Hello snowy ghosties,

Before we break for holidays, we wanted to take some time to celebrate 2025. ❄️🎊⛄️

2025 was our first time running two cohorts in one year, thanks to support from the Toronto Workforce Collaborative and Ontario Creates. We’re so excited to keep up this pace in 2026.

This means we supported a total of 10 studios and 35 people!

The studios we work with are all small (3-6) teams run by incredible artists, programmers, designers, and creatives — many of whom have faced barriers getting into the games industry.

The best way you can support them is by directly buying and wishlisting their work!

If you’re into queer narrative games, Studio Wtchcrft has you covered with their latest demo for Love in the Time of Spellphage. But they’ve also been working on an addictive game for all you puzzle lovers —— a witchy rogue-like deckbuilder called Fatemender.

Cohort 3 studio Amelore just dropped the Steam page for their upcoming task-tracking game Motivi Galaxy — where completing your todo list allows you to evolve and grow cute pixel pals.

We’re also excited to introduce you to a new studio from our latest cohort — See in Red!

Edwin: We are See In Red Studio - a new indie game startup based in Toronto! We love playing games just as much as we love making them. “Red” in Chinese also symbolizes blood, which reflects our desire to create games that feel alive, full of energy, and truly captivating for players.

Patrick: See In Red is a small group of friends building games we genuinely believe in.

Alex: We’re friends first, a studio second.

What’s your biggest takeaway from the Baby Ghosts program so far?

Patrick: Realizing we’re not alone - and that our struggles are shared and solvable.

Edwin: Peer support and financial support have helped our studio tremendously. The program taught us how to operate a game studio - everything from setting team goals and values to handling taxes, legal considerations, and solving problems we didn’t know how to approach.

The financial support allowed us to participate in game showcases and hire a new artist, which made a huge difference in our development.

Alex: For us, it’s been a lot about understanding our studio’s personality. We came in thinking mostly about “the game,” but Baby Ghosts helped us see how we operate as a team: what we care about, what long-term sustainability might look like, and how to grow without losing the things that make us… us.

The peer support has been huge, too. Little questions that would normally sit in our heads for weeks suddenly get answered in minutes because someone else has gone through it. That kind of real-time help quietly saves a ton of stress.

To help Baby Ghosts keep doing the work we do, consider donating!

What do you think we (all of us involved in game making) can do to make the video game industry better?

Patrick: By supporting each other, sharing knowledge, and lifting up smaller studios.

Edwin: Many great games never get the attention they deserve. As a community, we should stay united - sharing feedback, supporting each other’s demos, and helping one another navigate the publishing process. The more we lift each other up, the stronger the industry becomes.

Alex: A few opinions from our little corner:

• Normalize healthy scope instead of glorifying suffering.

• Less “We crunched and somehow survived,” more “We shipped something solid by cutting smart.”

• Be more honest about how things actually get made.
  When devs talk openly about failures, trade-offs, cancelled features, and money, it helps younger teams make better choices and reduces a lot of shame and impostor syndrome.

Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on right now?

Patrick: We’re building a 2D side-scrolling card-based battle game with strategy and humor at its core.

Edwin: We’ve been gathering and reviewing feedback from recent game showcases. Those insights helped us refine our demo, and we’re now polishing it further in hopes that publishers will see the potential of our game.

Alex: Yeah! We’re making a small but very fun game that mixes light deck-building with RTS. It’s a weird combo, but it’s been surprisingly satisfying to prototype.

We have more power to create an equitable games industry when we fight for it together. 💪

Thank you so much for following Baby Ghosts and these studios along during 2025. We’ll see you in 2026 for more!

Sincerely,

— eileen & Jennie, co-EDs