From the Press Release
Agatha Christie Ltd, IRM and Hullabu Inc are celebrating. Agatha Christie has done it again. The App Store, Amazon Kindle and Google Play tablet optimized version of the world’s best-selling author’s award-winning PC downloadable Agatha Christie: Dead Man’s Folly, has received a phenomenal response from the public since first launching globally in January 2014. This is the first of four Agatha Christie games due to be ported by new games developer, Hullabu Inc, with IRM as the marketing partner.
The development of different game genres is a key initiative in the strategy to extend the Christie brand by Acorn Productions Ltd, a subsidiary of RLJ Entertainment, Inc.
Hilary Strong, Managing Director, Acorn Productions Ltd which owns and manages the rights to Agatha Christie said: “The success of Dead Man’s Folly on tablet comes at an exciting time for the Christie brand as we continue to build our social following on Twitter, Facebook (now at 1.6 million fans) and Pinterest and develop our plans for new TV at home and abroad, including two major new dramas for BBC 1 and feature films including Murder on the Orient Express.”
As a PC game, Agatha Christie: Dead Man’s Folly has been downloaded more than 27 million times and has won both People’s Choice for Best Game, and Zeebys and Casual Connect Game of the Year. Building on its UK success, the game was released globally in English, French, Brazilian, Portuguese and German at the end of December 2013, with Mandarin, and Spanish editions released in the last few days. All language versions are available worldwide so those eager to improve their Mandarin or French can also play along.
The Agatha Christie games are one of the few branded franchises which have performed in the hidden object gaming space because of the additional depth to the challenge; the hidden objects unveil clues to help you solve the overall mystery written by Christie herself. Taking advantage of the stunning HD retina screens of the iPad 2 and the full HD displays of the Android tablets, players can zoom in to see the incredible detail of each hand illustrated scene.
The hidden object genre is a popular one with hundreds of games available on the App Store alone. The team behind the port chose the freemium model to attract players: the first two chapters are free to play with the option to pay to unlock the rest of the game.
Valerie Bozzetto, Joint Managing Director of IRM said: “With an average rating of 4.5 stars and a very impressive conversion rate of up to 24%, we have shown the industry that great storylines make for great games and that players are really keen to engage with the Agatha Christie brand. The success of the Great Gatsby and Sherlock Holmes films combined with the huge growth in the number of people playing casual games further proves the opportunity for new Christie game experiences. This is just the beginning of our new projects with an Adventure game in development and due to be released for Christmas 2014 and many more games genres in discussion. And with over 200 top calibre puzzle-like stories in the catalogue and with the internationally recognised and loved detectives Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot there’s a lot to be done!”
In the U.S., Agatha Christie: Dead Man’s Folly is available as follows:
- For iPad in the App Store at: https://itunes.apple.com/app/agatha-christie-dead-mans/id721609813
- For Kindle via Amazon Marketplace at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GX9J7SS
- An Android tablet version will also be available soon via Google Play.