THE PLAYFORGE IN THE NEWS

The Zombie Farm Valentine's Day Contest!

Old McDonnell must have been struck by Cupid Zombie's arrow! He has searched his farm high and low to find a big pile of brains to share with our Zombie Farm fans, just in time for Valentine's Day. We will be holding a very special Valentine's Day contest this year, so grab your loved ones and get ready to prep your farm.

In true Valentine's Day fashion, we want you to show us your zombie love! Decorate your farm with hearts and candies, write a little love note in the soil, and just have a grand ol' time showing us how you like to celebrate Valentine's Day. Remember, the best decorated farms will win, so put your heart into it!

How to Participate

Decorate your farm any which way you choose, just remember to stick to the Valentine's Day theme!

Once you are satisfied with your decorated farm, take a screenshot and email it to contest@theplayforge.com with the subject line: Valentine's Day Contest.

The following information is required for every submission:

  • Screenshot of your decorated farm
  • Your name
  • The username for the farm you decorated
  • A title for your masterpiece (this one is optional, but highly recommended)!

Any submission without the required information will be disqualified.

Here's how to take a screenshot of your farm:

1. Adjust your farm on your screen so that everything you want in the shot is visible.
2. Press the Power button on the top right corner of the device and the round Home button on the front of the device at the same time. This takes a picture of your screen.
3. Exit the game by tapping on the round Home button and open up your Photos on your device.
4. Open up the last photo, which should be the screenshot you just took. Tap on the send icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Select Email Photo.
5. Now enter in contest@theplayforge.com in the To field, "Valentine's Day Contest" as the Subject, and the required information in the body of the email.

Send in a screenshot of your farm on or before February 20th, 2012. The Playforge developers will review the submissions, pick the winners, and announce them by February 24, 2012.

The Prizes!

  • First Place: 20 brains!
  • Second Place: 15 brains!
  • Third Place: 10 brains!
  • The Top 10 best decorated farms will receive the new Teddy Zombie!

Send us your lovely farm screenshots through email by February 20th to be eligible to win!

Zombie Farm Holiday Decor Contest Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Zombie Farm Holiday Decor Contest! We were thrilled to see so much creativity and effort put into creating the perfect winter wonderland for your zombies. We had a difficult decision to make, but we were finally able to narrow it down to our Frist, Second, and Third Place winners. Without further ado, here are the Top 3 winners of the Zombie Farm Holiday Decor Contest!

Our First Place winner is Zelodiac with "Million Dollar Tree," so aptly named for the amount of gold it took to create this design! Seems like this great expense paid off, as the First Place winner received 20 brains and the exclusive Crazy Zombie!

Our Second Place winner is Nicshushin's masterpiece, "Teddy Christmas." Who wouldn't want to celebrate the holidays cozily snuggled up with all those teddy bears? Nicshushin won 15 brains and the Crazy Zombie for his decor!

In Third Place is "Fantasmas!" by Corndog965. We were amazed by the use of nighttime lighting incorporated into this design. Our Third Place winner received 10 brains and a Crazy Zombie!

Congratulations to our winners! If you would like to see the Top 10 finalists, all of whom received a Crazy Zombie for their fantastic designs, we've added a 2011 ZF Holiday Decor Contest album to our Facebook page for your viewing pleasure.

Stay tuned for more contests and more AWESOME prizes from The Playforge!

The Zombie Farm Holiday Decor Contest!

Ho, ho ho! Looks like Zanta Claus had a surplus of brains this year! Since it is the season of giving, we've decided to hold a Zombie Farm Holiday Decor Contest to share the braaains... er, holiday cheer!

We love seeing the winter wonderlands our players create in Zombie Farm. Thanks to Zanta, this year we have prizes for the most festive and fanciful farms!

How to Participate

It's simple - just decorate your farm any way you choose! Let your inner decorator take over as you make your farm merry and bright. Your zombies will love it!

Once you are satisfied with your decorated farm, take a screenshot and email it to contest@theplayforge.com with the subject line "Holiday Decor Contest".

The following information is required for every submission:

  • Screenshot of your decorated farm
  • Your name
  • The username for the farm you decorated
  • A title for your masterpiece (this one is optional, but highly recommended)!

Any submission without this required information will be disqualified.

Don't know how to take a screenshot, you say? Just follow these steps!

