Zombies are THE pop-cultural touchstones of our times. There is probably a deep-seated psychological reason for this based upon post-millennial angst, Generation Z nihilism and half a dozen other things, but I for one can't be bothered looking into it. Let's just say that if an actual Zombie Apocalypse were to happen tomorrow, I doubt if there would be any more zombies around than are currently stinking up our screens.

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One of PopCap Games biggest money makers got a sequel in Bejeweled Twist yesterday, with the gem swapping, colour matching king of casual games officially launching on PopCap's web site. You may not be excited, but the bean counters at PopCap and millions of cubicle-bound workers looking to shirk for just $US19.95 are psyched.

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Bejeweled is a big, big deal. It's also a big money maker, with casual gamers dropping a mind-blowing $300 million on the game over the course of Bejeweled's eight-year existence across every platform PopCap Games can squeeze the game onto. The publisher is hoping to keep that money train a-rollin', announcing Bejeweled Twist, a new game in the series that, if you can believe it, has been in development for three years.

Details are scant, as PopCap is keeping the twist in Bejeweled Twist under wraps. The publisher plans to unveil the game at a gala event at Seattle's Experience Music Project Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame on October 27. No, they're no kidding, not even when they say the gala will be "the most spectacular launch event in casual games history."

The most spectacular launch event in casual games history and we have the good fortune to be alive when it happens.

Had to rub my eyes when I saw this Onion-esque headline at Wired. "Bejeweled, Warcraft Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game." No, it's not April Fool's. The puzzle game will be added into WoW next Thursday, allowing players to kill time when they're on long, tedious tasks, like waiting for a raid or gold/item-farming.

What's interesting on top of packing one world-class timesuck inside of another (in real world terms, this would be like snorting bacon-flavored meth), is how it all came to pass. Michael Fromwiller, a student at San Jose State, wrote an add-on he called Besharded, which came reasonably close to mimicking PopCap's hit. But it didn't come close enough for PopCap, which instead of sending out a C&D letter, reached out to Fromwiller and hired him to do a version of the real thing. Next week it's available for WoW, with no opposition from Blizzard. Wired has the word straight from PopCap itself, but a no-comment from Blizzard.

Bejeweled, Warcraft Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game [Wired]

Gamasutra has an interesting interview up with some of PopCap's people — co-founder John Vechey, CEO David Roberts and PR director Garth Chouteau — talking about the PopCap model and structure and the casual market at large. It's a reasonably lengthy interview with a couple of gems contained within:

It is very much a multiplatform, multichannel, multipartner business where our goal is to get our games anywhere they're going to be great, anywhere we can. If your fridge can make a great Bejeweled experience, by god, we'd have your fridge playing Bejeweled.

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p3ng has a special lady in his life. So special that, in January, the time had come to propose. Guy didn't want to do the standard dropping-to-one-knee thing, though, so he got a little clever: he hacked up a DS copy of Bejeweled and turned it into a cute little digital wedding proposal. Who can say no to that kind of effort? Not her, that's for sure.
A Nerdy Proposal Story (I'm Engaged!) [p3ng, thanks Sally!]

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