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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.

I'm Eric Malinski.

There are two types of video games that I love to play.

Role-playing games, or RPGs, where your choices have a big impact on the story, and independent

video games, which can have a very distinct artistic sensibility.

The technology to make a video game is pretty accessible now, but that means the market

is flooded with indie games.

Thousands of them are vying for your attention,

or trying to get funding from small donations to wealthy investors. Even if a game is a hit,

that doesn't mean the studio is stable. In 2021, I did an episode about an incredible indie game called Disco Elysium.

But after their success, the team splintered apart with acrimony and lawsuits.

Other indie game studios that I've covered have grown too fast until they burst,

or they got bought by bigger studios.

That's why I've been so impressed with a little studio in Toronto called Black Tabby Games. Most of the work is done by two people, a married couple named Abby Howard and Tony Howard Arias.

They develop the stories together, and then Tony focuses on the game design, while Abby does the

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