The man behind Words with Friends is creating a VR game, partnering with Oculus

It looks like dogfighting in spaceships isn't the only virtual reality experience being co-published by Oculus VR. The creative lead behind mobile hit Words with Friends, Paul Bettner, has a new studio, and that studio is creating a "made-only-for-VR game" named Lucky's Tale. No, not "Luckey's Tale," like the last name of Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, but some other Lucky. Besides, Palmer's already living his tale, right? Very little info about the game exists thus far; it's a third-person platforming game, apparently, which the PR (adorably) describes as, "unconventional for a VR title." Fact! We're gonna check it out next week at E3 in person, but there isn't even a single screenshot to share of the game in action.

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Bettner's new game studio, Playful Corp., is "comprised of the core team of developers that created the highly successful game Words With Friends." Bettner and co. are no doubt using some of that Zynga money they earned back in 2010 when their last studio, Newtoy, was purchased by Zynga (thus forming "Zynga with Friends"). The Bettner pedigree beyond Words with Friends goes back far further, to Microsoft-owned Ensemble Studios, the company behind Age of Empires. Post-Ensemble, Bettner's had a history of exploring new formats. Newtoy struck it big with mobile gaming, and his new company took a chance last year on the OUYA. Now, virtual reality.

This isn't Oculus VR's first publishing deal with a third-party game studio. EVE Online creators CCP are working with Oculus on EVE Valkyrie, the aforementioned dogfighting game. Unlike Valkyrie, which is also headed to Sony's VR headset, Lucky's Tale is supposedly "developed exclusively for the Oculus Rift platform."

Correction: The post originally had Playful's game as, "Lucky's Dream," though it's called, "Lucky's Tale." Sorry about that!