Rovio to launch new game after 'Angry Birds' success

Finnish entertainment media company Rovio, creator of the global hit game "Angry Birds", said Friday it will launch successor "Amazing Alex", a remake of an existing idea, this year. The game will be an updated version of "Casey's Contraptions" for which Rovio acquired the rights from developers Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. "We are launching a new game. It will be called 'Amazing Alex'. It will come out in spring, shortly before summer", Rovio's Ville Heijari told AFP. "In fact, we're redesigning and renaming" Casey's Contraptions, Heijari said. The new game, like "Angry Birds", is to allow for various spin-offs. "Angry Birds" reached more than one billion downloads this month according to Rovio, with sales hitting 75.4 million euros last year, 30 percent of which was for merchandising.