Irrational co-founder spawns new studio

Australia's tiny development scene just got a bit bigger today, with the announcement that Irrational Games co-founder and former head of Irrational Australia Jonathan Chey has split off and started his own company, Blue Manchu. While the company was officially unveiled today, Chey actually founded Blue Manchu in August 2010. The shop is currently composed of several ex-Irrational Games employees.

Blue Manchu's first title is set to be an online card-collecting game called Card Hunter. In an interview with industry publication MCV Australia, Chey said, "Our goal is to create innovative titles that are a bit off the beaten path. Card Hunter is a good example of that, mixing board gaming with MMO-like features, such as item collection and trading."

Initially, Card Hunter will be released as a browser-based game, but Blue Manchu told MCV that it plans on porting it over to the iOS in the not-too-distant future.

You can follow the activities of Blue Manchu on Facebook and Twitter.