Interplay Announces Indie Publishing Program

Earthworm Jim publisher Interplay Entertainment is targeting independent developers with its new Interplay Discovery publishing program -- with the first two titles on the way this year. The first two titles under this new umbrella will be released in October 2010, and Interplay has committed to a minimum of two releases per year. The first title, Pinball Yeah, comes from Portugal-based studio CodeRunners and will debut for Mac, PC, and iPad/iPhone 4. Putting a twist on an old favorite, the game contains settings such as an Irish Pub-themed level as well as classic mechanical table levels. CodeRunners says it will produce more content for the game after its initial release. Ukrainian developer Oasis Games is behind the second title, which is a 2D platformer for PC called Tommy Tronic. Nick Conlon, the game's creator, feels strongly about creating traditional platformers and feels they have been abandoned by the game development community, but says that Tommy Tronic aims to bring the genre back with a "fun vibe." Interplay President Eric Caen offered more information on the new project, saying, "The new publishing program is open to developers with complete or nearly complete titles ready to go. Publishing agreements for promising titles typically can be signed within a few days of product submission." He added: "At that point, Interplay's team of design and gameplay experts can help developers through the finalization, optimization, approval and publishing processes. We hope to bring great games to market very regularly, as we are starting to do with these first two games." Interplay recently started bringing its titles to digital platforms, with Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare or PC versions of former franchises such as MDK 2 and Earthworm Jim recently released or debuting soon. The company also announced it will be publishing Fallout Online, which is being developed by Bulgarian-based Masthead Studios, despite an ongoing legal battle over the title with Bethesda. Applications for the beta are currently open here.