SwalleyLama has announced the release of Magic Earthwand for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The game uses real physics and challenges players to a classic ball and cup game. Where the ball and cup is represented by swords and rings and players have to maneuver the base to catch the rings. 

There are three princes that have been trapped and turned into Earthwands. The evil wizard Duche Baggums has stolen all of the love from the princes and the town. Players have to get the love back to the town and the princes to turn them human again. Players help restore the love by catching the rings on the daggers. The levels get increasingly challenging and players have to stick with it and make it to the end to save the princes.

The graphics in the game look stunning and the story is suppose to be just as good. Graphics and story are a big piece of the equation, but the game play is an even bigger piece. If the game is not fun, it doesn’t matter how good it looks.

“I wanted to combine the feeling of my favorite hand small screen games; Tetris, Koi Pond and Zen Bound,” said Winnie Swalley, SwalleyLama Vision founder. “But with something less usual — a peaceful app with a message of love and perseverance.”

Magic Earthwand sounds like an interesting game, check it out for yourself.

Press Release Follows:

Santa Barbara, CA, December 1, 2009—SwalleyLama Vision founder Winnie Swalley is not your typical video games developer.  Yet this irreverent film producer, screenwriter, trained singer and mom of two sons is leading a team bound to rival top entertainment companies for a stake in the explosive market for mobile games.

Swalley’s edge is her vision to bring the best of illustration, digital effects and storytelling to the growing legion of smartphone users to create a richer and deeper sensory experience.  Even in the category of “casual games’, short and simple experiences like Tetris, Bejeweled or solitaire that people play as a diversion, Swalley feels that users – especially women – who comprise the majority of the casual games market, deserve a stunning visual environment and a compelling back story.

A fairy tale ending – and beginning

“I wanted to combine the feeling of my favorite hand small screen games; Tetris, Koi Pond and Zen Bound,” said Winnie Swalley, SwalleyLama Vision founder. “But with something less usual — a peaceful app with a message of love and perseverance.”

SwalleyLama Vision’s first release, Magic EarthWand, is a deceptively simple concept. The gameplay simulates the physics of a classic childhood pastime, the cup-and-ball game, which had its origins in France in the sixteenth century. The objects are now daggers made of earthly elements like marble, amber and crystal strung to ruby rings, and represent three handsome princes. These gentle princes, assigned as guardians to the Earth’s animals, vegetables and minerals, have been tricked and robbed of love and turned into ‘Magic EarthWands’ by an evil wizard (and here Swalley’s irreverence surfaces) named Duche Baggums.  The player must help the princes regain their human forms by playing the game through successively challenging levels of play.

Magic EarthWand satisfies the casual games player’s desire for this kind of quick, but engaging diversion, this time with the cinematic quality that distinguishes SwalleyLama Vision’s creations.

Swalley also believes that women will respond to the message that for once, in a fairy tale setting, the princess gets to rescue the prince.

The games women play

While the console video game market is predominantly male, it may come as a surprise that the majority of consumers of PC and Web-based ‘casual games’ are women. Industry forecasts predict an analogous trend for the mobile phone games market. The latest Nielsen report finds that females 25 years of age and older make up the largest block of PC game players, accounting for 46.2 percent of all players and 54.6 percent of all game play. MobileContent Today reports that “a number of surveys have shown that women, more than men, are attracted to casual games on the PC. The same seems to be true when it comes to mobile games.”

No time for games – until now

Winnie Swalley is a powerhouse of creativity, purpose and hands-on development, with credits as writer, producer, production designer and director of several short films, “A Promise,” “Wood,” “One More Beer,” and a documentary, “Scotch and Holy Water.“ Born in the Philippines, Swalley grew up in New York and charted her course through the media and arts, working at Newsday while attending Columbia University. Swalley studied voice with acclaimed operatic mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Mannion, known as the force behind many successful singing careers, including opera legend Jessye Norman. Swalley taught music in public and private schools while pursuing screenwriting at UCLA, and in 2004 established SwalleyLama Vision, an independent film and video production company. In 2009 Swalley made the jump from the big screen to the small screen, re-focusing the company on creating apps for the iPhone and Android.

In order to realize her vision of a richer experience for women players, Swalley brought in sought after visual effects artists Eric Bae and Axel Ortiz to join the SwalleyLama Vision team.

Eric Bae has had vast experience as a 2D and 3D artist in film, broadcast, video game and interactive media industries, serving clients such as Disney, Paramount, Sony and HBO, including art direction and senior designer credits for video games and promos based on the most recent three Harry Potter movies. Bae has a background in computer engineering and degree in illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Axel Ortiz is also a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has been working professionally in the entertainment industry for 15 years. He has worked with top entertainment companies, including Sony Pictures Animation, Nickelodeon, Midway Entertainment, Image Comics, Animax Entertainment, and Hasbro, Inc. He also teaches Character Design at Gnomon School of Visual Effects.

Magic EarthWand is available at the iPhone App Store priced at $2.99. And with three new games slated for release in early 2010, SwalleyLama Vision is poised to entertain, educate and enchant again soon.