Mystery Math Town - A Whole Lotta Love

Today is our Creative Director's birthday.

She did all of the art in Mystery Math Town.

Happy Birthday Lis.

Love,

Apple

(p.s. the beer is in the mail)

Download Mystery Math Town v.1.0 For iPad Today!

The wait is over.

Australia was the first to report the news last night...

Our new kids educational game, Mystery Math Town, is available on the App Store today.

If you need further evidence, it says so right here - in this press release.

We hope you'll have as much playing it, as we had making it.

If you do find your kids enthralled in our math mystery, please take a moment to leave an iTunes rating or review.

It really does help others to find us.

And as long as people keep downloading our apps, we can keep making great games for kids.

Enjoy!

Mystery Math Town For iPad Available on the App Store Today

[VIDEO] On The Set - Mystery Math Town App

I grabbed some video from our final Mystery Math Town production meetings last week so you can get a peek behind the curtain at (The Great and Powerful) Artgig Apps.

Watch as Matt, Steve, Jim and Lis tackle tough last minute design decisions, investigate Google bugs (while dodging barking dogs) and settle once and for all whether or not Elvis has left the building.

It's as real as app development gets.

Just one more week of this and you'll finally get to play the game for yourself.

Hang in there.
 

Mystery Math Town coming to the App Store April 3.

mysterymathtown.com

A Good App Icon Scrubbing

Original icon

New icon after a good scrubbing

And you thought we were done talking about icons.

Check out the latest and greatest Mystery Math Town icon.

Sure, at first glance it looks like the original (new) icon but look closer...

It seems in our haste to settle the great icon design debate, we overlooked icon design rule #675 - overloaded detail and too many competing design elements are bad (especially when reduced to a quarter size of a postage stamp).

So we set our Aussie artist, Lis, on the task of cleaning the icon up to read better across all sizes.

Looking at them side by side now in the harsh light of day, even the large version of the original looks murky and yes, a little confused, beside the new and improved polished version.

Things are moving quickly now as we prep to submit the final app build to Apple next week, so stay tuned.

Next up, our app video teaser...

App Marketing 101 - If You've Got It, Flaunt It

Our upcoming Educational app, Mystery Math Town, features a colorful cast of quirky townspeople created by our Aussie artist, Lis Cherry. 

Each of the 27 characters is represented in the game by a talking portrait (some are quite chatty) so I'm extremely fortunate to have a wealth of wonderful character-driven art to use in our promotional efforts.

With launch just 3-4 weeks away, I want to build interest in the game now.

It would be easy to just slap the portrait art about, plastering our SM channels with the characters as they appear in the game.

But we decided instead to reveal the characters in a unique series of time released virtual trading cards, on our Facebook page and Pinterest, and right here.

Collect them all!

Artgig Apps - Halloween Treats!

Monsters, aliens and ghosts...oh my!
Don’t look now, but Halloween is sneaking up on you.
So in addition to updating our apps this October for the new iPhone 5 screen size, we’ll be sprinkling some Halloween treats about.

One of our most popular classroom apps, Shake-a-Phrase, offers a Monsters theme to shake up some spooky language learning fun. Last year, we teamed with a class in Westchester, NY for a Halloween-inspired creative writing activity and they enjoyed it so much, they requested that we do it again this year.  And we’ll be posting some of our favorite scary sentences on our Facebook page as Halloween draws near.

Meanwhile, our Alien Buddies were featured in this New York Times Gadgetwise post, sparking some pretty loud shrieks and howls in the comments section over screen time for babies (for the record, we don’t make apps for babies and we enjoy playing outside with our kids!)

If you’re looking for a fun activity for your early learner that doesn’t involve your phone or iPad, why not download a free Alien Buddies coloring book featuring your favorite martians.

Rolling right along, Marble Math recently made news in Australia’s The Sunday Mail paper. There’s nothing scary about this impressive list of kids educational apps from the iMums, but you may bump into a ghost while playing Marble Math if you don’t watch where you’re going.

Speaking of Marble Math, we’ve got a special update brewing in the lab. Soon you’ll be able to customize your currency to practice counting with Australian, Canadian, Euro, or British coins and notes for Marble Math and Marble Math Junior.

