Blog
Browse through our articles below. You can also find our articles organized by date and category to the right.
Whizzit Candy Blast is out!
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Our newest game for kids, Whizzit Candy Blast, is now available on the App Store for $.99 US.
Children can help Wilton the Weasel fly his candy-craft over a land of lollipops while blasting candies out of the sky. One hundred candies and chocolates will fly across the sky; can your child blast them all? At the end of each game, the candies are counted up and a spectacular fireworks display will celebrate your child’s score! Specially designed to provide super-fun entertainment for children ages 3 to 7.
Features:
- Fun artwork, music, animations, and visual effects.
- Easy, Medium, and Hard settings for different aged children.
- Simple controls.
- Reinforces counting, number recognition, and understanding of quantities.
Download it today on the App Store and let us know what you think!
Thanks! 
fairlady
Fairlady Media Devs Return From Australia!
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
One of the goals in starting this business was that we’d be able to use some of the revenue to travel and learn more about the world. So, in May we took Fairlady Media “down unda” on a 3 month Australian adventure. Our journey took our US-based company from North Carolina to California to Melbourne, Australia.
From there, we traveled west to Warrnambool, where we drove the scenic Ocean Road with beautiful cliffs and stunning vistas back toward Melbourne.
Continuing up the east coast of Australia, we took the Princes Highway to Sydney and Brisbane. We stayed in Beerwah, a small town outside of Brisbane, for 6 weeks and focused almost exclusively on Fairlady Media projects (rather than sight-seeing!). We developed several new games which will be available on the App Store very soon… 1) a fun candy-themed iPhone game for children, 2) a children’s counting game for iPad, and 3) a spooky ghost game for the rest of us “big kids”. We also completed several contracted games and apps (developed by us and released by other companies). After a visit to the Australia Zoo (crocs! kangaroos! koalas!), we headed northward to Cairns, which is a tropical paradise of sailing, jungles, and reef adventures.
The last part of our journey took us to Uluru, which is the giant red rock mountain in the central desert part of Australia.
Then it was Sydney, Los Angeles, and home to good ol’ North Carolina. Wow, it was an amazing adventure, and we feel so enriched by the experience. Hm, maybe we should develop a kangaroo game next… 
Take Wing on sale this weekend!
Saturday, June 26th, 2010
This weekend only: Our newest game, Take Wing, is on sale for just .99 US on the App Store! Download it today! fairlady
New Game, Take Wing, is Now on the App Store
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Fairlady Media has ventured into the Zen-game genre with the release of our new game, Take Wing. In this inspiring memory and pattern-recognition game, players will be delighted by the beautiful artwork, music, and special effects as they catch and interact with colorful butterflies. This will soon be everyone’s favorite game on iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad!
Screenshot of Take Wing
Relax in a comfy chair and admire the beautiful scenery, listen to soothing music, and collect an assortment of dazzling butterflies in this memory and pattern-recognition game. This app defines the new Zen-gaming experience. Beautiful. Elegant. Almost hypnotic in its simple mental challenge and visual beauty. Discover yourself in a world of butterflies…
Features:
- Self-paced gameplay.
- New levels introduce new butterflies.
- Simple to learn, patience to master.
- Beautiful artwork, music, and visual effects.
- Enjoyable for all ages.
- Touch and hold to interact with the butterflies.
- Don’t make loud noises or shake the phone or you’ll scare the butterflies away!
We decided to let our lead developer, James, really run with this one. He wanted to create a game that was simple, elegant, and beautiful. I’m sure you’ll agree that the resulting game is outstanding.
- fairlady
All time high Spazzle Classic score!
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Michael Bast recently set the all-time high score for Spazzle Classic with a high score of 126,680 points while completing 15 levels without missing a single critter! Congratulations!!! Michael will soon attempt the high scores for Spazzle II on OpenFeint and Spazzle Gold on Plus+!
