Long form: Maskwitches: a journey out of niches

From niche to enough

Maskwitches is, to put it mildly, a niche game.

The source of this meandering meditation is some self-inquiry I wandered through when it was suggested to me that I shouldn’t make niche or weird things like Maskwitches, but instead should focus on more “mainstream” projects all the time, and thereby make a lot more money. This would most likely mean 5e content, of a certain kind.

Hidden within some mild invective and a failed attempt at social positioning was actually a really good question and a worthwhile topic of thought. This is something I think about a lot. How do we decide what to make, and why don’t I “chase the easier money” more often?

This is a long post, and I think it’d be easy to give the wrong impression with it. I’m very content to make both weird stuff and less weird stuff. But I do like a good old think - sometimes I think that can be read as a negative kind of uncertainty or anxiety.

Making art of any kind contains a significant component of anxiety and uncertainty, as does coming to terms with the results of your effort and time invested. Maybe we’re generally uneasy with this kind of examination that holds several contradictory thoughts in one “think bag”? Rest assured, after close to 30 years doing what I do, I’m completely at ease with how this all works. As an artist you go as far out on a limb as you can, and you hope it’s worth it in the end. Often it’s more about the process of getting out there on that limb than it is about some end result.

The confidence needed to make any kind of art is a big deal, as is the self reflection and uncertainty that’s a vital component of growth. If you’re a game creator (or any kind of creator, really) you’ll recognise the push and pull here.

I think it’s worth making it clear I don’t have any negative feelings, worry or upset around this topic. I find it genuinely interesting to put some idea-beads in the think-bag and shake it around! Indeed, Maskwitches as a game and setting is very much driven by that kind of process.

This post is also very long, and something of a journey in its own right. Good luck!

Niche?

So what makes Maskwitches a “niche” thing? Let’s take a look at the various classifications of niches that it sits within.

• It’s about Doggerland

• It’s about the Mesolithic Period

• It’s sort of a history-based game

• It’s a rules-lite story telling game

• It’s a really rules light story telling game

• The setting is set up to be explored through play rather than a detailed, nailed-down lore dump

• There’s no dedicated “combat system”

• Your characters aren’t consistent and can change identity a lot during play

• If you dig deep into the game there’s a strong suggestion that perhaps your characters aren’t “real” and nor are their enemies, the spirits.

• It’s all just plain weird if we’re honest.

What does all that mean? What does it mean to make a niche game? And why do it?

Let’s define the term at bit more. What am I talking about when I say “niche”? It means something that has a highly specific or, to be less kind, a limited appeal. It’s not “mainstream” meaning it might not be aimed at the majority of people in a given group. It might not be as easily taken up as other things which are broadly like it. It’s likely to be less popular.

And Maskwitches, given that list above, is an extremely niche game. That’s a strange thing isn’t it? Why deliberately set out to make something less popular? Especially when selling games is one’s living. I’ll come back to that.

Pattern makers

A common occurring idea in the business of publishing is to find something people like and make things that appeal to people who like that thing. The concepts of “audience” and “genre” are arguably parts of this idea. Things that are like other things. After all, we are told that humans are pattern-seeking and pattern-making animals. We like spotting how one thing is like another thing. We feel reassured and contented when we spot a similarity or likeness. When we see something we don’t recognise, for some (most?) people it can even spark feelings of wariness or discomfort.

All of my art friends will tell the tale of vexation when they post a new piece of art and viewers appear to fall over themselves to say what the art looks like or what it reminds them of: without any idea that this might be quite demoralising to the artist who isn’t trying to make something that looks like another thing. But it definitely seems to be a function of viewers’ brains.

This is one reason why licensed games are so massively popular. People recognise the thing. They know what it is, and it’s comfortingly familiar. That’s a very helpful shortcut to enjoyment.

But I’m not doing that here. I’m doing almost the direct opposite of that with Maskwitches. It’s almost perverse in its nicheness. (Well… it’s deliberately perverse to be honest). And I’m certainly not the only person working this way, but I have worked on much bigger, well-known things, and yet have switched track quite purposefully away from that. We don’t do licensed games. Why?

A little while ago, I joked with a friend who was feeling downhearted because their unique, self-directed, self-created game wasn’t getting the press they felt it should, or perhaps more accurately, could.

It is really hard to cut through the noise of things that are made purposefully to look like pre-existing things, and I recognise that dismay. I joked with them about how most people are gatherers - they look for things that look like other things. They know that last week they enjoyed a tasty red berry, and so this week they’re looking out for other tasty berries which are red. Or maybe they’ll try an orange one. And hey, that’s ok. That’s human behaviour and we all do it.

But us? Us “true creators”? We artists (I was trying to make both my friend and me laugh with my pomp and some enjoyable pretension) We don’t look for those patterns. We, my friend, hunt the mammoth.

It’s a joke. It’s silly. Nothing is ever so reductive. I was clowning when I said that. But the model makes me smile, as simple and silly as it is: In making “original” games, to the beat of our own drum, we’re doing something difficult, risky, and requiring deep reserves of a different kind, in order to see it through. You can make up your own tortured metaphorical story of heading out to track down the elusive mammoth. This conversation even inspired an as yet unannounced new game. Involving mammoths.

It would of course be ridiculous to claim that making things that people recognise and chime with is easy, or in some way bad or lesser. I don’t believe that at all.

