Kongregate's Launchpad expands to fund more 'experimental' games

Online game platform Kongregate is expanding its game publishing efforts this week via Launchpad X, a new arm of the Launchpad incubator program it opened last summer that will fund development of more "experimental" games.

What makes this interesting is that Kongregate is pitching Launchpad X as sort of a skunkworks affair, a potential source of resources for developers who want to quickly make a game and get it out to players, then potentially iterate upon it later if it proves successful.

"Launchpad X is taking a different approach, funding games with often less than a month of development time, really focusing on core mechanics and innovation (think game jam++)," reads a Kongregate blog post about the new initiative. "We’re funding the titles from scratch to completion, and offering larger publishing agreements if games are successful in their early states."

Kongregate seems intent on offering Launchpad X games the same support structures it provides to Launchpad-backed projects (think backend support, ad/IAP monetization systems, etc.) and expects them to launch on Kongregate.com, the company's online game portal, as well as other platforms if they do well.

Developers who'd like more info on taking part in these programs should check out Kongregate's Launchpad hub.