Start-ups

Ubisoft and Eidos veterans have formed Tribute Games, a Montreal-based start-up focusing on "retro games with a modern twist for home consoles and mobile platforms". Tribute consists of Ninja Senki creator Jonathan Lavigne, Justin Cyr, and Jean-François Major, whose prior credits include the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Shaun White Snowboarding and Star Wars: Episode 3, Gamesetwatch reports. The studio's debut game, a 16-bit-style pinball/RPG hybrid called Wizorb, is due to launch on Xbox Live Indie later this month with a PC version to follow. "We chose the name Tribute Games because when we make games, we want to pay tribute to all the cool games from our childhood," said Lavigne. “We’re passionate indies aiming at making entertaining games with a focus on pixel art and classic game design (sometimes with a modern twist)."

David Darling, a co-founder of Codemasters in 1986, has launched Kwalee. The Leamington Spa-based studio will focus on mobile apps. The company’s website states Kwalee "will develop smartphone apps that are very special indeed (not just games), we are striving to give our customers unique and rewarding experiences." With mobile development ushering in a return to bedroom coding days of the '80s, Darling's move seems a good fit.

A trio of senior staff members recently made redundant when THQ Digital Warrington closed its doors have established a new UK games outfit based in the North West. Founded by Digital Warrington senior concept artist Paul Dolan, studio graphic designer Donna Jennett and art director Stuart Jennett, Alien Apple Studios will offer a range of concept design services from vehicle, character, environment and UI design through to product branding, Develop reports. “It’s exciting times for studios like us, in the games industry especially there is a long-term change in the production model starting to emerge with outsourcing becoming the norm,” said Jennett. “As well as the big publishers there’s also a boom in small independent studios again that hopefully we can provide for. We’ve already had some amazing interest, we’re a strong team with a lot of skills and imagination to offer and I’ve every confidence for Alien Apple Studios' future.”

Microsoft is to release an updated toolkit for its cloud development platform, Windows Azure, later this week, promising to make it easier to develop, launch and support social games. Based on HTML5, the updated development kit will have built-in support for authentication, achievements, leaderboards and microtransactions. Azure marketing director David Appel told VentureBeat: "If you just want to concentrate on the game and don't want to deal with hosting or rebuilding your game for a lot of formats, then this is for you. We've got a platform that is cost-effective for startups."

Jon Chey, co-founder of Bioshock developer Irrational Games, has quit the studio and struck out on his own, Gamasutra reports. His new venture, Blue Manchu Games, will focus on "niche" games, and his first project is Card Hunter, a Flash-based game supported by microtransactions. "There are just so many other platforms," he explained of his return to PC development. "It's opening up space for genres and niches that might have been moribund."

A number of ex-FreeStlyeGames staff have established a new mobile development studio called Music In Colour. Headed up by former FreeStyleGames boss Chris Lee, it’s set to release a music title, Say What?!, for iPhone on July 20. A collaboration between the studio, music production company Reactify and independent recording studio Metropolis Group, the game uses an increasingly cryptic collection of scrolling icons which relate to song lyrics, which players have to correctly identify and tap on to progress. Debuting with four playable tracks from artists Calvin Harris, Scouting for Girls, the Zutons and The Nolans, it’ll be free to download, with additional songs sold via in-app payments of £1.19. “The music business needs to capture a new audience," Music In Colour managing director Lee told the Guardian. "Rather than make a game then license the music, this is much more of a partnership. We think there is a great opportunity to leverage the mobile platform to build something that reaches a wider audience, and monetises music… It's almost a Generation Game mechanic: a simple layer that lives over the music. We're not trying to be cleverer than that. This is about something that appeals in its simplicity, and we're trying not to niche it. It should appeal as much to 8-13 year-old girls as it does to 30-40 year-old males."