Indeed I myself make some things because I know they will be readily accessible to lots of people, which I celebrate for its own sake. And in making more accessible things, I’ll find a larger audience and all the stuff that comes with that. I’m not “against” that. How could I be? That itself is a skill set and an extremely valuable one, and I find myself frequently frustrated by indie game discourse that becomes a kind of inverted snobbery. There’s nothing wrong with popular things.

I’ve also invested far too much of my life in things like Lord of the Rings games to hold that as any kind of serious opinion. But nonetheless I find it amusing and encouraging to ennoble the art of pursuing the path less travelled. (Mr Frodo)

Liars!

It’s also worth noting that I’m very wary of the comfort lies we tell ourselves. While I hold a deep respect and affection for people choosing to make new and original things that might not be immediately and easily popular, I am also aware of the dangers of self delusion.

“It was never about the money” is often a comfort lie that get us through the rejection that can come with making something weird, different or indeed that is actually just unappealing to most people.

But still: making things that people don’t know they like yet is a distinct flavour of creative work. And we can choose to pursue that on purpose, and not feel bad about it.

Yeah but is there ever going to be a point here? (Gosh heading-inserting, editing me is mean to brain-dumping, writing me)

So with all of those caveats about the simplicity of models and the dangers of comfort lies laid out: I proactively enjoy inhabiting a chosen mental space for a while to see what it feels like. To see if it holds any insight that we might find useful. Whether that’s the idea that making “weird”, niche games, or indeed figuring out the details involved in actually creating one of those weird, niche games.

It feels like a significant and worthwhile activity. That’s ultimately the bottom line: it feels good. Perhaps it is not an activity that will gain a massive audience. But that’s certainly not the only worthy measure of an activity.

This stuff lights up my brain, and that’s sometimes enough.

“Thinking about the activity” and “the activity itself” are related and intertwined subjects. This idea will come up again and again hereabouts. Holding several ideas at once, and trying them out for size: “What if this were true?” “What if we did this?” “What if we made something that wasn’t like other things?”

“What if the model we’re using to understand this thing also works for this other thing?”

“What if we take this assumption and reverse it? What if we do the opposite of what most games do? How would that work?”

That’s very much the way I like to think, and a strong driver for me as a creator. I’m a voracious collector and connector. I want to look at everything and then sieve it for meaning. My mind often works like a bag of scrabble letters. What would it mean if we could invent new words?

I can’t think and work that way if I’m only concerned with popularity. That’s a different way of working, and as mentioned an entirely valid one, which I sometimes use: “what do people like?” “What could be useful?” “What would people buy?”. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there are other ways of thinking that don’t involve those kinds of questions.

To some people that might be troubling and remove all meaning. I definitely see people creating things who are focused on being like the other thing, often to show they can do it, and to be a part of it. To others, doing the opposite might be the most joyous activity they ever stumble into. With many gradations in between, and moments where one thing is true, and other moments where another, different thing holds true.

It’s taken me a few years, but I’ve slowly and cautiously felt out that I’m not necessarily always driven to make things that sell more as their primary function, so much as they are the things they need to be. All that needs to succeed is enough of an audience. And trust me when I say I’m extremely wary of that impulse.

Enough?

Something that comes up time and time again in thinking this way is the idea of “enough”. What is enough? I think this is a really important idea for creative people to consider.

I routinely speak to a wide variety of creators and makers. Some are working on really well known things like Star Wars movies or D&D, while some are making weird games basically for themselves. I’ve always done a bit of everything. I’ve worked on props and storyboards for TV shows that will be watched by millions of people. I’ve worked on D&D. And I’ve also worked on games that will be played by a few dozen people.  And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why, and what that means. How many people in the audience for a given thing is “enough”?

I certainly understand the drive for “more”. More means more eyes on your work, which means greater interaction, greater notoriety, a greater chance to gain even more audience members. Ultimately it means more material benefits which holds the promise of being insulated against hardship. And for some less secure folks, it’s the ability to feel good by having more stuff than other people.

You could start out with that aim. For the most part it’s a reasonable one. And sometimes that’s definitely what I’m after.

Maskwitches is a really special project to me because I can say, hand on heart, that it’s not about “more”. And the level of “enough” is really modest for this project. To some degree this is where I refresh my creative soul, and partake only of things I’m interested in, allowing me to do more of other things with a fresh outlook.

But wait there’s “more” in the “enough”

These themes are embedded within the setting of Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland.

Something interesting to me is that the idea of “enough” comes up time and time again within the setting of Maskwitches and the lives of hunter gatherers. As post-industrial people, who rely entirely on agriculture for our subsistence, we are deeply inculcated from birth into a culture of “more”. At a very basic level, enclosing land to grow crops or raise domesticated animals provides a gravitational pull towards “more”: when a community is dependant an annual harvest, it makes clear sense to ensure that harvest is as big as possible. Agriculture allows expansion.

We see much less, indeed if any, of this thinking amongst contemporary hunter gatherers. In broad terms, communities based on hunting and gathering don’t hoard resources, and they tend to focus on “enough” rather than “more”.

This curiously circular, reflexive logic surfaces time and time again in the Maskwitches project. Frequently I discover it after the fact.

It is about what it is about, and I am discovering just what that is as it unfolds.

It’s a fascinating process to begin with a niche within a niche, and discover that this zooming in, this hyperfocus on a niche is actually a way to think about… everything.