Kongregate, a site best known for hosting thousands of free games you can play in your browser, yesterday launched a platform to fund new games in the form of Launchpad X.

Launchpad X’s focus is on games extremely early in development; in fact, the blog post announcing it tells you to think of it as “game jam++”. As many game jams usually take place over a weekend or even a shorter period of time, we’re talking about games that are very, very new.The platform is looking for games that have truly fantastic gameplay or innovate in some way, as nebulous as that is.

The programme will supply developers not just with funding, but also various types of guidance, analytics and free-to-play monetisation.

John Cooney, director of Launchpad at Kongregate, explained on Twitter that developers can also choose to keep their game free if they choose to. We assume the site will try to make money on the game via other means such as microtransactions, or by driving traffic to the site and increasing advertising.

Developers can choose whether their games intend to monetize or not. If you want your game to be free, it can be free. — John Cooney (@jmtb02) February 11, 2016

This isn’t the first time Kongregate has gotten actively involved in development. Last year they started Launchpad (not to be confused with Launchpad X, notice the missing “X”), which focuses on games that are further along in the development cycle and closer to being complete.

On the Launchpad description page, it also mentions funding the games for web release, with later opportunities to expand to mobile as well as other platforms.

If you’re skeptical of Launchpad X and what can be created in short lead times, check out this project done for Global Game Jam – Duck Hunt playable in virtual reality.

If you’re a game dev interested in either Launchpad or Launchpad X, you can get involved by filling in this Google Doc.

[Source – Kongregate Developer Blog