Matthew Handrahan for Gamesindustry.biz:

Ngmoco has laid off up to 20 people from the team at Freeverse, a Mac and iOS developer it acquired in February 2010.

The report comes from an anonymous source cited by TechCrunch, but layoffs were confirmed by a statement released by the vice president of studios for Ngmoco, which acquired Freeverse before it itself was acquired by Japanese mobile game company DeNA.

Freeverse was long associated with the independent Mac game market, having produced beloved titles like Burning Monkey Solitaire, WingNuts, Big Bang Brain Games and many more. The company leapt into the iOS gaming market with the advent of the App Store and were one of the App Store’s early success stories, earning high praise (and lots of money) with early releases.

Last week, company co-founders and brothers Ian and Colin Lynch Smith e-mailed friends and colleagues to let them know they had left the company.

Work on several projects continues among the remaining staff members, and the studio is now run by Nathan Camarillo, most recently an executive producer at Freeverse, whose resume also includes stints at Crytek and Electronic Arts.