For Immediate Release, 1/7/2000

MindRover(TM) Website is Back!

Acton, MA CogniToy(TM) announced today that the problems with their website have been resolved and they are back online with contests, new components, a demo download, and an upgrade for all their current customers.

CogniToy was one of the victims of CIHost's server upgrade fiasco last week. "Basically CIHost attempted an upgrade of their servers and they got themselves into a situation that they couldn't recover from", remarked Kim Quirk, CEO of CogniToy. "Our site, one of 48,000 CIHost clients, was down for over a week. Every day I was on the phone trying to get in touch them to find out what was happening -- most of the time sitting on hold or getting a busy signal. When I did get through to a real person they would assure me that they were only hours away from being back. After 4 days of this I finally began moving my site to a new provider."

During this time CIHost sent out at least two press releases describing their huge upgrade and how no data had been lost and all their customers would be back on line soon. Now there are websites and newsgroups devoted to those clients and what they are going through to cancel their service or get compensation.

CogniToy has now moved its site to 9netave.com, and is now back up and back in business. Besides allowing users to purchase MindRover online, the site has several very active discussion forums devoted to MindRover programming, plus downloads of the demo, patches, and additional components for owners of the full game.

Unfortunately, the forums were one of the victims of the CIHost crash. "We haven't yet been able to recover any of our old forum posts from the CIHost server, which is still down," explained Kent Quirk, MindRover game architect, "but we hope that we can put our forum backups into a browsable archive soon. They're not completely up to date, but people should find them helpful."

MindRover, which was released for sale in early November, is a 3D strategy/programming game, a unique genre that combines the thinking of a strategy game with the thrill of watching your own creations come to life. MindRover gives the players the tools to create their own intelligent robotic vehicles to compete in a variety of challenges. MindRover asks gamers to "think more and twitch less."

The MindRover demo, like the full game, runs in 3D and requires an OpenGL-compatible graphics accelerator. It contains four working levels of the game, including one tutorial level, and a small subset of the components and vehicles offered in the full game.

David Pipes has written up a 'quick take' review for GoneGold. He says, "It is worthy of a Chris Sawyer or a Sid Meier signature It's a great game. Don't keep it a secret.". You can find this review at: www.gonegold.com/quicktakes/mindrover.

Headquartered in Acton, Massachusetts, CogniToy is a privately funded developer and publisher of computer games that engage the brain as well as the hands. The company motto is "Intelligent Toys for Intelligent Minds." MindRover was one of 15 finalists in the 1999 Independent Games Festival.

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