A new Polish development studio has been established by game industry veterans who previously served at the likes of People Can Fly, CD Projekt RED and City Interactive. Members of Warsaw-based Flying Wild Hog’s 35-person team have been credited on games including Bulletstorm, The Witcher 2 and Painkiller, Gamasutra reports. The studio's first game will be Hard Reset, a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk first person shooter built using the firm’s proprietary Road Hog engine and set for release this September exclusively on PC.

Graduates from Gotland University, Sweden, have formed indie studio ThreeGates, aiming to ship their first title this year. The studio will focus on competitive and co-op multiplayer PC games. “ThreeGates is the result of an incredibly talented group of people that has come together in Sweden with the sole purpose of making great games,” said founder and CEO Don Geyer. “We see online Co-Op, as something that the market is really wanting right now, so we’re working hard to fill that void and give gamers a game that they will want to play.”

Several of the members from the DePaul University team that created Octodad, a game about an octopus trying to convince his human family that he is a regular human dad, have formed new independent development studio Young Horses and revealed that Octodad 2 is in the works. The team promises a “much more polished, full-featured and longer game” and a Kickstarter donation page has been opened in order to fund the project, offering backers t-shirts, early beta access and even a framed oil painting of the titular cephalopod. After just one day on the site, the project has already raised $7,299 of its required $20,000. "To wake up this morning and be 34% funded was simply amazing," reads a post on the Octodad blog. "It has been a single day since we launched this campaign and the unwavering support we’ve received from everyone has just been absolutely fantastic. We really want to thank everyone for helping us reach our slippery tentacles a bit closer to our dream of making games for a living."

Former 2K Marin art director Andrew James and lead designer Ed Orman, who both worked on the studios reboot of XCOM, have left the publisher to form mobile and download game studio Uppercut Games. The studio has also unveiled its first game, Epoch, a "highly cinematic" shooter for iOS - you can see the first video below. The pair, who have 28 years of experience between them and have also worked on games such as Freedom Force and the BioShock series, formed Uppercut with the intention of bringing "triple-A quality to mobile and downloadable games" - a mission statement that is becoming increasingly familiar as developers such as the newly formed The Game Bakers and Adhesive Games promise to close the gap.

Former employee of now defunct studio Bizarre Creations Matt Cavanagh has founded a new independent studio named Totem Games. Cavanagh was a lead designer on excellent racer Blur. "Totem Games is joining all the shiny new indie games companies in their mission to make the world a happier place," the studio announced via Twitter. Totem Games is the latest of a number of studios to be formed by ex-Bizarre employees which include Hogrocket and Lucid Games.

Seattle-based Titan Studios, the Epic Games China subsidiary that developed PSN title Fat Princess, has closed, with around half of its former staff now working at start-up Carbon Games. The new studio's co-founder James Green told Joystiq: "We had actually been winding down Titan gracefully for a while. The longterm plan was always for Epic Games China to exist on [its] own. We were just in a support/advisory role which is why we never followed up Fat Princess." Carbon will develop smaller, accessible, core games, with an initial focus on PC which Green says will enable the studio to "iterate and get player feedback faster and actually control the patching process."

Ex-Ubisoft developers Audrey Leprince and Emeric Thoa have established a new mobile game studio, The Game Bakers. Based in Paris and Montpellier, France, The Game Bakers is “dedicated to crafting AAA quality games for mobile platforms”. Having previously worked on titles including Tom Clancy’s EndWar and Splinter Cell Double Agent, the pair will now “focus on smaller scale, more agile creative projects that will take advantage of the opportunities afforded by touch devices and the exploding mobile market”. The Game Bakers is currently developing Squids, an adventure game set for release on mobile platforms, PC and Mac this autumn.

Ten former staff of the Test Drive Unlimited 2 developer have formed a new studio, Blossom Minds. Focusing on "original and quality content for the digital distribution market," the Lyon-based studio hopes to announce its first project soon with a view to releasing it in 2012. Remaining staff at Eden went on strike for a day after parent company Atari announced plans to make 51 of the studio's 80 staff redundant.