Pantaloon Launches Label for the Bold and Bizarre, Announces First Games
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 4:27 pm
Pantaloon is broadening its mission of platforming bold and bizarre games by moving into the world of original publishing, as we seek to become a home for misfits.
Our first residents:
1. One of our first signings is Sub-Verge: a psychological narrative puzzle game from Interactive Tragedy. [Watch the trailer!]
2. We've also signed Occlude; the new game from Tributary Games (developers of King of the Castle, published by Team 17), which takes the Solitaire ruleset and transforms it through a lens of cosmic horror, offering a meta-challenge where the rules are esoteric and ever-changing. [Watch the teaser, tackle our ARG puzzle to gain playtest access]
3. We're also bringing Puzzletrunk - our evolving compilation of obscure puzzles, riddles and ARGs - to Steam later in the year.
Some words:
“The world probably doesn’t need another indie publisher,” said founder Jamin Smith (previously Square Enix, Modern Wolf) about the new indie publisher. “But our vision is built off a different set of principles. With an existing awareness platform and terms that give novel agency and security to development partners, we seek to actively court risk, finding peculiar or experimental games that can chart unexplored or choppy genre-waters.”
‘A home for misfits’ is more than just a tagline; it’s a call to arms for games that don’t fit traditional publishing structures.”
“We’ll still be providing the most unreasonably delightful mailing list in games, we'll still be offering up games from incredible partners each month, and we'll still be championing obscure or overlooked games. What we'll also now be doing is weaving this newsletter more deeply into the way we operate as a game label, with a plethora of exciting initiatives we'll be lifting the lid on over the course of the year. The newsletter is at the heart of it all; this is just the beginning."
--
Huge thanks, and give me a shout if you'd like to chat about anything related to this. I think there's likely a wider piece on the current indie publishing landscape - and the specific challenges it's facing right now - should you fancy a chinwag about any of it.
Our first residents:
1. One of our first signings is Sub-Verge: a psychological narrative puzzle game from Interactive Tragedy. [Watch the trailer!]
2. We've also signed Occlude; the new game from Tributary Games (developers of King of the Castle, published by Team 17), which takes the Solitaire ruleset and transforms it through a lens of cosmic horror, offering a meta-challenge where the rules are esoteric and ever-changing. [Watch the teaser, tackle our ARG puzzle to gain playtest access]
3. We're also bringing Puzzletrunk - our evolving compilation of obscure puzzles, riddles and ARGs - to Steam later in the year.
Some words:
“The world probably doesn’t need another indie publisher,” said founder Jamin Smith (previously Square Enix, Modern Wolf) about the new indie publisher. “But our vision is built off a different set of principles. With an existing awareness platform and terms that give novel agency and security to development partners, we seek to actively court risk, finding peculiar or experimental games that can chart unexplored or choppy genre-waters.”
‘A home for misfits’ is more than just a tagline; it’s a call to arms for games that don’t fit traditional publishing structures.”
“We’ll still be providing the most unreasonably delightful mailing list in games, we'll still be offering up games from incredible partners each month, and we'll still be championing obscure or overlooked games. What we'll also now be doing is weaving this newsletter more deeply into the way we operate as a game label, with a plethora of exciting initiatives we'll be lifting the lid on over the course of the year. The newsletter is at the heart of it all; this is just the beginning."
--
Huge thanks, and give me a shout if you'd like to chat about anything related to this. I think there's likely a wider piece on the current indie publishing landscape - and the specific challenges it's facing right now - should you fancy a chinwag about any of it.