There are a few quirks you should know about Joseph White and his coffee shop.

For one, White owns Pico Pico Cafe with his wife, Natsuko. The cafe is located in the heart of Tokyo. It's a recent development. Previously he worked in coffee shops across Japan and his native New Zealand.

Now White is a cafe owner, independent game designer, musician and futurist. Pico Pico Cafe is a coffee shop, indie game studio, meeting space and mini-retro game arcade. The cafe doubles as the home of Lexaloffle Games, White's one-man game studio.

It is quite ordinary from the outside, occupying the eighth floor of an office building. A New York real estate agent might describe the L-shaped space as "homey" and "sun-drenched." Others might say it's "like the inside of a warm blanket." To the left of its entrance is White's nook, with a piano, a long wooden desk and a tall window overlooking the street. This is his "office," and from it he can watch the entire place.

To the right of the entrance are a couple of small tables facing the coffee bar, which itself is just a tiny home kitchen: a coffee pot, a sink, a plate of snacks.

Extending beyond that are couches, a shelf full of books on games and art and a large rear window that overlooks a suburban area of Tokyo, replete with squat homes and dense patches of trees.

"It's probably not what you imagine, because the typical image of a cafe is that it is noisy and people are bumping around."

White seems to have a subconscious interest in fitting a lot of things into a tiny space. There are the retro games and the tiny library and CDs for sale by the cash register. It's tempting to think White can't decide what the cafe is, but in time it's clear he does. He wants it to be a little of everything. (No wonder he designs engines and level editors; things that provide the tools and materials to make whatever one wants.)

This is the office of a quiet game designer. And yet, White also wants Pico Pico Cafe to be a place where Tokyo's indie developers can come work together. Or, at least, together-but-alone. Like an indie design beacon tilting just off the beaten path. A hill for likeminded ants.

Around the Tokyo Game Show or the occasional game jam, this creative community squeezes into the room. But most days, the cafe is calm.

"It's probably not what you imagine," says White, "because the typical image of a cafe is that it is noisy and people are bumping around. But it is pretty quiet most of the time and we don't need many costumers to justify having the place. I sort of enjoy working in the corner because it is like a shared work space. Quite often costumers will show up with laptops doing something else. [It] just feels more like a shared work space than a cafe."

White works a mix of open and closed hours, his wife running the space when he's away. He usually shows up around 3 p.m. and works deep into the night, long past the turning of the open sign to closed. Often, he catches the first morning train of the following day. While strangers go to work, White goes to sleep.

Before the store opens, Pico Pico Cafe feels like a fairy-tale garden, replete with little potted plants and sheets of natural light. But instead of fairies, the flowers and windowsills house itty bitty action figures.

It takes a while for the eyes to adjust, but soon enough it's clear to see the venue is a blend of White's various worlds. White points to a coaster, emblazoned with a plastic pixel image of a young woman. "That's the protagonist of Voxatron," he says, "except she's made of voxels, not pixels."