Rovio is looking to branch out beyond its Angry Birds franchise. While it has already turned into a publisher with its Rovio Stars label, the company is now aiming to develop games that don't necessarily fall into the company's usual image.

"Even though we're, of course, most known for Angry Birds and Bad Piggies and the Angry Birds universe," Rovio EVP Jami Laes said. "But what people don't know is that we've been very busy, working on a lot of different things."

"We've prototypes been doing this for a long time and we've been finding internally that some of these that we do don't necessarily fit our Angry Birds brand, they don't necessarily fit the normal thinking that people have of what to expect next from the makers of Angry Birds," Laes told PocketGamer.biz (via Gamasutra) The end result is LVL11, a new publishing arm that will release games "different from what you would expect from the makers of Angry Birds, to kind of set it apart."

Of course, diversification can only help Rovio in the long run. The company's profits have been sagging as the popularity of the Angry Birds franchise begins to wane. "There were 51 games before Angry Birds," Laes pointed out. Perhaps LVL11 will enable Rovio to create their next non-Angry Birds hit?

The first game to come out of the label is RETRY, a retro-styled game where you pilot a difficult-to-control airplane. Here's the trailer: