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Slay the Princess developer Black Tabby Games has announced the formation of Black Tabby Publishing. Alongside the developer's own upcoming games, the new outfit has signed two games so far, with the first being Prove You're Human. This sci-fi narrative adventure is the next project from Sunset Visitor, developer of the much-celebrated 1000xResist, which I called "one of gaming's best-written and best-paced narratives".
"Slay the Princess made a lot of money. It's funded our next two projects already, and this felt like a good way to be able to extend the opportunities it's given us to other developers and get more cool games in the world," says Black Tabby co-founder Tony Howard-Arias when I ask about launching the publishing arm. The Nebula-nominated indie has now sold over one million copies.
Prove You're Human is set in a digital world that nods to the rolling green fields of Windows XP's desktop wallpaper, with a bold abstract design deliberately clashing with the almost photo-real representation of Mesa, an AI that claims to be a human being. Split, Severance-like, from your live-action-video-portrayed real body, you play as Santana's digital work-self – an agent sent in to disprove Mesa's claim while wrangling with digital concepts of humanity yourself. Played in first-person, interactions include using CAPTCHA on the environment as you explore a frutiger-inspired world.
For 1000xResist, Sunset Visitor creative director Remy Siu explains its pandemic plotline was "very much influenced by what was happening in the years 2020 and 2024. That was us letting in the world very actively throughout the writing process".
Tackling AI as subject matter is certainly no coincidence in the current online landscape: "It seemed to us an interesting time to dig into that tradition of telling artificial intelligence stories. [It's] a long, long tradition in science fiction and speculative fiction that goes very far back, even to the original inceptions of the genre. [...] This is our lived moment right now, and [we] make space for ways of thinking about it that perhaps we have not anticipated."
"She's not an LLM, that's for sure," confirms Black Tabby co-founder Abby Howard. "No AI is used in the creation of this process. We have a clause in our contract about that."
Black Tabby's Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow are playful and narrative-heavy games, which fit nicely alongside 1000xResist and what I've seen of Prove You're Human so far. "The idea is to make the publisher as much a label as it is a source of funding," confirms Howard-Arias. If you already like what Black Tabby are all about, like we do (we called Scarlet Hollow's latest update "ambitious [and] impressive as its execution"), the promise is the game's they'll publish should scratch that same itch.
The goal is also to work with indie developers early on in their projects, and offer more than just financing. "We hope that we're able to elevate any project we work with, otherwise, a studio should get a bank loan instead of signing with a publisher," says Howard-Arias. "We're adjacent to the creation process, but involved the whole time, and able to use our perspective as not just game designers and makers, but specifically creators of narrative-driven games to provide a level of intimate feedback from day one. It's also not us exerting creative control, and I think that's a really important dynamic and conversation to have."
Part of Black Tabby Publishing getting involved in projects early is to help indie developers continue to create even between projects. "We have the space to ask ourselves: well, what happens if people are able to continue making projects with the same teams, gaining skills together, working together?" says Howard. "The only way we answer that question is not only by bringing in young blood, but also to make sure that there are seasoned professionals who are able to continue pushing it."
"It allows for continuity of practice," says Siu. The collaboration has enabled Sunset Visitor to swing fully from 1000xResist to building out the Prove You're Human concepts that were being developed during 1000xResist's final stages of development. "We've been saying that Tony and Abby are like dramaturges," says Siu. "We do bring in ideas and considerations that Tony and Abby have when we're just jamming on art, and bring it into the writers' room."
"I'll actually say what I found the most compelling part of the [Prove You're Human] pitch: Sunset Visitor wanted to make a game," says Howard-Arias. The co-founders were already considering a move into publishing, but it wasn't finalized when they asked to look at what Siu was pitching. "This is the real ethos of what we're trying to do as a publisher. Sunset Visitor wanted to make a game and had a very reasonable request for budget. Why not just sign it on virtue of that and that alone? [...] Their first game won a Peabody, sold over 100,000 copies, and is adored by critics and fans. Why is that not enough?"
The pair decided to move fast, but decisively. "An hour after the call, Abby and I had a conversation, and then came back to him, and we were like: all right, we'll talk to our lawyers. We'll start a publisher. Let's do it. Is it foolish? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's both foolish and not foolish. But why don't we see how it goes?"
