Get it today on the App Store, for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch!

Along with SpellCraft’s recent award recognitions — winning Best Role Playing Game and Best Free To Play Game in the 2011 Best Apps Ever contest — it’s more evident than ever that something magical is happening with this game!

Our thanks to Apple for this endorsement, and to the many players who have already joined the SpellCraft School of Magic. And if you haven’t enrolled — why not? The game is FREE — get your copy by clicking HERE!

All of us at Appy Entertainment are saddened by this news. It doesn’t matter if we are artists, programmers, game designers, or even CFOs: Ralph McQuarrie’s work and vision touched all our lives at a time when our young imaginations were thirsting, forever changing our vision for the future.

Appy Project Director Emmanuel Valdez selected this piece to best remember Mr. McQuarrie

I can honestly say, like many others, that his work on Star Wars was the reason and desire for me to become a concept artist.  A lot of amazing accolades will be said about Ralph McQuarrie, but personally I can’t thank him enough for illuminating an artistic path and inspiring a young kid to pursue an artistic career drawing space ships and robots.

Appy Creative Visual Director Farzad Varahramyan felt a special affinity for Mr. McQuarrie’s work on Battlestar Galactica

Our most sincere condolences to his family and loved ones he leaves behind.  From the Appy family, thank you Ralph for everything; your work will live on beyond all of us.

PocketGamer’s expectations for the year ahead are exceeded only by our own!

Thanks to PocketGamer for this recognition and we’ll try to live up to the honor!

Appy’s Brand Director, Paul O’Connor, will be presenting a talk at GDC 2012 in San Francisco:

Premium To Freemium — Pivoting Monetization Method For Best-Selling Apps: The tide is irresistible. The market is speaking with its wallet. The majority of downloads and profit on Apple’s App Store are generated by apps with in-app purchases. Every week brings a flood of new freemium apps attempting to capitalize on this method of monetization. But what about premium apps left behind in this new App Store gold rush? Must catalog titles concede the field to this new breed of app and accept diminishing revenue outside the App Store spotlight? Appy Entertainment reveals how they converted two best-selling premium apps to freemium monetization and increased their audience, grew their revenue and made the games better in the process.

The talk will be presented twice …

Tuesday, March 6th, 10:35-11:00 Room 134, North Hall (as part of the Smartphone Summit)

and

Friday, March 9th, 12:05-12:30 Room 2009, West Hall, 2nd Fl (as part of the main conference)

If you are attending GDC we hope you can make it to one of our talks, and please come up afterwards and say hello!

A whole host o’ Appys are putting on a panel at WonderCon in Anaheim. The aforementioned Paul O’Connor will try to wrangle Appy CEO Chris Ulm, Project Director Emmanuel Valdez, and Creative Visual Director Farzad Varahramyan to discuss the world of Apps as breeding ground for new entertainment IP in …

Triumph of the Small Screen Friday March 16th 4:30-5:30 — Angry Birds and Pocket God are just two entertainment brands that were born as smartphone apps before jumping to the worlds of comic books, animation, movies, plush toys, and more. Chris Ulm (former editor-in-chief, Malibu Comics), Farzad Varahramyan (designer, Aliens vs. Predator, Jumanji, Escape From Witch Mountain, The Thing), Emmanuel Valdez (game director, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Darkwatch, Bourne Conspiracy), and Paul O’Connor (game designer, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, author of the Longbox Graveyard comic book blog) will discuss the promise and special challenges of this exploding new art form. Room 208

If you are attending WonderCon, c’mon by, ask us some questions, throw some rotten fruit, and stick around after the panel to say hello!

We hope to see you in San Francisco and Anaheim!

Check it out for what went right, what went wrong, and what is still to come for everyone’s favorite (and award-winning!) social mobile role playing game!

Thanks to Gamasutra for providing a platform to share our experiences in bringing SpellCraft to fruition!

