Now that Apple approved aiAnimals- Puppy Puzzler and we announced our charitable partner (Adopt-a-Pet.com), we can put up the page on our partner (see Charitable Partner on the menu above) and I can put up the fancy banner at the header. The timing is a bit faster than I intended… Leave me feedback if it is too fast!
We also have a Facebook page that links to Twitter. I’ll usually post short posts there and these longer posts here so it doesn’t flood people’s Twitter accounts.
Our new version of our game is approved! Now we can finally announce our partner- Adopt-a-Pet.com! They are an amazing group that tries to help every adoptable pet find a home. Adopt-a-Pet.com (formerly 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com) is North America’s largest non-profit pet adoption website, helping 9,300 animal shelters and other rescue groups advertise their homeless pets for free to potential adopters. Adopt-a-Pet is funded by Purina and Bayer Animal Health and help 1.5 million visitors every month to find an animal to rescue and love. Visit their site to see photos and descriptions of more than 150,000 animals from dogs and cats to horses and fish!
We are thrilled to announce Adopt-a-Pet.com as our partner for aiAnimals- Puppy Puzzler! When you buy each game, be sure to share the Adopt-a-Pet message with your social network to help promote responsible pet adoption and ownership. Also, in support of the aiAnimals mission, we will be donating half of everything we earn to Adopt-a-Pet.com. You get a great game and help them spread the word about pet adoption and we get to support a great cause! More on this later.
I finally fixed that awful text on the original banner for the site. We should be through phase one of our approvals process on the game tomorrow and re-submitted to Apple by early next week at the latest. Our charitable partner has been great in working with us on approvals of all of our PR, banners and text. Now we’re just trying to get our efforts in synch for the launch…
Our game is still currently available, but we haven’t started marketing it yet. Why? Because we finalized our charity partner and we will be tweaking the game. The marketing will be timed with the re-launch of the game on iTunes with a blitz from our partner and ourselves.
So who is our partner? They are a great cause that supports shelters throughout North America. I will post the official announcement here soon. I am holding off until we are closer to launch… Stay tuned!
Wow, no changes requested at all by the folks at Apple! Shocking. I’ve never had an approvals process go that smoothly before. In fact, the marketing timing was BASED upon at least one rejection. Oops. Well, better kick into high gear!
So, to review the check list:
-aiAnimals- Puppy Puzzler approved by Apple for the iPhone and iTunes store. CHECK.
-aiAnimals Twitter account launched. Check (barely- only one tweet so far).
-aiAnimals FaceBook page launched. Check.
-Linking blog and FaceBook and Twitter. Failed. Going to have to get some tech help…
-Charitable partner- In negotiations with a good cause. In Progress.
-Marketing Plan. Check.
-Banner Ads- In progress.
-Ad budget- Check.
Still more on the list, but time to catch a few z’s before I screw something up…
Finally some images! Three screenshots have been added to the page on aiAnimals- Puppy Puzzler. These show the main menu of the game, the puzzle board during play and the gallery after a few of the puppies have been unlocked.
The information page about the game (Puppy Puzzler) finally launches! As text only… Well, the game is still being finished, so I suppose that’s probably not the end of the world, but I don’t know anyone who would like to buy a game without seeing it! Still, I’m getting through the to-do list, so that’s a start, right?
So many people have played match-3 puzzle games like Bejeweled, Puzzle Pirates or Puzzle Quest, that I almost feel like I’m insulting people if I try to explain too much. Once the pictures are up, it should be rather obvious. We do have a few twists, like the computer challenger (similar to Puzzle Quest), and of course, the puppy theme!
A bigger deal to me is the charitable cause. Having worked in the entertainment industry for 15 years or so, it feels good to work on something that actually contributes to the world and not just someone’s pocket-book. This will probably get mentioned a few more times, but heck, it’s a BIG deal to me. It is worth repeating.
Well the first page is up! Woo-hoo. Now people can read a few paragraphs about our game (aiAnimals- Puppy Puzzler) which will be coming out on the iPhone soon. Originally, we were going to go by word of mouth and FaceBook, but I decided to go with something a hair more formal. My biggest worry is coming up with something to blog about regularly. However, if I keep updating this slowly, I’ll have bigger problems to worry about!
The game is almost finished and ready to submit to Apple. Our charity partner is interested and our agreement is looking great. Our ads have been drafted. …and I’m behind the eightball on the website. I’d better get back to work.
Today marks the launch of the aiAnimals web page. I’d say the website, but that would imply that there’s actually any content to view. Since everything is under construction (and I do me EVERYTHING), we’ll just have to wait a bit before we call this site ready to go.
