What Do We Owe Our Projects?

In the book Big Magic, author Elizabeth Gilbert describes creative ideas as living creatures. Like ghosts, she says creative ideas enter and inhabit a person. That feeling is what we call “inspiration.” If the artist doesn’t act on the idea and bring it to life, the ghost leaves the person and travels to another host.

Look, I love Big Magic. In many ways, it’s responsible for this newsletter! I’d encourage any creative professional, current or aspiring, to read it cover to cover. But Elizabeth and I part ways on this one. I don’t believe ideas are ghosts or creatures or living in any sense. Gilbert uses this theory to explain why people have similar ideas, including herself and another author friend of hers. I believe it’s just zeitgeist. Yes, people are individual snowflakes with unique brains, but we tend to have similar life experiences, cultural influences, and media diets when living in the same society, which inspires similar ideas. My sister Holly is a reality TV producer and development executive. She would hear the same TV show pitches from different creators over and over again. They called recurring ideas like those “mops,” because they spread everywhere.

These days, I’m less interested in where ideas begin. I’m thinking more about how ideas finish. It’s all part of my goal to have a fun creative process.

Take my recent newsletters about developing ALL-CARDS and releasing it on Kickstarter. The process of designing and playtesting in the lead-up to the Kickstarter was fun throughout. The friction came from running a successful Kickstarter, an experience I found stressful. I knew there was a possibility it’d be a bummer on some level, having run two crowdfunding campaigns before. But Amanda loved the game and thought ALL-CARDS deserved more than an ashcan zine. Deep down, I agreed. She encouraged me to try Zine Quest. I thought Zine Quest would be cooler, since it’s designed for indie games with lower funding goals. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it to be less stressful.

The aspect of this I’m thinking hard about is the idea that an ashcan zine release was doing ALL-CARDS a disservice. I had put a lot of time and effort into a well-conceived game. Shouldn’t ALL-CARDS get a chance to shine? To find players? To be given life?

Something similar happened with Motion Picture, a puzzle game I made specifically to entertain a few close friends. I poured a lot of time and effort into that one, too. I’m proud of the end result and I learned a lot making it. I had fun showing the game to my friends, even though the debut had more than a few hiccups.

A few months after the debut, one of those friends who played Motion Picture, Carol Ann, was disappointed I hadn’t done more with the project. She loved Motion Picture! She had so much fun playing it. Carol Ann encouraged me to keep going with it. I was caught entirely off-guard. The game was intended for this group of friends. I didn’t think much about taking the game to the next level. Should I film a series of video puzzles to solve? Polish the UX? Release it on Steam? I considered the game a success because my friends enjoyed it and I learned something. But Carol Ann’s (supportive, friendly) disappointment made me wonder: Had I done Motion Picture a disservice? If Motion Picture was one of Elizabeth Gilbert’s idea ghosts, had I condemned the ghost to a dull life inside a containment unit?

Thinking back on all the Equip Story projects, the ones with the most satisfying endings are probably the public domain game jams I made with Gwen Katz. Cocoanut Hotel and The House Hunter Mystery were small one month projects. They were released publicly on Itch.io and played by a few thousand people. Both got positive feedback, particularly House Hunter. Cocoanut Hotel won Best Digital Game, which was a lovely surprise. I think the release of those games correlated nicely with the amount of effort put into them. A month of work leading to a warm reception in a game jam feels about right. If Gwen and I put six months of late nights into those games, I would naturally expect more out of them. Sales. Awards. An excited fan base. But I didn’t expect much from entering the public domain game jam, and I got more than I expected. Most importantly, a fun collaborative process with Gwen!

There wasn’t much expectation for those games beyond the jam. I would’ve been very surprised if people played Cocoanut Hotel and demanded a deluxe release on Steam with 20 hours of content. And if you want a polished and professional Nancy Drew video game, you don’t have to do much investigating. The vibe I get from the public domain jam is that creators enter it for fun. Not to beat hundreds of contenders, or to make a sparkling portfolio piece, or to stumble on an accidental hit. My sense is that these are other weirdos who like the public domain and get excited for playing with new IP toys. In theory, that should be Zine Quest, too. But I wonder if the profit motive changes things. The conversations I had with other Zine Quest creators were about cross-promotion, whereas in the public domain jam it was comments from other entrants liked our games.

For me, it comes down to expectations. The more time, money, and resources I put into a project, the greater expectations I have for my project’s release. My two IFComp entries were Use Your Psychic Powers at Applebee’s, which I think took a month or two to develop and just cracked the top 20, and Fix Your Mother’s Printer, which took more than half a year to develop and also just cracked the top 20. I was much happier with the release of Applebee’s than Printer. Applebee’s was a delightful surprise. Printer was a profound disappointment. I wasn’t thinking about expectations consciously at the time, but now it’s clear to me where those feelings came from.

But here’s the wild part to me. Other people have expectations for my projects based on their quality and perceived potential. Their expectations affect my feelings about a project, too. Amanda’s expectations for ALL-CARDS inspired me to invest more time into the game and kickstart it. Carol Ann’s expectations for Motion Picture inspired me to take a friend up on their offer to shop the prototype around to publishers. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Achieving a fun end to the creative process reminds me of difficulty in video games. If a game is too difficult, you might give up. Or you do finish it and there’s a feeling of relief that it’s finally over, not a fun satisfaction. If a game is too easy though, there’s no challenge. And low-stakes challenge is at the heart of what makes most games fun! Zine Quest turned out to be more challenging than I wanted, but releasing a game literally just for friends might be the equivalent of Story Mode.

My creative process is a kind of game. Now to find the right difficulty setting.

🎲 Your Turn: Any thoughts or tips on ending a creative project? Do you generally feel satisfied with your projects after they’re over and done? What affects your perception of a project after you finish it? I’d love to hear from you! Reply to this email or hit the orange button below to leave a comment.