I told you we had some treats for you.

Stay tuned for more goodies from Artgig Apps!

The Aliens Have Landed

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday – that is, if you live here in the United States.

If you live in other parts of the world, like Australia, you may have noticed a change today in the App Store.

That's right, I'm talking 'bout aliens.

You might say we're a little bit obsessed with the cute and quirky little critters – we've been tracking them for months now.
 
Google Analytics reports they've already landed in Australia and our sources tell us they're making their way to the US App Store tonight.

So keep your eyes peeled.

The Alien Buddies will be here when you wake up.

Alien Buddies in the App Store 

Artgig Apps Joins A4CWSN International App Party This Weekend!

We're busy this morning putting the finishing touches on our Shake-a-Phrase App, polishing it up to a fine shine, in anticipation of a big App Party this weekend stretching across the globe with hosts in the US,  Canada and on the other side of the world, in Australia!

If there's one guy who knows how to throw an App Party it's Gary at Apps For Children With Special Needs and we're honored to participate.

The goal is simple - let's raise enough money to give 50 kids in 50 states an iPad.

Starting tomorrow and ending Sunday, we're discounting Shake and donating half of our sales to the cause.

Check out the A4CWSN Facebook page for lots of great discounted apps and giveaways all weekend long.

The best part?

You don't even need to pick out an outfit.

PARTY!!!!

A4CWSN Facebook Page (Party Starts Here)

Ethos CRS: e-Learning Down Under

"Chas Savage," sounds like he could be a rock star or a superhero, and he may very well be that in the business of training Australian professionals to do a better job of speaking, writing and presenting in whatever business it is they do.

This time last year, Chas was running his business, Ethos CRS, from his home in Canberra and barely had a website of his own.

Today he has 20 professionals working for him in an expanding office and he's attracting the attention of top government agencies with his aim to do big things for Australia.

One of those big things is the launch of a complete e-Learning program, "From Grammar to Clear Writing," slated to go live this spring.

This, is where Ethos and Artgig intersect.

We've become perfect partners, a super duo poised to deliver on-demand learning in a series of interactive lessons to businesses and agencies who recognize good training is good business.

I like Chas, and it goes beyond my inherent soft spot for all things Aussie. Chas is smart and sharp and honest and he does what he says he's going to do and that is admirable.

And this is exactly what he said he was going to do when I met him a year ago on a Skype video call, arranged by Lis.

He just needed some help putting the "e" part in e-Learning.

So I showed him CMEpilot, our mature, proven e-Learning platform developed for continuing medical education training and certification, here in the States.

We'd always envisioned the platform as something that could be re-purposed pretty easily for other industries and to be honest, it was begging for a refresh.

Chas took one look at it and he was sold.

Of course, he has his own ideas about the form and function of his training program and that's where we begin making beautiful music together.

For starters, we threw out the standard Flash slides and talking head modules and built some really slick custom interactive engines - all in JavaScript.

And, knowing Ethos' attention to detail, we designed their course to be almost entirely content-managed so they can go in and edit the front-end to their hearts' content.

And the cherry on top? The admin dashboard allows Ethos to access all the stats involved by user and organization--who goes to the e-Learning site, certifications and user tests, and e-commerce transactions.

It's a complete system, and it works. With all the right technology behind him, Chas and his team are sure to be the U2 of business and government training in no time.

Ethos CRS Website

Monster Australian Wasp Attacks Spider!

Imagine stepping out of your house in the morning, only to walk straight into this rumble on your front doorstep.
Just another day in Canberra for Lis.

Leaning heavily on our Aussie team for content as we work on several top secret projects.

Guest Blogger Concert Report: Big Day Out, Australia

You say your 25 minute drive to work this morning took an hour and forty-five minutes because it was snowing?

Then you might be slightly jealous to hear it's summer in Australia.

And slightly more jealous to hear the Big Day Out music festival in Sydney rocked and you missed it.

But all is not lost.

Artgig has a team on the ground down under and our guest blogger, Hallie Bruce, has filed a report from the trenches to satisfy your craving for vicarious sensory overload.


