Art, Product, Board Games and Mausritter

What is art? A miserable pile of secrets. A week ago I woke up to this Tweet about the Mausritter boxed set[[*4]] restock, and I thought "Oh neat, Snow wrote a Mausritter review! (I generally dig Snow's work, if you haven't seen any of it you should check it out here!) I have a few spare neurons, let's see what they thought!" A week plus much mulling later and here we are. I'd recommend reading the review in question before we go on, it's pretty short and certainly got me thinking... Read it? Awesome. Snow states that "when I read Mausritter, when I think about the book, I feel like there’s something missing."[[*1]] I felt quite the opposite. However the article and its framing definitely popped some ideas into my head that I want to cover! Especially since people are throwing around a lot of flack at rules heavy stuff and the line between board games and RPGs.

Because you know what? Mausritter isn't particularly avant garde, and "it doesn’t take any risks." It's deeply focused on being a tool at the table first and foremost. And it definitely feels like (intentionally or not) it is absolutely designed for the black-and-white reading, dungeon crawling, ration munching, Questing Beast watching, capital G Gamers (like me :3). AND YET it is a game that still feels deeply soulful, and one that stands as a work of art that I truly enjoy! So it got me thinking about what separates a product from art? And how can one even measure artistic depth? [[Which to be clear, Snow never expressly addresses in their review - But said review absolutely got me thinking about these topics with the line "It [The Questing Beast design school] makes a distinct separation between art and product and says that TTRPGs fall to one side of that, not the other."]]

The primary thesis is that there's three things in Mausritter that I really really like that set it apart from most of what I've seen in the OSR:

• As a product Mausritter is remarkably accessible for new audiences, in its design, theme, prose and of course pay-what-you-want print-and-play nature. And that focus on accessibility and usability shouldn't disqualify a thing from being artful or artistically deep. It'd be like saying making scrambled eggs isn't cooking.
• As a TTRPG Mausritter uniquely captures a tactile euphoria present more in board games, and I don't think designers should be afraid to explore those areas just because "It's not an RPG at that point" or some similar pedantics. Additionally this tactile fiddly nature feels deeply in line with the fantasy of playing a little mouse, adjusting things with little paws, it's just delightful and absolutely artful.
• As a work of art Mausritter captures a spirit that is all at once familiar and uniquely executed. The way it handles magic feels fresh and flavorful, and its swords and sorcery mouse setting, while certainly not the most unique thing in the world, is well iterated and executed. Besides, so many RPGs are about genre emulation, I'm not about to dock a thing points for serving said genre (in the same way that My Body is a Cage clearly riffs off Persona but innovates and does its own things - Seriously, that game's layout and content is bold, and risky, and fresh and innovative, while still being deeply useful and incredibly pleasant to look at - highly recommend checking it out![[*6]])

Is this post ambitious? Yes. Am I going to upset some people with this post? Hopefully not, I'm more trying to state a counter argument than attack anyone personally (least of all Snow, whose work I greatly enjoy and recommend) [[Edit: I did, sorry Snow, hope these edits helped clear things up 3: ]]. Am I going to try to keep this short? By God I'll do my best. [[Edit: Also botched this, and this took like 10 hours to write and then another 4 to edit down, before all the edits after Snow's clarifications]] But I've recently started drinking caffeine and am feeling brave so let's a gooooo...

What is Mausritter?

I'm going to try to keep this brief but there's like a billion million zillion reviews of this thing out there because it's such an effortless game. Ostensibly it's an "OSR" with a focus on a band of mice who must navigate a hostile (almost renaissance themed) world. Armed with swords made of pins and catchpoles made from fishing hooks ((that particular item feels so clever and whimsical to me)) you explore the wilderness beyond your burrow for fortune and glory. In the book's own words:

"It's a huge and dangerous world out there. It does not look kindly on a small mouse. But if you are very brave and very clever and just a bit lucky, you might be able to survive. And if you survive long enough, you might even become a hero amongst mice."

Pretty standard, but effortlessly evocative. The game has garnered specific praise for being an incredible resource at the table (as Snow observes "It doesn’t care if you read it as much as it cares that you can find what you need at a moment’s notice"), and being full of roll tables and instantly gameable and useful information. Another key feature is its Print-and-Cut tetrisy inventory system (a system which I myself yearn to emulate and expound upon), which is so so good for reasons we'll get to.

