For the second time in roughly a year, St. Louis-based video game developer Graphite Lab has reached a publishing deal with gaming giant Atari for a game it has developed.
Graphite Lab and Atari said Tuesday they’ve partnered to develop and publish a new video game called Mr. Run and Jump, which “focuses on a man searching for his dog before he wanders too far away.” Mr. Run and Jump will be available for orders this summer, the companies said.
Founded in 2009, Graphite Lab is an independent video game studio that has been hired by major publishers like Atari, Disney and Hasbro to create games, including new titles for well-known brands such as Roller Coaster Tycoon, Bratz and My Little Pony. While Graphite Labs, with its headquarters at 650 Maryville University Drive, has found success in the past securing game development deals with large gaming players, it has placed a greater focus in recent years on developing more of its own original games. It inked a publishing deal in 2022 with Atari to publish an original title, puzzle-game called Kombinera.
“Mr. Run and Jump makes our second launch of a new IP with Atari,” said Matt Raithel, Graphite Lab owner and studio director. “Our last game, Kombinera, was a critical success and ranked among the top 50 highest-rated games on PlayStation last year.”
Graphite Lab has 10 full-time employees, Raithel said. He declined to disclose the company’s annual revenue, but said its net profit is up so far in 2023 after shifting its business strategy to focus on its own original titles, as opposed to contract work.
The newly developed game, Mr. Run and Jump, was created by John Mikula, a developer at Graphite Lab. Atari in a news release described Mr. Run and Jump’s release as being “steeped in retro history,” with Mikula having designed the game for its Atari 2600 video game console, which came to market in 1977. It said Mr. Run and Jump will be the first new cartridge game released for the console by Atari since 1990. The Atari 2600 version of the game costs $59.99, with preorders to begin July 31. Mr. Run and Jump is designed such that players begin with 25,000 points, losing points as time continues and players run into the game’s enemies.
In addition to the new game’s Atari 2600 version, Atari said a “modern rendition” of Mr. Run and Jump will be available later this summer to be played on a number of different gaming platforms, including Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and Atari VCS.