Big Day Out - January 23rd 2010

The heat didn’t stop the masses from storming the second day of Sydney’s Big Day Out music festival and it certainly didn’t stop the bands from tearing the music scene up.
The lineup was crazy. The performances were totally awesome. The crowds were crushing. (Thankfully the heat broke halfway through the afternoon with a downpour that drenched Olympic Park.)

Karnivool, Aussie progressive rock band, belted out smooth lyrics to deep alternative guitar riffs, Hilltop Hoods rapped out their famous harmonic hip hop, and Rise Against rocked out to some bone-shaking punk rock tunes. Even Lily Allen, not my favorite, sounded great, borrowing fellow Brit Dizzee Rascall, another Big Day Out-goer, for a song or two.



An attraction frequented by my brother was the Silent Disco, which provided headphones and different music to each participant who entered an interesting throng, each dancing to a different set of tunes.

The Mars Volta for sure was a huge lure for Big Day Out crowds, and the pit was filled to the brim as they entered on stage and began their famous improvisational set, delivering an amazing hour-long show. Cedric writhed like nothing else on stage, and the improv was completely on par with--if not better than--the original tracks. It was not a gig to miss.


But by far the set that took the cake was Muse, who entered playing “Uprising”, their newest and greatest single, projected up on three split screens set up alongside the stage and accompanied by a fierce laser lights show. Although the arena was enormous and the acoustics suffered greatly for it, the power of their sound was unmistakable. Performing hits like “Time Is Running Out”, “Hysteria”, and “Starlight”, the crowd was whipped into a frenzy. But who wouldn’t be, when Matthew Bellamy and crew are standing right in front of you, serving up some of their best music? They were joined by Jet’s Nic Cester for a cover of AC/DC’s “Back In Black” in homage to Australia’s hosting of the 100th Big Day Out since Nirvana first played in 1992.

The night ended with a spectacular fireworks show, the colors and thundering explosions bringing to an end a most fantastic Big Day Out indeed.

Ghosts of Artgig's Christmas Past...

Time to dust off the old blog and give something back to you, our friends and clients, for the holidays are upon us.

How do I know?

Well, it's bitter cold and we've been hard at work on our 2009 Christmas card.

We're just about ready to rip of the wrappers in a frenzy of anticipation and let you have some fun with it.

But you'll have to wait (yes, you too, Mr. Tarry) because it must be properly tested by our team of Australian elves and graded for interactive goodness before it can be yours.

In the meanwhile, let's take a trip back...to the gifts we've left in Christmas past...

Who can forget this classic - a typical day at Artgig and yes, the kid can act:

Holiday Card 2005

And this heartfelt, bundle of warm wishes and fun:

Holiday Card 2007

And this - when in doubt, blow something up:

Holiday Card 2008

I try to forget the handwritten holiday cards of 2006 - still getting over the cramps.

Enjoy.

Mars Attacks!...Australia

Lis sent these pics of the dust storm in Sydney - she says it's red all the way to Canberra.

Artgig -Psycho

Lis sent me this video by Miles Fisher last night and it really made my day. Miles nails the "American Psycho" movie and gets Christian Bale, who is fast becoming one of my favorite working actors, smirk perfect.
Fisher is so good and talented (it's his music too)–it's scary.
For the first seven or eight seconds I thought it was Bale and someone had cut scenes from the movie into the video.
Then, I saw a close-up & I thought "that's not Bale", it didn't look like him–more like Tom Cruise.
Fisher also does a drop dead Tom Cruise.

Getting back to "American Psycho"...

Have you read the book by Bret Easton Ellis?

When "Psycho" hit shelves in 1991, critics recoiled in horror.

There was controversy before the book even saw daylight– Simon & Schuster had dropped it due to graphic content before Vintage picked it up.

It was pretty much banned in Germany.

In Australia, it's only sold shrink-wrapped and selling the book to anyone under 18 is a criminal offense.

 

It's not an easy read for a lot of reasons including extreme violence and mind-numbing detail - but that's the point.
The 80's were mind-numbing and violent.
At least it was for me.
And I think that's why I liked the book so much.
I read it for a college literature term project.
There was an older retired woman in my little book group, who was taking the class for fun.
She dropped out after a few weeks because she was so appalled by my project.

I didn't love the movie when it came out nearly 10 years later but it's probably because I was too loyal to the book.
But watching this video makes me want to see it again - now.

I also happen to know the writer of the sequel - "American Psycho 2: all American Girl."
We met in a Gotham Writers Workshop screenplay writing class - her specialty was horror and mine was crime so there was some natural overlap.

She already had some buzz going in LA.
She sold one of her screenplays and rewrote it–banging it into the American Psycho sequel.

They basically just slapped the name on it.

It didn't seem to matter that it had nothing to do with the original.

She ended up moving to LA and I started Artgig.

Karen, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well.

It was good writing with you.

Awesome Time-Lapse Photography

Bathtub V from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

So here I am thinking I gotta lay down a fresh blog post but we're so busy I just don't have any time to collect my thoughts.

Enter Jim who drops a sweet score right in my lap.

Theme is tilt shift lens time-lapse photography, created by Keith Loutit, an artist based in Sydney, Australia.

The style makes the real world like little surreal models.

Presto - instant post.

And from an Aussie, no less.

Steve is already planning to rent the lens...

Enjoy!

Best Job in the World...

Artgig is a pretty good gig but I'm afraid Ben Southall's got me beat.

The 34 year-old Brit was recently appointed the caretaker on an Australian tropical island for the next six months.

Lucky Ben was chosen from over 34,000 applicants, competing for the job in a reality TV-style promotion by Tourism Queensland.

The job responsibilities include: feeding the fish, cleaning the pool and collecting the mail...
oh, and blogging about it.

And he'll pocket $110,000 for his trouble.

Lis sent me the application a while back but sadly, it got lost in the pile of work on my desk.

I checked out the official website, and it's a big flashy thing that takes a bit to load.

It also looks like they concentrated most of their efforts on the contest and have very little to say right now.

But there should be more to come on July 1 when Ben reports for duty.

Don't work too hard, Ben...

Artgig: Show and Tell...

My last memory of show and tell had me standing at the front of the class and talking about 70's rock sensation, Kiss, to the delight of my second grade teacher.

Today's installment is a bit of a stew from various sources - some interesting morsels to snack on as you cruise into the weekend...

From our own Steven Grosmark comes news of the latest in cutting edge technology - "'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information."
It's like making the world around you, a giant iPhone. Check out the videos from the big brains at MIT to see what it's all about:

Sixth Sense

Not to be outdone, Jim chips in with his own nominee for video of the week, "Muto"–the YouTube sensation is an oldie but goodie, and keeps the graffiti thread alive and well. The artist, Blu, has a sweet website and blog to catch-up on his efforts as he scribbles, sketches, animates and paints his way through the world. I may even pick up the Blu book myself:

Muto

And last, from our Aussie office, some Sydney snaps–grabbed by Lis:

Artgig Concert Report - Coldplay in Sydney

Our Australian correspondent, Lis, saw Coldplay in Sydney over the weekend.

Here's what she had to say:

It was awesome - Chris Martin has a very genuine, almost childish enthusiasm - very contagious. I wouldn't say their show was the cutting edge of live performance (lots of lights, some confetti, a bunch of balloons - the usual) but he certainly has a way of involving everyone - as if you were personally invited. There's only 4 of them - they don't even really fill up a stage. And Coldplay is Coldplay - great tunes, excellent performances, and uniquely Coldplay. So it was great.

The warm up bands were no-one - one group from Sydney, I think, and one from the Catskills (they were actually boasting about being from the Catskills - I guess they figured everyone would think it was some kind of major music destination). Bu neither of them had a vocalist - weird. They ended up sounding like each other. Most of the audience didn't show until Coldplay was announced.

Fire!

You may have heard, Australia is burning.
I checked in with Lis over the weekend and she says the closest fires are at the coast - two hours away.
The fire isn't likely to reach her in Canberra, but they're still getting the smoke and she says it smells like a cook-out.

Australia Update

Australia may be somewhat insulated from the downward economic spiral the rest of us are swimming in, but it is also a land where you can wake up to find a monster like this living in your garage.

Thanks, Lis...