I'd also add that a personal appeal it has to me is that it doesn't feel like a game trying to be notably medieval. While its aesthetics border on anachronistic the whole thing gives a vague renaissance vibe more than anything (fitting given it's an OSR), with a hint of Pikmin-esc "Small creature in a big world" vibes and I really dig that.

What is a Product?

Now I'm no master of Marxism and couldn't explain how many Cs you have to MC before you get a Capitalism. But I do know products! Here in the beating heart of capitalist imperialism, Merriam-Webster best defines it as "an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale." And I think intuitively when you say product people understand that.

Eggs are a product. Computers are a product. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition for the Wii is a product. Did you make a thing and prep it to sell it? Congrats! You've made a product. There's nothing particularly evil or morally impure about doing that in the modern age. We don't live in a gift economy and unfortunately unless things seriously shake up people have to make money somehow. While my TTRPGs aren't my main source of income (and have been a net negative in profits), they're certainly products because I sell them and they're acquired via a market. I don't really care if people pay for them per say, and I try to give out lots of community copies so finances are never a barrier, but they are undeniably a product.

I'm not really sure I'd want to judge something on the merits of it being sold as a product either, as certain attitudes I see floating around the internet seem to allude to. Look maybe if someone strictly adheres to the Anti-Sell Manifesto (also see Steps to Demonetize the TTRPG Hobby) we can start talking about getting on a high horse about whether art should ever be distributed for profit and whether that profit harms the artistic integrity of Mausritter and if any financial barrier harms the hobby as a whole ((Hint: If this is you, please make a Blog Post about it, because I want to read it)). But for right now most full-time game devs (lord help you all, I wish you all the best of luck) need to make money somehow just for the privilege of living in capitalism. I'm going to be the last one to knock them for that. Hell, I've got a whole blog post in the docket about getting money. I will, however, assert that what game devs are making and selling and subsisting off of is (at least in some part) always product. That includes the most daring and risky beautiful art that can be procured on itch.io for a meager sum.

It's a product that causes radically less harm than say, factory-made animal-tested mom-approved sun screen, but it's still a product. RPGs, big and small, are a product. And that doesn't disqualify them from being impactful art any more than it disqualifies shows like .hack//SIGN or games like SMT: Persona 4. In fact many of my favorite works of art (ex: Gundam) were spawned explicitly out of a need to find a way to be artistically expressive in a show that only receives funding to advertise mass market toys.

I simply do not see the idea of a "Product" and the idea of "Art" being diametrically opposed, much less mutually exclusive. Every board game and yes every TTRPG that is sold is a product, but it can still be supremely artful. But this is to say nothing of Mausritter as a product being sold for profit...

The fact is that nearly all the contents of the Mausritter Boxed Set (sans the box itself) can be downloaded and printed at home for zero cost (minus the actual cost of the ink and paper). The game is completely Pay-What-You-Want on Itch, which is both remarkably generous and remarkably accessible. I don't think a pure profit game would ever give itself out for free en-masse, rather this seems to be a marker that the game is a joy the developers want to share ((and hopefully make enough to keep making more joyful things to share - But the sharing to an audience seems the primary concern)). Perhaps it's this joy that can be said to be the marker of an Art-first product? (If that's a distinction we're making... which I honestly wouldn't.)

What is an Audience?

So a primary observation in "Mausritter: It's a game" seems to be that "reading Mausritter I can’t stop thinking about Questing Beast and how this book feels like it was designed specifically with it in mind." And frankly I agree! In my eyes Mausritter was made for an audience; Namely an OSR audience that loves tracking fiddly bits, hex crawls, Vancian magic and other such stuff. While I don't know the exacts of what the Isaac Williams was thinking[[*10]], I agree that it fits perfectly into what Snow describes as "Questing Beast design school" which is "all about usability at the table." 

And in many ways this strikes me as one of Mausritter's greatest strengths as a work of art. Especially when Mausritter artfully dodges a lot of the themes and subtext that can make OSR titles a bit yikes to some. When there's a niche and you fill it, that's just called being helpful. (In Snow's words "It saw a hole in the road and paved over it. So now, where you would normally drive over it and curse loudly as your car is shaken by a dastardly pot hole, you can drive smoothly.") And yes filling niches is the cornerstone of entrepreneurism, but it can also be done for the sake and joy of filling the niche itself and for the love of the hobby, a love that (in my opinion) Mausritter absolutely oozes with.