1. Adjust your farm on your screen so that everything you want in the shot is visible.
2. Press the Power button on the top right corner of the device and the round Home button on the front of the device at the same time. This takes a picture of your screen.
3. Exit the game by tapping on the round Home button and open up your Photos on your device.
4. Open up the last photo, which should be the screenshot you just took. Tap on send icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Select Email Photo.
5. Now enter in contest@theplayforge.com in the To field, "Holiday Decor Contest" as the Subject, and the required information in the body of the email.

Send in a screenshot of your farm on or before December 30th, 2011. The Playforge developers will review the submissions, pick the winners, and announce them by January 6, 2012.

The Prizes!

  • First Place: 20 brains!
  • Second Place: 15 brains!
  • Third Place: 10 brains!
  • The Top 10 most festive farms will all receive the elusive Crazy Zombie!

Send us your Holiday farms through email by December 30th to be eligible to win!

Zombie Farm Create-a-Zombie Contest Winners!

The Zombie Farm Create-a-Zombie contest has now come to a close. Thank you to everyone who participated! There was great diversity not only in the types of zombies created but also with the media used. We received zombie drawings, photos, clay sculptures, among others. There were so many creative and original zombies, it was difficult to pick just one for our Grand Prize. Luckily, we have great prizes for our top 5 zombie creations!

And now, on to the winners!

Our Grand Prize winner is Justin F. with his explosively creative zombie, Bomb-bie! The prize package includes a brand new iPad 2 and the winning zombie will be created and put into Zombie Farm by The Playforge developers. Look out Zombie Farmers, Bomb-bie will be blowing up a farm near you soon!

Our second place winner is Ginda with Granny Zombie! Our second place winner will receive an iPod Touch and the winning zombie will be created and put into Zombie Farm by the Playforge developers.

In third place is Yew Teng with Nerd Zombie! Yew Teng will receive a $100 App Store Gift card.

In fourth place is Gina with Top Hat and Tux Zombie! Gina will receive a $50 App Store Gift card.

In fifth place, Justin N. with Werewolf Zombie! Justin N. will receive a $25 App Store Gift card.

Congratulations to our winners!

We will be holding more contests on a regular basis, so make sure to check back to participate in the next one!

Zombie Farm Create-a-Zombie Contest: Win an iPad 2!

Here at The Playforge, we love to see what kind of creative ideas our players can come up with! We're launching our biggest contest yet, giving you the ability to design a creative zombie that might be released in Zombie Farm in a future update! Our Grand Prize winner will also take home a brand new iPad 2!

How to Participate

Using the tools of your choice (watercolor, pen and paper, Photoshop, costumes, etc.) create a Zombie Farm zombie of your own design. Want a Baseball Zombie, or a Ninja Zombie? Your imagination is the limit! The only requirement is that your idea is completely original!

Once you've created your zombie design, email it to contest@theplayforge.com with the subject line "Create-a-Zombie", along with your answer to the following question:

What is the name of this friendly earthworm who visits your farm and invites you to Zombie Life?

Send in your zombie creation and your answer to our question on or before November 4th, 2011. The Playforge developers will be reviewing all the submissions, picking the winners, and announcing them on November 9! Get your creative thinking caps on and start coming up with ideas for zombies!

The Prizes!

  • Grand Prize: iPad 2 & your zombie will be created and put into Zombie Farm by The Playforge developers!
  • Second Place: iPod Touch & your zombie will be created and put into Zombie Farm by The Playforge developers!
  • Third Place: $100 App Store Gift Card
  • Fourth Place: $50 App Store Gift Card
  • Fifth Place: $25 App Store Gift Card

Send us your zombie designs through email by November 4th to be eligible to win!

Zombie Farm Update Preview: Social Features

Since the launch of Zombie Farm, players have continually asked for new social features and ways to interact with their friends within Zombie Farm. Finally, we are now proud to announce that our largest update ever has been submitted to the App Store!

The new social menu allows players to visit friends’ farms, play a friendly game of “tag” with their zombies for cool rewards, and enjoy a completely revamped gifting system. Finding friends will also be nearly effort-free; with the simple click of a button, players can search both their Facebook friends, GameCenter friends and iPhone contacts for other Zombie Farm users, and easily add them using the new interface.

In addition to introducing a new social menu, the new version of Zombie Farm will also include a “daily surprise system”, where players can spin a wheel once a day for the chance to win a brain. More cautious players can also choose to delay their spin for a day, thus increasing their chances of winning.

