Brace Yourself Games transitions to indie game publishing

Developer Brace Yourself Games announced that it's becoming a game publisher. Beginning today, Brace Yourself will help get smaller indie titles out the door and receive a marketing push they otherwise might not. 

Indie game publishing may bring to mind a company like Devolver Digital or Annapurna, but there are a large number of publishers out there looking to publish a developer's next game. On its website, Brace Yourself openly admits to not wanting to be on the level of larger publishers, but for a "small handful" of titles to focus on so as to not be spread too thin.   

"We aren’t looking to publish hundreds of games — we want to work with a small handful of games to which we give our full attention and care," wrote Brace Yourself. "It’s important to us that we only publish games that we love and believe in, with teams that we’re very proud to work with."

For developers interested, Brace Yourself asks that their game have a unique hook, come from a genre with a decent playerbase, and be replayable. Beyond that, the game doesn't have to be fully complete in its development.

Brace Yourself first came onto the scene in 2015 with the self-published roguelike rhythm game, Crypt of the Necrodancer. Beyond other Necrodancer titles, the studio has released the Early Access titles Phantom Brigade and Industries of Titan. Earlier this week, it announced another roguelike, Godless. 

Last year, Brace Yourself implemented a workplace program that allows staff to spend 20 percent of their paid work day pursuing personal projects. During the initial test run, Brace Yourself deemed it a "great success," and you can see some of those personal projects here. 

Into the indie-verse

As Brace Yourself gets into indie publishing, it'll find itself standing next to some well-known presences. 

This news comes not long after games publisher Paradox Interactive announced its own publishing initiative, Paradox Arc. In Paradox's case, Paradox Arc was made to put out games from smaller development studios, rather than larger developers like a pre-acquisition Obsidian Entertainment. 

Additionally, July saw the announcement that Digital Bros, who owns Control publisher 505, has launched its own indie publishing outfit dubbed "Hook." Rather than strictly focus on release and marketing like Brace Yourself and Paradox Arc, Hook will also provide funding to its developers.