The casual gaming niche is heating up again, according to a San Francisco Chronicle article titled Casual Computer Games Go Upscale. I for one am looking forward to games that do not require more than a minute to catch on to the rules: “

A couple years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that it took three guys six months and $100,000 to make a casual game,” said PopCap director John Vechey. “They used to be considered a low art form.”

Casual games are simple, one-player puzzles that can be played on desktop computers, gaming consoles, cell phones or hand-held computers. It takes less than a minute to understand the rules, structure and plot. The games often revolve around spelling, trivia, arithmetic or geometry.

They’re rarely gory or militaristic. If they include characters at all, they’re almost never the stereotypical swashbuckling soldiers or stealthy kick boxers of hardcore games.

The protagonist of “Bookworm Adventures” is Lex, a brainy, bow tie-wearing invertebrate who bops evildoers on the noggin whenever the gamer spells a word from a random assortment of letters.