While crafting this update, we tried to maintain several basic philosophies that we felt were important to the players who enjoy our game. The most important requirement was to allow as many people to enjoy the game as possible. Zombie Farm is completely playable offline, though social features will not be available. The core game will be fully intact regardless of the player’s decision to play with friends. We also wanted to give our players flexibility and portability with their farms - mainly the ability to play from any iDevice and to be able to load games from one iDevice to another. To make this possible, we built a new saving system from the ground up. Players can now play with or without game center and retrieve saves to and from any supported iDevice.

Our overarching goal has been to make only the most creative, irresistible and compelling mobile games that everyone can play with their friends. Now that social gameplay has become a staple of the game’s experience, we feel Zombie Farm is at last worthy of our ethos. The same experience will be present on all future Playforge games including the upcoming Secret Game #2!

New Features in Social update: Zombie Tag!, New Gifting system, Visiting friends’ farms, New Social Interface, New Wheel of Brains

After 16 million iOS downloads, Zombie Farm finally coming to Android thanks to ngmoco

"Zombie Farm is one of the most creative, addictive and successful mobile game franchises in the world, and we're thrilled to partner with The Playforge to bring it to Android with Mobage," said Simon Jeffery, chief publishing officer at ngmoco.

"Mobage and the ngCore engine give the world's best developers the tools and platform to deliver deep social and mobile experiences to their fans quickly and easily."

"Support for Zombie Farm across new devices and international regions have been two of the most frequent requests from our community," said Vince McDonnell, CEO of The Playforge.

Pocket Gamer (6/23/11)

After 13 million Downloads, an iPad Version of Playforge's Zombie Farm is Coming Soon

"We want to focus on quality titles," said McDonnell, who came from the console gaming world before switching to mobile. "We want to make sure games are actually fun before releasing them. And we want to make sure that they thrive."

The company is looking at releasing at least one other title this year, but for the most part it continues to improve upon Zombie Farm. An iPad version of the game is due out in the next two weeks to a month."

Inside Mobile Apps (3/29/11)

Zombie Farm Will Generate "Double Digit Millions" This Year From In-App Purchases

"Here's some details on the game and in-app purchasing business from our talk with Chung:

  • Zombie Farm has been downloaded 11 million times and it has multiple million monthly users.
  • Less than 10% of its users are generating all of its sales. Less than 3% of users are big spenders. (Meaning they buy over $100 worth of goods.)
  • Zombie Farm is about to launch on Android. The Playforge has been working on a way to incorporate ads into its game so it can generate revenue on Android. It will also probably try Google's in-app payment system, though Chung seemed wary of Google's Android payments.
  • It's not planning any move to Windows Phone 7 until Microsoft proves it's a platform worth investing in.
  • To avoid waiting for Apple to approve minor changes to the app, The Playforge is looking at pushing out updates to the app over the air. It would make Zombie Farm more of a web based game, allowing it to skip Apple's approval process. (We're not sure how Apple would feel about this, but Chung thinks as long as it's not doing anything crazy it should be fine.)
  • The Playforge only has 10 employees, and is preparing to launch its second game soon."
Business Insider (3/14/11)

Zombie Farm Hits 7.3 Million Total Downloads

"A few days ago Apple released its top 10 list of iPhone apps for 2010 and only one freemium app was listed as top grossing, Zombie Farm. Zombie Farm combines all the fun of Farmville with zombies (!), allowing you to plant either crops or corpses (seriously). You can then use the zombies you’ve planted to attack your neighbors or pirates or aliens (no, I am not making this up).

Apparently this is a winning combination, as the game hit 7.3 million downloads in November, up from 6 million in October and growing about 25% a month. Currently it boasts about 2 million monthly active users, a number which has been doubling every couple of months since the app’s launch this February. Users have spent 2.76 billion minutes playing the game, which have resulted in 61.5 million Zombie Farm invasions. And despite complaints about the most recent updates’ slowness in the iTunes reviews, the developers are obviously doing something right."

Techcrunch (12/14/10)

Apple Announces Zombie Farm #6 in Top Grossing Apps of 2010

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Overall Top 10 GROSSING iPhone Apps
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MLB.com At Bat 2010
Angry Birds
Call of Duty: Zombies
Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
FriendCaller 3 Pro
Zombie Farm
TomTom U.S.A.
TETRIS®
Plants vs. Zombies
Doodle Jump – BE WARNED: Insanely Addictive!
Techcrunch (12/9/10)