Mausritter serves an audience, but it also serves it so well and with gusto. The rules are elegant, the tactility (which we'll get into later) is incredible, and even in a book so clearly designed for usability it still brings new things to the table. Take Mausritter's magic system which ties in with all of the game's design elements:

There are 2d8 spells, each bound to a tablet that can slot in your print-and-cut inventory. They range from the typical (Grease), to clever spells exclusive to the game's mousey genre (Catnip - Which makes an item into a Cat lure) to stuff that's just wonderfully evocative (Ghost Beetle - which summons what is essentially an undead beetle pack mule). While these spells are simply found by adventuring, how they're recharged downright excites me.

Again they range in complexity, from Heal requiring you to take damage, Light requiring you to make sure to catch the first and last light each day for three days, or my all-time favorite Be Understood (think Speak with Animals, but everything is an animal) which requires that you "Give away freely to a creature of another species" which just gives me warm fuzzies. 

It's simple, it's direct, it's only personal in the context of the emergent story that comes from the game, but it is none the less artful. Rather if feels full of soul and feeling, evoking the feeling of being a small mouse in a big magical world, a world where you aren't top dog, but with a little effort and a lot of teamwork you can do incredible things. Mausritter is a game that knows its audience loves magic that has charges locked in Tomes, and surprises them in subtle beautiful ways. It's appealing to the OSR TTRPG scene first and foremost, but it still feels very much like its own animal (heh) in the RPG scene.

What is an RPG?

lol [[*5]]

What is a Board Game?

While the defining line between what is a board game or a TTRPG isn't one that I find particularly interesting (if it even exists at all), I think it is worth exploring how TTRPG designers can adapt more "board gamey" ideas into TTRPGs. Especially given that Board Games tend to be most peoples' gateways into TTRPGs (doubly so for those who have never heard of an Actual Play, and in an era where APs seem to be falling slightly out of the mass concussive appeal they once had). Think back, what was your first introduction to TTRPGs?

For me it was the absolutely excellent D&D 3.5 Basic Game (2006) box, which caught my 10-year-old eye in a Barnes & Noble at a time where I simply could not find the LEGO set I'd so desperately saved up for. I appreciate Board Game Geek's description of the set as:

"A simplified version of the 3rd Edition/3.5 Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, designed as an introduction to roleplaying, but is - in essence - a board game not unlike HeroQuest."

And you know what? It set my imagination on fire! It gave me so many little toys and doodads and sheets and ideas, plenty of scaffolding for adventure and design. The moment I was done running my first little session (which I'd already taken a great many liberties with) I immediately set to work trying to figure out how to make my own game and character sheets using the family computer.

Now this boxed set is undeniably a product first, made by Wizards of the Coast to sell more product. It was never free. While I could print my own character sheets, Wizards wanted me to buy miniatures and cards and dice. By most definitions it's probably a board game too. Yet I don't think it being in either category disqualifies it from being art. It certainly didn't stop me from using it as a fully fleshed out TTRPG to tell an (albeit) simple story with my best friend about a ranger who became a spider tamer, inspiring a lifelong passion for the medium in me. Is it basic? Well yeah duh, it says so on the cover. That doesn't stop it from being excellent nor artful.

The useful can be profound, and profoundly impactful, even if it's simply to enable a dumb kid to sink their teeth into it and start telling their own stories. Mausritter, to me, is impressive because it accomplishes this and more.

What is a Rule?

I'm sure there's ludic thinkers that have pulled their hair out on this question more than me, but let's put this into perspective: Rules (which can be broken) create a scaffolding for the game, they also create limits within which the session will happen. Your Level 1 Dwarf can't suddenly say "I call my friend using telepathy to fire nukes at these goblins" when your Dwarf's friend, the telepathy nor the nukes were established either in the narrative nor the rules. Similarly Rules can help you shorthand some narrative to get to whatever it is that your table wants to get to. Heck maybe you're playing Dwarfs with Nukes and your character sheet starts out by listing how many nukes you have, so there's no need to painstakingly roleplay the slow proliferation of nukes at the table.

Similarly, Mausritter's cornerstone rule, and the one that makes it feel very board gamey, is its inventory system. What I absolutely love is that this component heavy system is remarkably accessible because you can simply print and cut your way to a full box's worth of components for a fraction of the price and shipping time. As someone who loves fiddly games like Kingdom Death, being able to explore the idea of a component heavy game, without requiring me to sink $100+ on a big box is refreshing to say the least! It's a design space I'd love to see explored more, and frankly one that could be designed in without having to charge people anything ((again, the online files for Mausritter are completely Pay-What-You-Want, about as anti-product as you can get while still accepting money)).

