GREE has announced details of the first game developed by its North American studio, unveiling free-to-play deck-building card-game Zombie Jombie for iOS.

Based in San Francisco, the newly opened outfit is part of GREE's plans to expand its US operations in the wake of the acquisition of social platform OpenFeint in 2011.

Moving forward

The firm's US studio has been designed to focus on free-to-play projects for western gamers, with GREE describing Zombie Jombie as its first title "made in the US, for a US audience."

GREE still has a firm handle on the studio's operations, however. The developer is run by Eiji Araki, GREE's SVP of Social Games, who has six years of experience with GREE in Japan.

"The truly talented team members of the North American studio have really focused on creating an innovative game experience that ties together strong gameplay and great social features, an approach we plan to implement for all of our games moving forward," he said in a statement.

GREE's US studio is expected to unveil more games in the coming weeks and months, while while the firm's new social platform is expected in Q2 2012.

GREE has also said that it plans to hire are many as 100 US employees in the course of 2012.