Michael Schacht's Gold! Simultaneously Released for iPhone and Tabletop Play

BERKELEY, CA, February 3, 2011— Skotos Tech today released its newest iPhone game, Michael Schacht's Gold!, simultaneous to the publication of the tabletop game by Abacus Spiele. This first-ever co-release of a mass-market game for both the iPhone and traditional media marks a real milestone in the growth of mobile gaming.

The designer, Michael Schacht, is a major German game designer who has been creating tabletop games for almost two decades. His set-collection game, Coloretto, is one of the best-known "euro" card games, while its sequel, Zooloretto, won the prestigious Game of the Year Award in Germany. Both games are available in the United States through Rio Grande Games.

Schacht's newest game, Gold!, promises to follow in the footsteps of those past successes. Much like Coloretto, it's a very clever game of set-collection where cards are taken from a common pool. However, the entirely-original Gold! offers more opportunity for tactical finesse; cards can be both taken from the pool and exchanged, giving players numerous opportunities to collect together trios of high-valued, matching cards.

Skotos has adapted Gold! to the iPhone using its well-tested MobileEuroCard platform for the iPhone and the iPad. Standardized gestures, animations, and audio are all built into the platform, making it easy for players of one of Skotos' card games to pick up and play another. To date, three other games have been programmed on the platform: Reiner Knizia's Money, Reiner Knizia's High Society, and Reiner Knizia's Kingdoms.

Each new game has offered expansions and improvements to the MobileEuroCard library, and as a result Gold! is built atop a year-and-a-half worth of development, making it Skotos' most attractive and mature game to date. Like all of Skotos' MobileEuroCard games, Gold! has been released as a universal app, so that players can purchase it once and play it on any of their iPad, iPod, or iPhone devices.

ABOUT SKOTOS TECH

Skotos Tech (www.skotos.net) is an electronic game producer. Its iPhone games have all been produced through subsidiary RPGnet (www.rpg.net), which ties together tabletop games with electronic media.

ABOUT MICHAEL SCHACHT

Michael Schacht (www.michaelschacht.net) is a full-time game designer and the winner of the 2007 Spiele des Jahres award. He has published over 100 games, including Coloretto, Hansa, Mondo, Richelieu, Valdora, Web of Power, Zooloretto, and of course Gold!