More over, this small fiddly tactility plays into Mausritter's setting superbly. I feel like a tiny creature scrounging what I can carry in this giant world. Each morsel of square-cut paper a treasure in my eyes. While most of the treasure itself is usually pretty basic ((if superbly charming, like a mace that uses a d20 or heavy armor where a thimble is the helmet)), it still carries a great deal of kinesthetic joy to discover and equip.

Honestly I want to write more blog posts about adapting kinesthetics into play in Tabletop Games. Why? Because they're fun and I find mechanics neat! It may not be everyone's flavor or what some would define as a proper "RPG", but I don't really care. I want to make the kinds of games that I have fun playing and would encourage other devs who feel similarly to not be afraid to branch out. If you need some inspiration just go look at Sprinting Owls' whole damn catalog. Richard Kelly is singlehandedly pushing the limits of some truly avant garde and rawly joyful design [see my post on the topic], all without trying to constrain these works into neat little boxes. Look no further than a personal favorite: Ghost Kart Racers.

That type of kinesthetic joy is one of many experiences games are uniquely positioned to create as an artform. And one Mausritter harnesses artfully.

What is Art?

The question of "What is art?" is one that is much too broad and sticky for this article, however I will absolutely say this. Art and product are not mutually exclusive ideas. Catering art to a specific audience doesn't automatically rob a thing of artistic expression and intent. A thing doesn't have to be avant garde to be artful (and Mausritter's inventory feels avant garde in its own ways. Even it was inspired by this blog post and many others, I would push back against the notion that Mausritter is "a child of many parents that has yet to do anything of its own.")

I'm reminded vaguely of all the times people have asked me "Do you think games are art?" (I've learned the correct answer is "I don't want to talk about this.") Gatekeeping what is art vs product (especially in an arena like games) feels... unhelpful at best.

I haven't read Redwall or MouseGuard, though I did watch The Great Mouse Detective. My primary interaction with mice has been live-capturing them in my kitchen before giving them extra peanut butter while I walk them out to the middle of the woods for release. And yet this work is an absolute vibe, a derivative one sure, but one that gets me excited to be a mouse holding a little pin as a sword. Moreover, from what I can tell of the art from both Redwall and MouseGuard both seem to actually clothe their mice in actual armor and give them real weapons that aren't hobbled together from bits and bobbles dropped from humans like some OSR Pikmin. And frankly I prefer Mausritter's scrappy aesthetic, it's not crazy avant garde, but it is fresh and inspiring, even in its most basic form.

Look this is supposed to be about Mausritter, not about Snow's own work, but I want to pull in one of their TTRPGs to put my ideas into perspective here. Because as I see it a lot of Snow's work tends to bring out a sense of what many would consider being risky/artisty, so it feels perfect for this example. The idea of this compare-and-contrast being that works like .dungeon and Mausritter may be more alike than they all-at-once seem.

I really dug stuff like .dungeon! And it certainly takes risks, but it also very clearly draws on genre conventions as well, if only for a more niche, less explored genre. Much of .dungeon felt familiar (in a good way) to me as a big .hack//SIGN fan with MMO nostalgia and the game seems to have largely been well received! To use Snow's own praise of Mausritter and apply it in my own words here: It has art that is straightforward and beautiful, a system that feels like it was designed to be easy-to-use and as a guidebook, it has everything you need.

Where the two diverge is in mechanics like Connection ((the shared player health pool and sublime play on words representing if the party can stick together)) which feel really novel and flavorful! Meanwhile Mausritter is more concerned with the kinesthetics of its inventory. Each honing the feel of their respective games more and more.

Mausritter certainly does not focus on "the inter-personal drama that comes with interacting online, including making new friends, starting relationships, and dealing with annoying buggers." Rather its focus is much simpler, that of an overland adventure, not unlike the feeling of going on a long hike with dear friends. And it's clear that's the result of these two games having different goals, and I don't think those goals are simply that "One wants to be more art-focused, while the other wants to be more product-focused." Nor do I think a work should otherwise be dismissed for being safe or "a factory preset; the default for what makes a Good Guidebook" while other works that do take risks are the only ones that can wear the mantle of being "artsy." [[To be clear Snow never explicitly said made this comparison nor said that they were dismissing Mausritter in their review, as they've now clarified. I use the quote because its verbiage that defines Mausritter as clearly being "safe." I'm not trying to put words in people's mouths here, but it's a quote that eloquently echoes some frustrations I see when people do try to determine if a thing is art or product, which again Snow has made clear they're not trying to do.]]

