Happy Halloween month community! To celebrate what’s sure to be a spooky adventure over the next few weeks, we’re bringing back your frightening favorites. Maybe we’re also leaving room for a scary surprise or two along the way. Beware - thrills and chills await!
We can’t wait to open Test Realm for the upcoming new world, Karamelle. It’s closer than ever! Nana is super interested in getting you all into the world to taste test everything she has cooked up. What is in store for your surely sweet adventures? From Nana: “You’ll just have to wait and see, dearies."
Meanwhile, check out these exciting news highlights from September:
SEP 2: Happy 12th birthday Wizard101
SEP 3: A new Producer’s Letter and Dev Diary (see last month’s newsletter)
SEP 15: New Wooly Rhino Mount
SEP 22: New Primeval Hoard Pack
SEP 24: Birthday blog contest winners announced on KI Live
OCT 1: Happy Halloween events kick off
There were many other announcements made last month as well. And of course, the daily Nana updates @NanasKaramelle which includes a weekly Free Sample to readers. Nana is so nice, isn’t she?
Keep updated on the latest news for next month on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, including special announcements from community fansites! Read on for more fun happenings with the community and their Spiral activities.
THE LATEST GOODIES FROM NANA
Nana has been busy promoting her Karamelle Delights business! Here’s what she’s been up to since the grand opening of @NanasKaramelle.
“Nana's sweets are farm-to-table, made from only the best, richest ingredients.” - Nana @NanasKaramelle
A Frolic Good Day
"On Karamelle, even the wild animals hop and skip and frolic all day." - Nana @NanasKaramelle
KI Live Feature Presentation
“Be sure to watch the KI Live tomorrow, dearies, for a special sneak peek at Nana's newest olde fashioned Karamelle product.” - Nana @NanasKaramelle (from last KI Live)
Free Samples!
Head on over to @NanasKaramelle where Nana is giving out weekly pet snack samples for your pets! The one above is an example of the most recent giveaway. Keep watch later in the week for the next giveaway we’re sure she’ll have!
KI LIVE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
We had a fun KI Live! We spilled the beans on yet another Karamelle teaser (are we teasing too much? If so, just let us know, we can stop!) We also had a couple of special guests come on to say hello to the community, including one that’s new to the show. He enjoyed talking with you all so much, he’s asked to be on a future show!
If you missed the show, watch it now on YouTube:
Secret Reader Bonus - As of this newsletter's announcement, for those who didn't get a chance to redeem the KI Live giveaway code yet, we opened it up again (HAPPYBIRTHDAY2020) for another 500 redemptions!
For more videos and livestreams, be sure to subscribe to KingsIsle's YouTube channel. And don't forget that we'll be dressing up in our own Halloween costumes for a community voting contest on October's KI Live!
A great gameplay tip submitted to KI Live comes from Phantomslick:
“The new world is coming! With so much to do these days don't forget to get in any last-minute questing to make sure you're ready! Need help with the end of world bosses, reach out! So many in the community willing to lend a hand.” - Phantomslick
HELP KINGSISLE SUPPORT EXTRA LIFE
Join Our Extra Life Team!
We’re excited and proud to be supporting Extra Life again! The goal for this year’s charity effort is to raise $10,000 for the local Austin Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. With 170 hospitals across their network, each location treats thousands of kids annually, regardless of their illness, injury or family's ability to pay. Contribute to this very worthwhile cause by joining our efforts below.
We need your help to reach our goal for the kids!
To make a safe and easy donation to our team, click on the "Join Team" button at the top of the page to ensure you donate directly to our team. All donations go directly through Extra Life’s system. Donations can be anonymous and are tax-deductible. Whatever you can provide, it will make miracles happen for families who desperately need them.
In order to get the rewards below you must Join Our Team! When registering, you'll want to check Yes to the 'Make a Donation' option to donate to our team. You can set the 'Your Fundraising Goal' as anything you want, as that's only if others decide to donate to you and not to us directly. To be eligible for prizes, try to raise as much money as possible to reach the appropriate prize tiers. You can do this by having other community members donate to you.
Remember, donating to someone else on our team does not count for receiving prizes (though their total will be raised and their reward will be recognized accordingly).
Thanks for your participation!
As a thank you, we will be awarding direct team contributors that raise a sufficient amount for our team with the following items from both Wizard101 and Pirate101:
The community is also planning livestream events on the weekend of Nov 7th. Stay tuned to our social media channels as community activities are announced! If you plan to stream for extended periods of time, please read these Extra Life Streaming Guidelines.