Coming Soon: Take Wing
Friday, June 11th, 2010
Our newest game, Take Wing, has just been submitted to the App Store. If you like peaceful zen-type games, you’ll love this one. Catch butterflies, admire artistic backgrounds, listen to soothing music, and read the wisdom of the ancients. James decided to take this one on as his pet project, focusing on superior design and artistic appeal. Look for it on the app store in the next couple of weeks! fairlady
Spazzle Gold Downloads
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Yesterday, 4/2/10, we decided to reduce the price of Spazzle Gold to free, and we had a great public response! Apparently there are a lot of critter-whacking folks out there! We ended up with almost 20,000 downloads yesterday and lots of excellent customer feedback. We also climbed into the top of the charts on the App Store in several categories (see yesterday’s post…). Since we’ve had such a great response to the new game, we’re planning to keep it free today to leverage the great publicity. So, download today and enjoy the game!
Spazzle Gold is Climbing the Charts!
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Our newest game, Spazzle Gold, is climbing the charts today after we had it featured on Free App A Day today. Spazzle Gold is a complete rewrite of our original smash-hit Spazzle and also includes some of the best-loved features from Spazzle II. On release last week, we offered Spazzle Gold as a paid game, but decided to see how well-received it would be as a free game. The results are almost all in, and it looks like we’ll end up in the Top 10 Family Games, Top 20 Action Games, Top 50 Games, and Top 100 Apps. Given these excellent results and the positive feedback we’ve gotten from our customers, we’ll consider keeping the game free and using in-app advertising and in-app purchases to generate revenue.
In the new game, players can whack the sly moles, rabbits, and gophers before they destroy the prairies, vegetable gardens, and flower beds, and then blast crazy disco-loving aliens in outer space. Spazzle Gold includes a simple tutorial to get you started. Then the fast-paced game requires you to tap and shake the device to deter the vermin while picking up point bonuses, time bonuses, mallets, and extra lives. Spazzle Gold also includes unlockable themed worlds, Plus+ global leader boards and awards, player-controlled difficulty, and in-app purchases to extend your play with brand-new worlds. With awesome graphics, 13 music tracks, and funny sound effects, we hope this will soon be your favorite game on iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad!
fairlady
The Results Are In: Mobclix Came Out Ahead, BUT…
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Back in December, I posted an article entitled “Mobclix vs. Admob: Who Will Win Our Business?”. During that time, we were participating in a Challenge in which Mobclix asked developers (who were already using Admob to advertise within their games) to re-route 50% of their advertisement traffic through Mobclix. If Mobclix did not yield higher returns than Admob during the challenge period, they would award $10,000 worth of free advertising to the developer. And now the results are officially in! Today, Mobclix posted the results of the Challenge on their website, and featured our game, Spazzle!, as one of the apps with great returns.
Here are some behind-the-scenes numbers for how the two advertising companies performed in Spazzle during the challenge period. One complicating factor was that users did not upgrade to the newest version of Spazzle! right away after Mobclix was integrated, so we were actually sending less than 50% of our traffic to Mobclix. So, to compare the two companies, we used “number-of-impressions-it-takes-to-earn-a-buck, or NITB”.
As you can see, with Admob we needed to display on average 325 ads to earn a dollar, whereas with Mobclix, we needed to display only 251 ads to earn a dollar. When we’re dealing with 40,000+ ad impressions per day, that does add up to significant differences in revenue.
I’m sure you’re wondering whether these results have extended beyond the Challenge period. And the answer is: not so much. Both companies performed very well for us in December in terms of fill rates and revenue. Then, there was the expected dropoff after the holidays. Now both companies are recovering from the post-holiday slump and we’re able to compare numbers again. So, let’s take a look at the last two weeks in February, just for fun:
What?! As you can see, both companies are now about equal, with Admob just slightly ahead. Our conclusion? Until we see a clear leader over the long-term, we’re going to continue to diversify our advertisements by using both companies. Besides, we’ve found that a greater diversity of ads causes higher click-throughs. We do look forward to the next Challenge, though!
Congrats to our new interns!
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Congratulations to David and Gabi, our two new interns! Both have strong programming and gaming backgrounds and will be learning all about the business of game development for iPhone / iPod Touch. Over the next 3 months, they’ll be developing a new game under our guidance and training. Hopefully this will provide great opportunities for all involved. Welcome to the team!
Archives
Categories
- Announcements (15)
- Careers (1)
- Dev Articles (4)
- News (7)
- Other Articles (5)
Copyright 2009 Fairlady Media, All Rights Reserved