If you have a crazy idea for a game that might not work but you want to try anyway, chances are most investors or publishers won’t give you money to help fund it. But Humble Bundle might. It’s now begun funding the creation of some truly bizarre titles, just to see what it can put out. The first title on the list of new “Humble Originals,” is Elephant in the Room and it’s available now.
It’s not purchasable directly however, but is coming as an exclusive to February’s Humble Monthly Bundle, which gives customers a number of games each month for a set fee. The catch is that they never know what those games are going to be. Now they could regularly include more exclusive, experimental titles like this one.
Elephant in the Room operates like part Goat Simulator, part I Am Bread, and part Octodad with a surprising stealth element thrown into the mix, it’s clear that Elephant in the Room isn’t the most polished of experiences. But it isn’t supposed to be. Humble Origins will publish games that are “a little risky … and a lot of fun!”
Although the additional experimental games may not be why many people sign up to the service, it will give the developers a sizable audience right out of the gate. It’s not like paying subscribers will complain about an additional game in their bundle every month either, so everyone is a winner.
How many people will play these games though? While we don’t know how many will actually install them, we know that there are 70,000 regular users of the Humble Monthly system, thanks to Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham, who’s been chatting about his firm’s numbers with Destructoid.
Technically each release of a Humble Origins game will have a potential audience of around that figure, which is higher than most new indie titles will get when first released — unless there is a significant buzz around them.
In the future, Humble has said that it may not keep the titles as platform exclusives, though presumably that will depend on how successful they are after being released.
