Firing the starting gun on a period of transformation for the firm, Distinctive Developments has hired five new members of staff to support the company's two game labels.

Both Distinctive Games and Bad Puppet will be handled by a dedicated 'Launch & Live' team, with the company looking to both labels to grow its product portfolio.

New team

Essentially, Distinctive is taking steps to bolster its own publishing business, adopting what it claims is a "service-minded" approach to games publishing.

As a result, Launch & Live will take over life-cycle management for Distinctive Games and Bad Puppet.

Media Production graduate Rebecca Sweetmore has joined the newly formed team as junior project manager, while Ashley Muncaster has also been recruited as junior games programmer.

The magic number

Distinctive has also bolstered its core development team with three fresh hires.

Andrea Redhead joins Distinctive as a junior programmer - a role which will see her working closely with the company's tools and technology team to develop Distinctive's proprietary development tools.

Former programming intern Matthew While is returning to the company as a graduate programmer, and Ben Homer will be working with Distinctive over the summer as a junior programmer.

"The Distinctive team has never been stronger with great people in all roles," said Distinctive MD Nigel Little.

"In hiring Ashley, Andrea, Matthew, Ben and Rebecca the team becomes even stronger, taking total staff numbers to 40."