After this Extra Life weekend concludes on Nov 8th, please allow several days for us to organize and send out rewards. We will be contacting you directly via email.
BIRTHDAY BLOG CONTEST WINNERS
There’s always time for story time, especially when it comes to hearing the amazing adventures from our community!
During Wizard101’s 12th birthday celebrations we announced a writing contest where community members could submit a short story about their experiences in the game. They could also write about how the game has impacted their real life. We received so many stories that made us laugh, cry, and mostly brought a smile to our face as we learned how so many of you cherish the game and how closely it ties into each of your lives.
From the many submissions we received, we selected five to showcase on this blog and to receive 30,000 Crowns. It was quite difficult to choose just five among so many great entries! Thanks to everyone who participated and took the time to share their amazing stories with us.
Visit the forums if you wish to share your story with your fellow Wizards!
HALLOWEEN COSTUME & DECORATING CONTEST
BOO! Get the cobwebs out of the attic and candy out of the cupboards, because it's time to celebrate Halloween in spooky style! Put your decorating skills to the test in our new Halloween Costume & Decorating Contest! This contest is for both the Wizard101 and Pirate101 communities.
Share your ghoulish creations as instructed below throughout the contest period. You’ll get a chance to win some great prizes, plus receive tons of design tips from your fellow players. We’ll be announcing the contest winners this October 29th on KI Live! Since the show is just before Halloween, we may even have a few of our developers transform into nightmarish creatures for the show.
Meanwhile, we'll be showing off our own costumes on KI Live this month. You don't want to miss this show!
VIDEO SPOTLIGHTS
The Craft Box is at it again with tips on how to get the Efreet Pet!
Genevieve Moongarden also released a great video about all the Beetle spells in the game:
ART SPOTLIGHT
For this month’s fan art spotlight, we are showcasing a drawing of Autumn Moonstone’s balance Wizard and her Malorian Dragon mount:
“I've been playing Wizard101 ever since I was a kid, so I thought I'd finally draw my character, Autumn Moonstone, a balance wizard. The Malorian Dragon is behind her, fitting this sort of Dragonspyre theme that my character has. This is a traditional charcoal piece (but I'd love to learn digital art). Dragonspyre is not only a nostalgic world for me, but it's theme, music, and characters are all very interesting as well! I might try to draw another one of my characters as Polaris or Grizzelheim themed next as those are also amazing worlds!” - Autumn Moonstone
We would love to see more screenshots and art from the community for next month’s newsletter. Do you have something amazing to share? Send it to us in an email to community@kingsisle.com! We’re always interested in showing off more fan art, gameplay guides, videos, and other content.
Thanks, Wizards!
COMMUNITY BULLETIN
Community art by: Swordroll
Keep updated on what’s happening in the community right here in our Community News section! For every newsletter, we receive direct from the community links to new gameplay guides, exciting upcoming contests, and much more. Thanks to the following fansites and other community leaders for their contributions this month!
We had a special mention of Wizard101 and Pirate101 in the Old School Gamer Magazine last month! We supported the Walter Day Trading Card collection's celebration of 2020's school graduates and in return both games got a collectible card in their collection!
The Old School Gamer Magazine covers news and interviews from around the industry and community about many retro games and veteran developers. There's a ton of great commentary and reflections on how the game industry has changed and grown in the last few decades.
If you have a thing for retro games, you'll want to subscribe to this newsletter!
Jeremy goes over a list of side quests with awesome and unique rewards every Wizard should complete
Stormbreaker started a series discussing the TC, trainable, and item card AOE spells each school has, along with their purpose. Check out the life and death iterations, with more to come soon!
Blaze provides a detailed look into each of the housing gauntlets in Wizard101 along with their rewards.
Our very own Charlie "accidentally" won this month's Ice Deckathalon. He reveals his strategy and deck setup, as well as potential improvements to the strategy for other interested runners.
In commemoration of Wizard101's birthday, stormbreaker looks at the history of the game's spell cards, detailing how our favorite spells' appearances have changed throughout the years
FOLLOW WIZARD101
Question for our readers - is there a section we should add? Tweet your suggestion to @Wizard101 and we’ll select the top idea we can implement to win 5,000 Crowns!
Be sure to follow the game and its community on social media!
If you didn’t yet read our article on online safety, please take a moment to stop by our KingsIsle Blog and read the post titled Account Security Best Practices. There’s important information in the article to manage and protect your entire family’s accounts.