Last Thursday, all of us at Appy’s Secret Worldwide Headquarters were, for lack of a better word, SHOCKED to learn that SpellCraft School of Magic was nominated for “Best Social Mobile Game” at the 8th International Mobile Gaming Awards. Then on Friday, we jumped around and threw papers in the air when we discovered we had not one, but TWO wins in 148 Apps’ Best App Ever: “Best Role-Playing Game” and “Best Free-to-Play Game.”

Much celebrating ensued, thanks to the Irish Pub strategically located under our offices. But it wasn’t enough to simply “pat each other on the back” and bask in our newfound glory. Best App Ever is voted on 100 percent by fans. We find it remarkable that SpellCraft School of Magic — which just debuted in December (!) — beat out so many AAA-type games from mega publishers like Chillingo and Gameloft.  We feel both wins represent a deep love of Appy’s games by regular people – from new smartphone owners to grizzled veterans from the Palm OS and Windows Mobile days.

A new generation arises. We call them “Generation M.” They never had to live in a world without Google; tablets are their natural habitats. It’s true that most of them love console games just like the next guy (or gal), but they are more than comfortable with the idea of gaming on the go. Nonetheless, this generation is going even farther: they’re also prolific social gamers. They made Zynga the giant it is today and will take gaming into the billions–eventually turning the world’s population into gamers. That’s a seismic shift for game development any way you slice it. In fact, we’d like to think Appy is at the tip of the spear in this space with SpellCraft; wait ‘til you see what we have in store for 2012

While a few years old, the “free-to-play” model is still in its infancy. It has a very different and always-evolving aesthetic plus sophisticated in-game market dynamics, player behavior, and much more. Mobile-social is where all the action on game design takes place today. Yes, we would love to also win “Best App Ever,” but we see “Best Free-to-Play” as arguably the most important category in the field — given the way the market is trending. It’s a huge achievement for Appy to win this category in our first attempt, given the many larger and more entrenched companies already doing outstanding work in this space.At Appy, we have a simple philosophy that guides everything we do: if we make our users happy, everything else will follow. That’s why we don’t release a game unless we think it’s great. It’s also a reason why we strive to have one of the friendliest, most responsive customer support efforts in the industry — a direct result from our stated mission to “develop lifetime relationships with our players.” While other games may do well with player churn and grubby monetization schemes, we try to keep our players happy thanks to the quality and depth of our games. We don’t want to be a casino constantly calculating the best way to separate players from their money; we aspire to be Disneyland!

In short, this is a huge deal for us. We want to share it with all our fans, the press, and everyone else who had a great time playing any of our games–whether on iPhone, iPad or Android. We consider these awards a vote of confidence from our players — that you like what we are doing, and that you want more. And we aim to deliver!

THANK YOU for your support, understanding and undying loyalty!

–Appy Entertainment

These awards are 100% driven by fan votes, and we think it extraordinary that a game released such a short time ago could emerge as the best game of 2011. Appy Entertainment extends sincere gratitude to our many players who have helped make SpellCraft a hit!

And if you are one of two or three people who haven’t yet played SpellCraft … what are you waiting for? It’s fun, it’s free, and now it’s an award-winning experience, too! Click the icon below to get your copy of SpellCraft School of Magic!

Now we need your votes on the final ballot itself!

Please click HERE to vote for SpellCraft as the 2011 Best App Ever

and

Please click HERE to vote for SpellCraft as Best Role Playing Game!

Thanks in advance for your vote — and please tell a friend!

(And if you have been living under a rock, and haven’t yet downloaded your own copy of SpellCraft, hit the big button below. It’s FREE!)

We’d like to extend holiday wishes and special thanks to our many players for their generous support of Appy’s games this past year!

To celebrate the season, we’re giving away FREE GOLD for our most popular games (FaceFighter Ultimate, Trucks & Skulls, and SpellCraft School of Magic) to the first ten thousand fans who visit our Holiday Gold Page!

Don’t delay, click today!

Thanks and best wishes from your friends at Appy Entertainment!