is a pleasant one, mostly thanks to the music entirely composed by the game's developer. Various tracks spanning genres such as Jazz, classical Pop and Techno are to be found in Ovid the Owl.
The game is not at its first release, but it's the first time I've seen / heard of it. According to the changelog, this new release...
- changes the key that flips switches to Shift (formerly Alt); - fixes some collision detection; adds more sound effects where fitting; - adds cooler underwater effects in the last level if your graphics card supports them.
Gameplay screenshots
Oh, before you start playing, make sure to turn off Spaces. One of the first tasks Ovid needs to accomplish involves pressing CMD + an arrow / directional button, which triggers the switch between spaces on Leopard machines.
Download Ovid the Owl Act I (Free)
OsXP Folders - XP-like thumbnail view of your folders in OS X
As its name implies, OsXP Folders brings a simple yet truly useful feature to Mac OS X - it displays the images contained in a folder in Windows XP thumbnail style. If you have folders containing pictures, OsXP Folders modifies their appearance so that they don't look like simple, blue folder icons, but like a preview of that folder's insides. Why don't you just have a look at this screenshot below, you'll see what I mean.
OsXP Folders is a Quicklook Plugin supported only by Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. As you can imagine, if OsXP Folders doesn't find any supported pictures inside a folder, the standard OS X style-folder is displayed.
Book Hunter - sort and catalog your books
Enjoy reading? (What are the chances of that if you're browsing for free Mac software?) But hey, if you do like reading books, here's a great way to sort and catalog your volumes - Book Hunter for Mac.
Book Hunter is a free application that can help you catalog, sort, and organize your book collection. Using its simple UI, you can query online databases to easily get all information about your favorite books. It has an iTunes-like interface, and connects to an online database while doing all the smart list updates by itself. It sports AddressBook, iCal and QuickLook integration and uses the Sparkle framework to keep an eye out for newer versions of itself. Need more reasons to try this app right now?
See you next week!
