Indie startup Blossom Minds has announced its existence, formed from former members of Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Alone in the Dark developer Eden Games (via Eurogamer). The French studio has been hit by massive layoffs from owner Atari, which prompted a one-day "symbolic" strike in May.

"We are done with AAA titles; let us bring the OOOOOOH! instead," Blossom said in today's statement.

Blossom Minds comprises ten former members of Eden Games, including a lead programmer, a lead character artist, a senior level designer, and physics CTO Ludovic Chabanon--who is now Blossom's CEO.

"The company's aim is to create original and quality content for the digital distribution market," Blossom said. "Blossom Minds is built on strong gameplay values, graphical skills and in-house state of the art technology, making smaller games but with big production polish." Chabanon's profile on industry networking site LinkedIn mentions Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network specifically as target platforms.

Blossom Minds' first game is already in development and slated to launch in 2012, though it has yet to be formally announced.