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Update 5/11: In an interview on Finnish YLE TV this morning, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed talked a bit about Rovio's next game, based on Casey's Contraptions IP. The game will be called Amazing Alex and will be released in July of this year. Casey has been renamed Alex yet remains a curious young boy who loves to build things.

We mentioned yesterday that we believed that Rovio had bought the rights to Casey's Contraptions. While neither the original developer or Rovio could confirm it yesterday, today we have gotten official word from Rovio that this was indeed the case.

Rovio's VP of Franchise Development, Ville Heijari commented on our story from yesterday "We can confirm that we have acquired all rights to Casey's Contraptions IP from Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. We are currently reworking the title to enhance it, and getting ready to re-introduce it in a true "expect the unexpected" Rovio style launch to an even larger audience".

Ville further commented on what makes Casey's Contraptions a perfect fit for the Rovio brand. "Working with Noel and Miguel has been fantastic, and this is a game that we all fell in love with from the first play. The gameplay is a perfect fit in our arsenal with its approachable, fun and highly addictive take on the physics puzzler genre."

We also asked Noel Llopis, the developer half of the games creators and the face behind Snappy Touch how this deal happened. He commented "We didn't create Casey's Contraptions with any thoughts of ever selling it. We just concentrated on making the best game we could and infuse it with as much personality as possible. The fact that Rovio came along and wanted to buy it was a happy accident that happened along the way. We're really excited to see it get a second chance and to have it reach a much larger audience than we could have ever dreamed of."

It will be interesting to see what changes Rovio makes to the excellent game. Will they keep the innovative sharing features (in Casey's Contraptions, you could share your solutions, many times very unique, with other players)? Will the art style change? Will it be simplified or more complex? What about crossovers -- will we see Angry Birds show up in the game? All questions we'll have to wait to find out. As the game gets closer to release, we will undoubtedly find out more.

Expect Rovio to release the game for iOS and Android this summer, with other platforms to follow after that.

And now that Casey's Contraptions in the capable hands of Rovio, what's next for Snappy Touch? Again, Noel comments "I'm working on my games full time. I haven't decided what my next game will be yet. I do know that it will be focused primarily on creativity and player expression, just like Casey's Contraptions or Flower Garden. At the same time, it will be quite different from those games. That seems to be a theme with me so far: After doing one game, even if it's successful, there's a lot less creative challenge to make something very similar, so I rather move on and explore something different."

For a look back at what was, here's the excellent gameplay trailer from the original Casey's Contraptions. Now that the game has been removed from the store, it will have to do to hold you over.

We'll let you know as soon as we find out more about this, the next game from Rovio.