Chess with friends players make over 1,000,000 moves in one day!
NewToy’s Chess with Friends iPhone application has been buzzing lately and the studio revealed that over 1,000,000 moves were made in one day yesterday signalling a new record for the game. Help spread the word of this excellent social chess game and you can help get NewToy’s Chess with Friends into the Top 100 App Store charts! If youve got an iPhone and haven’t seen the chess revolution then you should download the application for free on the AppStore below!
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321916506&mt=8
Chess with Friends for iPhone update incoming from NewToy
NewToy have announced on Twitter that they have just sent in an update for thier first iPhone game “Chess with Friends” to be reviewed by Apple for publication on the AppStore. Some of application updates include:
- Push notifications,
- Deleting games,
- Facebook & Twitter challenges,
- and many other fixes and improvements
We’ll keep an eye out for when this update gets accepted onto the AppStore!
Paul Bettner: Newtoy to become a “Nintendo of the iPhone”
NewToy’s Paul Bettner an ex programmer at Ensemble Studios was one of the first to start up a new games company out of Ensemble’s ashes. Paul is now talking to Gamasutra about the new start up company and how he in-visages the companies future. Paul hopes that NewToy can appeal to the unique iPhone market taking into account the platforms easy connectivity and user interaction. The Gamasutra article explains how well the “Chess with Friends” application has been doing since launch, although missing out on the Top 100 the game has had some excellent download numbers:
Chess With Friends came from that philosophy. The game got good support from Apple, which featured the game prominently on the App Store as Pick of the Week in March. The vote of confidence led to a nice jump in sales.
But it still didn’t break the top 100 Apps on the sales ranking list on the App Store, meaning visibility for the game would be low. For iPhone developers, making the top 100 is a crucial requisite for having a successful game.
Bettner said he didn’t pack up and go home. There is a life outside of the Top 100, and it involves sustained growth of a game’s sales and good consumer retention, two things possessed by Chess With Friends and its Scrabble-style counterpart, Words With Friends, he said.
Combined, Chess and Words, which both have ad-supported free and paid versions, have been downloaded 500 million times so far. They draw 50,000 active users daily, and are tracking 200,000 for September, Bettner said. The ratio of free to paid versions is 5:1.
Check out the full article on Gamasutura.
As NewToy continue development on new and exciting applications such as the much awaited “World War Robot” with acclaimed artist Ashley Wood.
Good luck NewToy!
Dave Pottingers Lego mission is complete + NewToy launch new iPhone game “Words with Friends”
Kicking off today’s ex Ensemble Studios members updates is Dave Pottinger who has updated his blog over on the Robot Entertainment with the final installment of the Lego Robot Logo design. With a bunch of new pictures and text discussing how the board came to be mounted proudly on the wall of Robot Entertainment can be found on the website.
Carrying the Logo
In case you were wondering from the last blog what the mini lego adventures were on each letter of the logo I can reveal from the blog that the list is as follows:
• Star Wars for the ‘r’
• Indy for the first ‘o’
• Medieval for the ‘b’ (hey, we did do Age2 after all!)
• Pirates for the second ‘o’
• Batman for the ‘t’
And here’s what they look like:
Mission Complete!
But of course all this wouldnt of been possible with out Mr “Lead Designer” Dave Pottinger and his family!
Standing proud with the family… away from the Bad Guys!
But thats not all!
Its been a little while but it looks like NewToy one of the iPhone development companies that formed out of Ensemble has released thier new game titled “Words with Friends” the game follows in the “With friends” series with NewToy’s last game, “Chess with friends” proving to be a real hit on the Apple App Store. NewToy is lead by the Bettner Brothers of Ensemble Studios. You can download thier latest game right now from the App Store!
Be sure to read all about it on the New Toy website!