FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Atlanta, GA
January 10, 2010

Realms Apart Studios (link) and Mind Juice Media (link) are pleased to announce that they are joining forces in the creation of games for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch platform. The first title currently in development is called Duels of the Runemasters, a groundbreaking new take on the CCG RPG and board game genres.

Mark Sanges of Realms Apart had this to say about the partnership, “Realms Apart is a new game design and development studio, but our team has been around and designing games for nearly a decade. Our work has always been as private consultants or designers for others. Now we’ve decided to not only design, but develop a game under our own brand. Initially we conceived the game for table-top play but quickly realized it would make an excellent iPhone/iPod Touch based game.

“Duels of the Runemasters will be a turn-based, fantasy-themed, head-to-head strategic game for two players, but it’s difficult to categorize the game,” Sanges commented. “We’ve always been big fans of Collectible/Customizable Card Games (CCGs), sometimes referred to as Trading Card Games (TCGs), as well as board games and, of course, Role Playing Games (RPGs). We set out to create a game that used some of the best elements of each of these genres to form something entirely new. Something no one’s ever seen before. We think we’ve done just that.”

One of the biggest complaints casual gamers in the Collectible Card Game genre have is that the games they love to play are incredibly expensive to keep up with. “Constant new expansions with incredibly rare cards distributed unevenly across booster packs of 8-15 cards at $5 a pop can get expensive fast,” Sanges agreed. “One of our guiding principals in designing Duels of the Runemasters was long term affordability for the players. Sure, we plan to have plenty of expansions, but in our system, nothing is collectible and nothing is rare. Every player has access to the exact same components as every other player. It’s all about customization and strategy, not about who can afford to buy the most boosters or the rarest cards on the secondary markets.”

As far as development for the iPhone goes, “When I met Ken from Mind Juice Media, things just started to click,” Sanges said.

“Having recently completed and released the iPhone puzzle game Charmed, it was time to find our next major project, and as luck would have it Mark and I stumbled across each other on the online forums of TouchArcade.com.” said Ken Carpenter, President of Mind Juice Media.

Mr. Carpenter believes that Mind Juice is uniquely qualified to develop Duels of the Runemasters. He elaborated, “When I first spoke with Mark regarding Duels of the Runemasters, I knew right away that this was going to be a complex and challenging project. Fortunately my years working for Electronic Arts as a Senior Software Engineer and as a Technical Lead at a smaller game studio, Helikon Technologies, have provided me with the opportunity to learn and excel in many areas of game development. These areas include network protocols, server and database processing, artificial intelligence, 2D and 3D graphics.” Mr. Carpenter expects that all of these areas and more will be required in achieving the goals of Duels of the Runemasters.

“I am greatly looking forward to meeting the challenges that Duels of the Runemasters will present, and delivering a AAA quality title. I really cannot wait to be able to play our creation!”, concluded Mr. Carpenter.

The team is releasing little information about the details of the game thus far. For now, the only details they will divulge are:

“The game is set in the fictional world of Moridia. There, two characters, controlled by human players or AI, meet to do battle using the equipment, weapons, magic and runes of the realm. Turn by turn, players develop their attacks and defenses as they attempt to overpower their opponent on the path to ultimate victory. ”

As for what the game itself compares to, “It’s like a CCG without the monumental expense, but with all of the customizable goodness. It’s like an RPG without the intensely complex rules, but with all of the role playing, character building fun. It’s like a board game without the boring repetition and childish simplicity, but with all the strategic opportunities of the best games in the category. It truly is a whole new kind of game.”

For more information, visit:

Realms Apart Studios – http://www.realmsapart.com

Mind Juice Media – http://www.mindjuice.net

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Realms-Apart/167584208421

Twitter – http://twitter.com/RealmsApart

Media contact: media@realmsapart.com

More information: info@realmsapart.com

————————————————————————

About Realms Apart Studios

Realms Apart Studios is a game design studio based in Atlanta, Georgia whose goal is the design and development of unique, exciting, strategic, customizable games set in fantastic, rich, new worlds.

Realms Apart will release Duels of the Runemasters in 2010 as their premiere title. The game is currently in development for release as a table-top game as well as digitally for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform with plans for expansion into other platforms to follow.

————————————————————————

About Mind Juice Media Inc.

Mind Juice Media is a software development company whose goal is the creation of innovative new games and apps for the iPhone and the iPod Touch platform.

Mind Juice was founded by industry veteran Ken Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter is an experienced software developer and team lead whose credits include work on several EA-published games including NCAA 2009, Tiger Woods 2008, Madden 2009, FIFA 2009, NBA Live 2009, and others. Mr. Carpenter also manages the business and promotional side of Mind Juice.

Mr. Carpenter is joined by long-time friend and collaborator, Patricio Arce. Mr. Arce is an incredibly talented graphic artist who creates in-game art, website graphics, and promotional materials for Mind Juice.

