5 tit bits to digest

New Bejeweled coming soon

Entitled Bejeweled Twist, the new game has been in development for more than three years and the firm claims it ‘will bring a completely new perspective to the “Match-3” genre of puzzle games that the original Bejeweled pioneered eight years ago’."

Oberon gets 20 million
Credit crunch? What credit crunch? Wall Street worries aren't stemming the flow of cash into the games industry - I-Play onwer Oberon Media has just scored a $20m boost from a Chinese investor.

Warren Spector goes CASUAL
Deus Ex creator Warren Spector has unveiled the first details of his new project – and risked shocking his hardcore fanbase by revealing that it’s a family-friendly title.

Spector, creative director of Junction Point Studios for Disney, said that hardcore gamers “would be up in arms” when they heard news of project – but added that the hardcore market is “completely safe”.

Spore was designed for Casual gamers (oh shock really)
Will Wright has admitted that he designed Spore with purely casual gamers in mind – and that ‘hardcore’ players didn’t even get a look-in during testing.

Speaking to Forbes (via MCV), Wright said that he deliberately avoided targeting core gamers with the title, which has sold over a million copies since release last month.

Playfish hit big on Facebook
Just a year after its founding, London-based studio Playfish has stormed the Facebook charts to produce four of the top 12 games on the site ­– and says its success proves studios can make money developing games for social networks.

Playfish is responsible for five games on Facebook – Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Bowling Buddies, Geo Challenge, Pet Society and and Word Challenge – and has over 20m registered users, 1.5m of which play in any given day

Twist could make top 5.

Everyone will want to play new bejeweled and if it has a good twist it should see top 5. I actually did a prototype for a game called twist n turn which was a match 3 with a twist so It will be interesting to see what their twist is. My guess is that they have added another dimension to the game mechanic. I can think of several they could adopt so its quite exciting.