If anything Mausritter's goal seems to be that it wants to enable you to make art, to always be a tool to help tell simple if heroic and flavorful stories, to get together with friends for a chill night of dungeon delving. Open sandbox games like Minecraft[[*3]] don't strike me as more product focused just because they weren't designed to tug at your heartstrings or make you reflect in the same way something like We Know the Devil is. It's apples and oranges, but they're both definitely fruit. 

Similarly, Mausritter prioritizing usability and tactile gamey-ness over going for the throat on emotional impact doesn't disqualify it from also being good deep art. Both Mausritter and .dungeon enrich one's life in artful (if different) ways. Both Mausritter and .dungeon are products that are superbly artful and can easily coexist on the same bookshelf, even filling similar niches of telling stories of comradery ((and probably do for many)).

Frankly the worst thing I have to say about Mausritter is that I don't like the example of play, mostly because I personally just don't like Examples of Play sections! ((This is something that Snow's work is often leagues better in IMO, as they tend to weave the examples into the rules which is far more to my tastes and IMO much more accessible and usable at the table.))

Mausritter is basic, but also it is so very elegant! And it is undeniably a work of art, both in its design and in its aesthetics.

What is the Takeaway?

If there's one takeaway I want you to get from this, it's for the love of all that is good do not give Snow a hard time about the review from last year that started all this thinking. [[Edit: Some people still did. Stop that 3:< ]] They're about to run a Kickstarter and frankly their review from October reads like it was written under duress and frustration with an industry that is an underfunded patchwork of niches living under an adjacent megalith brand and multiple companies who are concerned mostly with selling lots and lots of product in the form of dice, bags, minis, etc. Hell, I've even seen Snow recommend Mausritter on a number of occasions, so it's not like they hate the darn thing!

But it was a review that really sparked my thinking, and gave me all kinds of ideas for how games can be interpreted as products. I hope this piece has given folks some perspective that there might be more under that Mausritter's mousey exterior than there first appears.

That's not to say that Mausritter is for everyone, nor is it the penultimate TTRPG (that honor already goes to Rod, Reel and Fist). But just because it's basic doesn't make it any less soulful. Just because it's a product doesn't mean it's not art. I really like what Richard Kelly had to say on the topic in a PM we briefly shared when I asked if I could name drop him[[*8]]:

"Like is a meal food or is it cuisine? Sort of both." I also enjoyed that he added "There's a difference between the care put into, like, a pop tart vs the care put into a home stirfry." And there's something to be said for the level of love and care put into a project. 

And as far as I can see? Mausritter is positively brimming with all the marks of a team who loved every second of making the art they did.

[[*1: So this originally this whole post was framed largely around counter pointing some ideas I felt present in "Mausritter: It's a game" -  For context I'd read the original review and specifically honed in on the line where Snow originally wrote Mausritter "is a factory preset; the default for what makes a Good Guidebook. But it doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t tickle my imagination. And it doesn’t take any risks. It’s a child of many parents that has yet to do anything of its own." this paired with the line "It’s still being supported by the creators with new box sets and new adventures (which is where you can find the risks/artistry)." I'd taken away the implication that the original box set was where you can't find the risk/artistry. ((I've since been corrected that Snow "didn't make any hidden claims or deep arguments about what is and isn't art" - I'd initially gotten the impression that maybe the review was trying to make a statement re: art/products from the line "Are TTRPGs more art or are they products? Is there a difference? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that when I read Mausritter, when I think about the book, I feel like there’s something missing.")) In my initial reading I'd read the claim that Mausritter was "a product of the Questing Beast design school" which itself "makes a distinct separation between art and product and says that TTRPGs fall to one side of that, not the other." this all paired with the line "In the end, Mausritter is what you get when you take OSR design and make it into a Product" lead me to believe that Snow was making a commentary about Mausritter being firmly a work of Product or at least product-by-design more than a work of Art that strove for Artistry. ((Which I've now been corrected on by Snow, that that was not the intent! That original article's also been edited for better clarity so some of these quotes are probably out of date.)) 

