MANILA, Philippines – Altitude Games, a new mobile game startup based in Manila, raised US$275,000 in seed funding for setting up and creating its own unique game and intellectual property.

Altitude Games is headed by CEO Gabby Dizon, formerly the Senior Producer at Boomzap Entertainment, CEO of Flipside Games and president of the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP).

The team is rounded out by a roster from a number of other Philippine game companies. Among them are Luna Cruz, former senior designer of Boomzap Entertainment; Paul Gadi, former production lead at Gameloft Philippines and CTO at Anino Mobile; Marc Polican, former lead programmer at Boomzap and Gameloft Philippines; and Chester Ocampo, former art director at Imaginary Friends Studios.

Altitude Games will announce its first title in May at Casual Connect Asia, a game development conference in Singapore.

The company says its aim is to create its own brand of midcore games – games that hover between the casual titles primarily attributed to mobile games and the complex titles of the “hardcore gaming” subset available primarily on gaming consoles and graphics-intensive computers.

Dizon said they want to focus on making an original property and innovating the game space. “Southeast Asia has previously been known as a great place to outsource game development,” he notes, “but we’re 100% focused on creating original intellectual property for mobile games.”

Dizon added, “We want to combine midcore themes and casual accessibility to make games that are easy to pick up but contain deep gameplay that you can enjoy with your friends.”

Cruz also notes that their long-time friendship is a big part of their decision to team up and make games.

Notes Cruz, “We’ve all been friends for more than 10 years now, but this is the first time we’re all working together. We all love playing mobile games and I’m excited to see what our collaboration will bring.”

Altitude Games’ seed funding was provided by Xurpas Inc CEO Nix Nolledo, Level Up! games co-founder Philip Cahiwat, an undisclosed angel investor, and members of the founding team.” – Rappler.com