Dr Edwards said they were creating unique games

Some of the revenue raised from the sale of the games will be given back to the students and Lancaster University.

Twenty games have been designed and these will be rolled out over a period of time by the north west of England company, Globigames Limited.

The university said it wanted to give students real commercial experience.

The games were initially devised by Dr Reuben Edwards and Dr Paul Coulton of the Department of Communication Systems before being developed by their students.

Interesting experience

Dr Edwards said: "The significant thing is that this gives students the chance to get something direct to the market so it helps their confidence and they can put it on their CV."

The games will be distributed online and via mobile phone portals.

The first games to be released include titles such as Stickman Shootout and Msomnia, a game in which a puzzle has to be solved every two hours.

"We are developing a lot of games that are very unique, very advanced in terms of the technology and at the top end of development," Dr Edwards added.

Dr Elizabeth Phillips, who has just completed a PhD in Computing, worked on Stickman Shootout.

She said: "I've never done anything like this before and it was an interesting experience because my emphasis so far has been on web development."