Mind Juice has so far released two puzzle games, Charmed and Charmed Xmas, both of which have received rave reviews from the industry press and fans alike.

——————————————————————–
###

Mind Juice is very pleased to announce that Charmed Xmas has just been released in the iTunes App Store.

Charmed Xmas if the fun holiday-themed version of the hit game Charmed, which is currently being featured by Apple in the Hot New Games category on the iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

Charmed Xmas brings completely new graphics, new music, new Charms and a lot of…well…charm to the holidays!

Shortly after V1.5 of Charmed went live in the iTunes App Store, we started to receive feedback from some players that their games were freezing up very frequently.

After several hours of investigation, I discovered that the problem was due to a defect in the offline handling of Achievements in OpenFeint.  Basically if a user never goes online with OpenFeint, then the “unlock Achievement” functionality of OpenFeint does not work.

To work around this, a player must simply login to OpenFeint.  They do not necessarily need to create a custom username and account, but they do need to connect to the OpenFeint servers.  Once this first connection has been completed, then OpenFeint Achievements are properly unlocked, and the freeze up no longer occurs.

We have also submitted a fix to Apple in the form of a V1.6 update, however, the update must first be approved by Apple.  We hope that it will be approved in approximately 10 more days.

Here is the information we posted on iTunes:

FREEZE-UP ISSUE FOUND AND FIXED!!!
We have identified the problem that was causing freezes for some people and we have submitted a fix to Apple.

We have also identified a workaround that will prevent the freezes from happening until the update is approved (see below).

Also, we would like to apologize for any frustration or inconvenience this problem may have caused you.  If you are happy with the workaround and/or the fix, we would kindly ask that you update your rating and review of Charmed.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!

PROBLEM
OpenFeint needs to have successfully logged in at least one time to avoid the freeze-up issue.

WORKAROUND
• Enable WiFi or 3G network on your device
• Launch Charmed
• Enable OpenFeint and allow it to connect to the network
• Start playing Charmed without crashing.
• Note that if you uninstall Charmed and reinstall it, you will have to repeat this workaround step.

If you have disabled OpenFeint support, then you may need to go into the High Score screens and enable it from there.

I’ve been reading several articles recently where developers and publishers are complaining about the “rampant piracy” on the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.  The developers say that they are seeing high score submissions from a far higher number of players than they’ve sold copies of the game.  They say that this fact proves the other players are playing pirated copies, and they further blame Apple for this situation.  As it turns out, they are right about Apple’s culpability, but not in the way they thought.

While I certainly don’t dispute that piracy exists on this platform, it seems to me that these developers are missing a very key point, which they may well not even be aware of.  When you sell an app for $0.99, you as the developer get $0.70 from Apple, however, even if there was zero piracy you may only be earning $0.14 from each user that is using your app or playing your game!  “How can that be?”, you ask!

It is because Apple’s distribution policy allows users to install your app or game on up to 5 iDevices of their choice from a single paid copy! I received a support email recently from a player indicating that his entire family has our game, Charmed, installed on their 5 iDevices.

So far I have not seen any indication that the piracy estimates have included this fact in any way, so it stands to reason that they would then grossly overestimate the amount of piracy that is going on.

In a completely scientific survey of 20 of my friends and coworkers that own iPhones and iPod Touches, exactly one of them has a jailbroken device, and he only did it to be able to develop stuff that Apple won’t let him do with the normal Software Development Kit.  Furthermore, most of them didn’t even know what jailbreaking was or how to do it even if they had heard of it.

Of course I am joking about the scientific validity of this survey, but I just don’t believe that the vast majority of iPhone and iPod Touch users care enough to bother jailbreaking their devices.

So the statistics for piracy are likely very much lower than the 90% that others have estimated.  Besides, as my good friend Homer Simpson says people can come up with statistics to prove anything!  Forty percent of all people know that!

A new Christmas-themed version of Charmed, called Charmed Xmas, has now been submitted to Apple for review.  We are hoping that Apple will priortize the reviews for Christmas apps and get Charmed Xmas out as soon as possible!  We hope you enjoy it!

Here is a quick screenshot, or you can head over to the Charmed Xmas landing page to check out more information on the new game.

Mind Juice Media is pleased to announce that a Media Kit has been prepared to make it easier for reviewers and other media to include screenshots and icons for Charmed in their reviews, articles and videos.

The Media Kit includes images of all the UI screens for Charmed as well as a collection of gameplay screenshots and the Charmed icon in several sizes.

Please feel free to contact us should you wish to see additional images added to the Charmed Media Kit.

Thank you.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Charmed is now available in the iTunes App Store.  It can be purchased in by clicking here.

Here is a screenshot of Charmed in action.  The player has just used Freeze Time to make a match of 7 diamond charms in a row!

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts