A Game, Like a Canoe

At my indie studio, Achimostawinan Games, we get a lot of emails from people that want to make a game with us or want to hire us to make a game for them. Usually, specifically, because we are Indigenous-run. That is fine. But more often than not their messages are filled with insulting and belittling assumptions about how the job will be done or what we will be doing for them.

Though they probably don’t think that’s how they are coming across, any attempt to discuss this usually ends the same way: “I know what I want to do. Who are you to tell me otherwise?!”

I want to explain why a game is like a canoe.

Imagine you have an need for a canoe.

You are sure that this canoe will be very important. Maybe because it will allow you or your community to reach a place you’ve never been able to go to before. Maybe it’ll even open up new opportunities. Whatever the reason, you need a canoe. But you know you’ll need help.

So you reach out to an experienced canoe builder. Maybe they have decades of experience and a large workshop, or maybe they only have a few years and a small workshop. But in any case, they are making canoes as a craftsperson (not a apprentice) and you have been told, or seen, that they do good work.

Now maybe you know nothing about making canoes or maybe you know a little bit, but you’ve never worked on a canoe the size you’re thinking. What would be the best way to start a conversation with this canoe maker? How would you want to ensure that this craftsperson will agree to build your canoe?

Do you:

A) Tell them that you will be designing the canoe yourself, having someone else cut the tree or bark and you just need them to “put it all together”?

Or

B) Introduce yourself and ask if they would be willing to discuss the building of a canoe, and then let them direct the conversation?

In all cases of choice A, an experienced canoe maker will reject your request full out. You cannot remove the maker from the means anymore than you can remove water from a soup and expect the results to be the same. A game, like a canoe, begins life before the tree (or engine) is even picked. It is dreamed and pondered and reflected on by someone who thinks deeply about these things. By someone who has made the mistakes and learned from the best. By someone who has held the wood and knows it’s language. Only when the maker has done this mentally taxing work will they then go find a tree. When they know what they need and what to look for they avoid waste and harm. This is as much about the care of the infrastructure as it is about building a good canoe.

The more experienced a maker is the less taxing the thinking becomes, the quicker they can see the right tree, the more refined and less wasteful or harmful their making becomes.

Isn’t this what you wanted? A canoe that was made in a good way, a way that caused no lasting harm in the making? A canoe that serves the needs of the community, and will last for a long time? Isn’t that why you reached out to the canoe maker in the first place?

Or was it something else?

Isn’t that why you reached out to the canoe maker in the first place?

The 90s mantra of “the client/customer is king” has poisoned the well of collaboration. But also because today’s consumers are so very removed from the means of production they lack real knowledge about how a thing is made. This means they often come to creators with very entrenched beliefs about which labour is valuable and which is not. Which labour they can do themselves and which they cannot.

Believe me when I tell you, none of these beliefs are grounded in reality.

When I, someone who does not make a thing, approaches a canoe/basket/regalia/drum maker I do so in humility. I come to them in understanding that they know what I do not. I do not tell them what to do, I tell them what I need. I let them guide the making, I let them ask the questions. I trust them to do the work, because if I do not trust them to do the work why am I even talking to them in the first place?

If I do not trust them to do the work why am I even talking to them in the first place?

Beginning a relationship in humility doesn’t mean you need to be a doormat. If you don’t like how the maker works with you or you don’t like the direction of the design you should say something. Humility goes both ways in a creative relationship. A good maker will want to be sure they understand you and your needs, not just tell you what you need. A good maker will not browbeat you into accepting decisions. Like any good relationship, a creative one should be built on mutual respect and trust. As you need to trust the maker to know the craft, the maker needs trusts that you know your needs better than them.

We need to really start internalizing that there is nothing shameful in not knowing, but there is a lot of harm in assumption and arrogance. When we ground ourselves in assumptions or refuse to trust we make our selves poorer. We lose out on things, really nice and good things, that we won’t even know are missing out on, because we never thought about their existence in the first place. Yet even in not knowing what we are missing out on we are still poorer for it.

I know we are still struggling in this Late-Capitalist hellscape with breaking these habits and ways of thinking, but taking an “I know best and no one can convince me otherwise” stance when approaching ANYONE for help will always end badly for you. I think some, especially those who are used to being an authority in something, feel a sting at not knowing everything or if someone younger than them knows more. They see it as a weakness. That they’ll be mocked or taken advantage of for not knowing or at least appearing not to know.

But you need to understand: a craftsperson knows when you do not know. They always know that you do not know. What’s more likely to make you look foolish? Saying “can you help me?” or acting like you know what you are doing when you clearly do not.

I love when people want to build things with us, especially games. It makes me angry when my knowledge and skills are dismissed as being frivolous or something that requires no effort. I engage less with these types than I used to, often choosing a simple “no thanks”. It’s true we might be missing out on some great projects by saying No to these types, but then by saying Yes we could just as likely be missing out on relationships and projects that start grounded in reciprocity and respect. If someone does not start a relationship in humility and respect, they rarely are interested in improving it.

A craftsperson knows when you do not know. They always know that you do not know.

At Achimostawinan Games we now take a long time to start a project with anyone new for these reasons. Some find it frustrating, they want to start NOW, and there was a time, not too long ago, where we did feel that urgency and started things too soon. But every time we went ahead without taking that time to build trust and understanding it never ended well. There is more damage and hurt done by rushing into projects than by just taking the time to get to know the landscape of it and people attached. You cannot pull a dragonfly out of it’s moult and expect it to be okay, in the same way you cannot rush into any project and also expect it to be okay.

I hope that if you read this and you are thinking about asking someone to help you make something, that you start with trust. Trust that if you are choosing to reach out to this particular maker it is for a good reason. That because of that good reason you trust this person to do the work. Trust the maker when they tell you something, but also trust yourself to ask them to explain if you feel you need. If at any point you find that trust weakened or missing, then trust yourself to step away and not force it.

Things happen when they happen. A canoe, like a game will take the time it takes to be built. And when it is done in a good way, both you and the maker will be richer for it.