Emma 'Eniko' Maassen

Queerly Represent Me had a chat with Emma, better known as Eniko. She's the founder and primary developer at Kitsune Games, who developed Midboss and other titles.

QRM: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the games industry?

Eniko: I'm the founder of indie studio Kitsune Games, and I make indie games full time. As part of that, I'm directly involved with all aspects of making our games and actually work directly on things like code, art, sound effects, web, video editing, marketing and more.

QRM: How long have you been involved in the game industry, and what projects have you worked on? What are you working on currently?

Eniko: Officially I started Kitsune Games in early 2013, so around 5 years now, although I was participating on Twitter and in Ludum Dare before that. My biggest and most recent project was the possession roguelike MidBoss, but I've also created the hat based puzzle game Ultra Hat Dimension.

Right now I'm working on getting Ultra Hat Dimension ready for its Steam release, and we're also working on a space farming clicker where you can (gay) date an AI called Megacorp Farmer.

Also, in my free time I'm trying to work on a passion project of mine called Bravely Bound, which is a lesbian love story inside an RPG. I'm hoping to Kickstart that later this year, if I can build up enough of a support network for it ahead of time.

QRM: What inspired you to get started in the games industry?

Eniko: Even though I grew up in the 80s and 90s, we always had computers in the home. When I started playing games like Ultima, I also started wanting to make games so I could create my own worlds and stories. I started learning to do art and programming on my own in my teens but never really made anything of consequence.

In my late 20s, I started taking game development more seriously as a career prospect and started finishing more games. The reaction some of my early game jam games got convinced me making indie games was what I wanted to do with my life, which came as a shock to nobody who knew me except for myself.

QRM: In what ways do you feel your experiences as a queer person manifest in the games you work on, and influence the work you do?

Eniko: A big way this manifests is that, being a queer person, a lot of the people in the industry that I know are also queer or minorities in some way, and this leads to me working with a diverse group of people who can all lend their own experiences to the games we collaborate on.

Another is that this opens me up to a whole range of experiences that aren't my own that I can then put into my games. This is partly why MidBoss is so loaded down with physical accessibility options. I don't suffer from anything physical that would make games inaccessible to me, but I found out that many people do, and I want to make my games enjoyable for them as well.

Sometimes adding things like that happens without thinking too. I've had a lot of comments from people that they like that the main character, the imp, in MidBoss doesn't have a specific gender. I didn't think about it real hard when I did it, I just decided the imp is agender and gave them big hips, a small waist, and a flat chest, and […] this has resonated with a number of people who identify as nonbinary.

QRM: Do you have a favourite queer character—in games or media more generally? If so, what is it about them that makes them your favourite?
Question asked by @kamienw.

Eniko: I think my favorite is Korra. Partly because I just love the Korrasami ship, partly because I just love her as a character and a hero, and partly because I saw how important she was to people.

QRM: Have you ever encountered roadblocks in trying to include queer characters in games? What do you think is preventing greater diversity within games?
Question asked by @dustinalex91.

Eniko: I don't think I've run into any concrete roadblocks, but I do often feel torn. On the one hand there's the people who don't want queer characters in their games at all, and frankly, they can suck it as far as I'm concerned, but on the other hand there's such an expectation of perfection for creators when they do add queer characters.

Sometimes I feel a little nervous that I might not get things exactly right, or that my experiences will be different enough from most queer people that someone might label the characters I add as problematic. Part of this is why the skeleton and zombie characters in MidBoss, who are a canonically gay couple, aren't mentioned in the game as being gay or even engaged in a romantic relationship. I wasn't sure how people would react if I made two characters who are essentially low-level bad guys gay, even though every character in MidBoss is a monster and so by definition evil.

Avatar used by Eniko.

QRM: Why do you think it is important that queer audiences are able to see themselves represented in the games they play, and in the developers who make the games they see? What can we do to improve the industry for queer audiences and devs?

Eniko: It's hard to feel 'normal' when you never see yourself in pop culture, so it can be a huge relief to see others in media or in real life, to feel like you're not alone.

I experienced this pretty viscerally when I lived in Japan for half a year studying at university. I knew out LGBT people were rare in Japan and I decided not to hide my sexuality at all, so that even if I never found out it had happened, maybe my being out and proud could help someone. Even if it was uncomfortable sometimes, if it helped even one person I felt like it would be worth it.

At the end of my stay in Japan a girl I'd known the whole time finally confided in me and my friends (one of whom was a gay guy) that she was bisexual and had been in love with another girl we knew. She was so visibly relieved to be able to talk about it, and that's always stuck with me.

I think those kinds of lived experiences are just very hard to access and channel in writing for devs that aren't queer who are trying to write queer characters, and that's what makes queer content by queer devs so important. I think it'd help a lot if more of the industry 'elites' would signal boost queer devs more, to help them find audiences and thrive, and to normalize these kinds of games and experiences more.

QRM: Have you ever mentored somebody in your role in games, or been mentored? If so, what made these experiences worthwhile for you?
Question asked by @pepelanova.

Eniko: I had a sort of mentor for coding for a long time, but for games I'm entirely self-taught. I'm not sure if I've officially mentored anyone myself, but I try always to be open to questions and to try and help people who come to me for advice. I feel like I have a responsibility to do at least that much.

QRM: In what ways can non-queer folk increase and support queer diversity present within games, as well as in the industry more broadly? How can we all work to support intersectional approaches to diversity, and why is this important?

Eniko: The biggest problem anyone in this industry has right now is visibility. There are so many more people and games looking for attention than there used to be. The best thing anyone can do, I think, is to talk about queer creators and queer media, praise it in public, and share it widely, because the more diverse experiences there are to everyone out there, the more enriched we all become.

QRM: Is there a message that you would like to share with the queer game players, game studies researchers, and other interested folks who comprise the Queerly Represent Me community?

Eniko: Don't let anyone take away your voice. If you're queer and making queer media, be loud about it, and flip anyone who doesn't like it the bird.

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You can find Eniko on Twitter and Patreon.
You can check out Kitsune Games on their website, and play Midboss, Ultra Hat Dimension, and Bravely Bound on their respective websites too!