EA Partners Signs Three Indie Titles For XBLA, PSN, PC

Independent developers Vanguard Games, Borne Games and Trapdoor have signed deals with EA via the publisher's Partners program in order to bring their respective titles to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. EA Partners will release Vanguard Games' Gatling Gears, Borne Games' The Fancy Pants Adventures and Trapdoor's Warp onto XBLA, PSN and PC next year, expanding the publisher's portfolio of digitally-distributed indie games which currently includes Hothead Games' DeathSpank. and Klei Entertainment's Shank. Gatling Gears is a twin-stick shooter set within the Mistbound universe of Vanguard's previous, award-winning Greed Corp. Martin de Ronde, Chief Commercial Officer of Vanguard Games, said: "It is very exciting to be part of an indie studio again, and bringing best practices from my experience at Guerrilla Games to the development of downloadable games. "We feel Gatling Gears is a great representation of what our incredibly talented team is capable of and we can't wait to bring this game to market together with a strong publisher like EA Partners." The Fancy Pants Adventures is a expansion of the popular Flash game of the same name, developed by Over The Top Games in partnership with Borne Games and EA 2D, a dedicated team inside of EA focused on the direct-to-consumer market. The side-scrolling platformer, which boasts a hand-drawn style, has been played over 100 million times on browsers. This new version of the game will combine the content of the original two games with an entirely new world, all-new story and new modes designed exclusively for consoles. "The passion that the fans have shown for The Fancy Pants Adventures has been overwhelming and bringing the game to console will give them the best possible platform gameplay experience," said Brad Borne, Founder of Borne Games. "Working with EA allows me to do more than I could have ever imagined. This is the opportunity of a lifetime." Trapdoor's stealth action game Warp will release Summer 2011. Ken Schachter, Founder of Trapdoor, said of the deal: "Working with EA Partners allows us to expand our distribution to a much larger audience while still being able to retain our creative vision and identity. As an independent studio we are thrilled with the opportunity to leverage the expertise and talent of EA's publishing organization to bring our very first game on console to life."