In the first version I'd summarized my reading as "We get the gist of Snow's idea right? Mausritter is efficient, but not bold. Smooth, but not inspired. Product, but not art." Turns out I was especially wrong about that last part! Snow has since clarified that they do see Mausritter as art, if one effected by "questing beast being product-focused", and after some one-on-one further clarified "I never say "product" is bad or that I'm above that. I'm never arguing that mausritter isn't art or is bad." so I wanted to set that record straight here  - Long story short, I generally don't like making anyone upset and especially dislike putting words in someone's mouth as a result of analysis. Thus I've made alterations re: analysis of "Mausritter: It's a game" and pivoted the article more fully into talking about the question it did raise of "Are TTRPGs more art or are they products? Is there a difference?" Hopefully you'll understand where I got my original (mistaken) reading, and have some food for thought based off of Snow's clarifications. Snow has requested "to be quoted or my words to be taken as they are because what I wanted to say is on the page" and I'm happy to oblige on that ((even if it means staying up til 6 a.m. to make sure I get it right here haha)). As a hobbyist, I generally don't like causing people grief and frankly am happy to let "Mausritter: It's a game" speak for itself (seriously you should read it) and do my own explorations here. Maybe you'll see where certain threads started to percolate in my mind, but regarding the review and Snow themself I'll pretty much exclusively be referring to direct quotes or works that I feel are relevant examples to pull in, as much of Snow's catalog is what I would define as works that surprise and take risks. (So it's v helpful for compare and contrast) [[*2]] ]]

[[*2: To be clear I don't dislike Snow, I even own several of their games and backed both the .dungeon and NERVES Kickstarter and am hoping to grab a hard copy of My Body is a Cage eventually. This isn't a personal inditement against the character or moral fiber of a fellow creative (Snow), it's a response to an observation they've publicly blogged about and some things it got me thinking about. If you're reading this Snow  know that I know being a creative full time is tough and I'm not trying to knock you for that! I'm glad you made your opinions known, because it got me thinking "Hey Mausritter is kind of basic, but it still feels soulful to me. Why is that?" Hope you get some rest today (lord knows the leadup to Kickstarters are always a particularly exhausting time) and don't stress about this post too much!]]

[[*3: Yes, yes, I know about the end poem. I'm old and this game was art well before that was added. [[*7]] ]]

[[*4: It should be noted that in this review I talk only about the contents of the Mausritter Box Set and its sister work the Mausritter Base Game on itch, which are functionally the same thing, as Mausritter (sans expansion or additional content). The Box Set is just printed nicer and for you. Also of note, the version on itch is totally Pay-What-You-Want. Really I can't recommend it enough![[*7]] ]]

[[*5: OK so actually I have an ongoing tinfoil hat theory that an "RPG" simply means a "D&D-like" but that's beyond the scope here.]]

[[*6: So like hmmm, on the other hand one could say something about how a game like My Body is a Cage is doing a lot more than Mausritter within its book in regards to narrative, character and especially mature themes. But I don't think that'd make a good barometer for artistic worth. Like yes, Evangelion is doing a lot more than Macross: Do You Remember Love, but both are absolutely excellent and artful. If one were to critique Mausritter as feeling too much like a Product it would strike me as just odd... especially for something one can experience for free. Like yes, Mausritter is more "toyetic" or w/e than most TTRPGs but that focus doesn't rob it of artistry just because it doesn't get particularly deep or dark in comparison. Something, something, board games are art. Anyways, we're getting side tracked...[[*7]] ]]

[[*7: These are numbered 3, 4 and 6 because I planned poorly. This took like 10 hours to write T^T ]]

[[*8: Another really funny thing about this exchange is when I told Richard how I was mentioning him he said "Honestly this is a little strange for me, as I tend to think of my games as product rather than art. I do think of Mausritter as being more art than product though!" which was just all kinds of humble IMO, though he'd go on to explain that he didn't really draw a distinction in most cases (which I agreed with) and added the great meal metaphor.]]

[[*9: Originally this was framed as a Review-Counter-Review™, but out of respect for the author of "Mausritter: It's a game", I've decided to simply focus on my personal reading of Mausritter and some ideas on Product and Art that percolated as a result of said original review. As such I'll really only be using "Mausritter: It's a game" when directly quoting it, to better distinguish the kinds of ideas I'm mulling over with Snow's own beliefs.]]

[[*10: Isaac actually happened upon my lil post on Twitter and replied with the following which I'd like to share: 

"Creating "Art" has never been particularly interesting to me, I just want you to gather round the table with your friends, and have fun, safe time doing it."

And I found that quite beautiful, so I simply replied "I'd say you've done this and more! In the same way a long hike can be a wonder-filled experience among a group, Mausritter brings that fun and social endeavor to a table in a way that feels simply effortless. And that's definitely art in my book! (One that is best shared ^^ )" ]]