On March 30, 2010, freeAppCalendar featured “The Impossible Test” as the “Featured FREE App of the Day”. The app quickly climbed the App Store charts, and was left free after the feature. On March 31, “The Impossible Test” reached the #1 Overall Free App position in the US App Store, and it continues to top the charts today. It has also reached the #1 position in numerous other App Stores across the world.

Over the past seven days, “The Impossible Test” has seen as many as 320,000 downloads in a single day, and has been downloaded a total of 1,584,824 times. This in itself is truly a remarkable achievement for both the developers and freeAppCalendar.

More importantly though, PixelCUBE Studios, developers of “The Impossible Test”, also revealed that they also have seen a huge increase in their in-app purchases. In fact, their revenue the first day after reaching the #1 position was far more than the entire week when they were featured by Apple in the New and Noteworthy category. This is despite the fact that their app is now being given away for free.

Naveen Sidhu of PixelCUBE Studios commented, “We’re absolutely thrilled with our experience using freeAppCalendar. Since being featured, we’ve held the #1 overall free app position for over a week, and have had over 1.58 million downloads in that time! This massive exposure has led directly to a huge and sustained increase in the sales of our in-app purchases for “The Impossible Test”. We can’t thank freeAppCalendar enough for their help in achieving this result!”

Ken Carpenter, founder of freeAppCalendar added, “The success of this app proves that giving away your apps for free can be a viable business model if done properly. I have gained considerable insight into this process over the past month, and I strongly believe that we will achieve this result multiple times again in the future. It will just take the combination of a good app, the right timing and the right in-app purchase strategy for the specific app. We can help developers with all those aspects.”

Mr. Carpenter suggests that developers interested in replicating the success of “The Impossible Test” visit the Developers Page on freeAppCalendar to learn about some of the strategies they should consider employing in their own apps to increase their revenues. Developers are also encouraged to contact Mr. Carpenter directly by email with any questions that they might have.

freeAppCalendar [479]
PixelCUBE Studios [288]
Download from iTunes [313]
Developer Info [117]

Visitors are presented with a list of potential games and apps from which to select, and they can vote for the game or app that they most want to get free the following week. If they change their mind later, they can return and change their vote. Voting will normally be open from early Sunday morning to Wednesday night, after which time the seven (7) games or apps with the most votes will be automatically selected to become free the following week (the coming Sunday through Saturday).

Visitors can return to the site every day the following week to see if their selected game or app was chosen or if they should vote for it again next week. Votes for unselected games and apps carry over to the next week. Visitors can also follow freeAppCalendar on Twitter, and can become a fan of the site’s Facebook page.

freeAppCalendar was created by Ken Carpenter, President of Mind Juice Media Inc. Mr. Carpenter decided to create the site as an alternative to a similar “free app” site that charges developers from $600 to $1,200 per day for the “privilege” of making their games and apps free.

Mr. Carpenter believes that indie developers deserve to have a website where they can promote their amazing games and apps to hundreds of thousands of people, and the main calendar feature of freeAppCalendar provides exactly that service for no charge.

Developers interested in taking the promotion of their games or apps to the next level should visit the Developers page on the website to learn more and to register. Additional advertising and promotional services are also available from freeAppCalendar at very reasonable prices (to be announced soon). The freeAppCalendar site is scheduled to officially launch within the next 7 to 10 days, but the preview site is already online.

Mind Juice Media [302]
freeAppCalendar [470]
Developer Registration [142]

Located in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and founded in 2009, Mind Juice Media Inc. is a software development company whose goal is the creation of innovative new games and apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad platforms. Mind Juice has released four games, Charmed, Charmed Lite, Charmed Xmas, and Flight Deck (in collaboration with BossMan Entertainment). All four games have received rave reviews from the industry press and fans alike. Mind Juice’s President and founder Mr. Ken Carpenter is a games industry veteran, having worked for small game companies in the past, and more recently at Electronic Arts to create a next generation online server infrastructure used in games including Madden, NBA Live, NHL, NCAA Football, and others. Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Mind Juice Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

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.

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.

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.

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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!

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