A DERBY computer games developer has been chosen to release its new game to millions of Xbox players across the world.

With only its second game, Strawdog Studios, in London Road, has been selected by computer giant Microsoft to have its new title, Space Ark, released on the internet.

The game is due to be released on Xbox 360 Live Arcade in April and will be available months before the first appearance in shops of the company's debut game, Geon.

The Xbox Arcade is a shop hosted on the internet where gamers can try out, buy and download games straight on to their Xboxes.

There are similar services for PlayStation and Wii owners, too.

Simon Morris, technical director at Strawdog Studios, which has just four staff, said the game had been designed with the internet in mind.

He said: "We are all about download games. With online marketplaces for every major console and the introduction of the iPhone, there are a lot of opportunities for small independent developers to get games out there.

"Our first game, Geon, was released on all the online marketplaces for the different consoles and we have now got a boxed copy going into shops in either the spring or summer.

"We were very fortunate for Microsoft to accept Space Ark because they won't just take anything – they have strict controls on quality."

In the game, players try to destroy grids of bricks by bouncing a small animal into them. They control a trampoline which they have to position under the falling creature, sending it back into the bricks.

Paul Smith, managing director of Strawdog Studios, said the game was targeted at casual gamers.

He said: "There are a lot more people playing games than there used to be. People who might have shied away from more hardcore games now play more casual games through internet sites like Facebook.

"These are the players who we are designing games for but if you make a casual game well enough, they can become guilty pleasures for more serious gamers."

Mr Smith previously worked at Free Radical studios, a Sandiacre-based firm which went into administration. There he worked on games like Second Sight and Timesplitters.

He said: "We did well with Geon and we would like to at least repeat that success with Space Ark. In the time since the first game the market has grown and matured.

"The fact that people can go online and download what they want has meant a lot of new games are getting more exposure.

"And with online marketplaces and Apple's application store for its iPhone, developers can make their games available without having to go through bricks and mortar publishers and into shops."

Derby has already made it on to the worldwide stage of computer games with the Tomb Raider series which was developed by Ashbourne Road-based Core-Designs in the 1990s.

Since then Lara Croft has been officially recognised as the "most successful video game heroine" of all time by Guinness World Records.

There have been eight Tomb Raider games released, as well as a number of spin-offs including two films produced by Paramount Pictures.