About Literature Wales
Literature Wales is the national company for the development of literature. It works with writers, predominantly, to develop literature and create a Wales where literature empowers, improves and brightens lives. There are three strands to this: participation (involving workshops, writer visits and public engagement), writer development (supporting newer writers that are trying to progress in the industry, and providing opportunities for more established writers to progress further) and Wales' literary culture (the promotion of Welsh writers within Wales and internationally, which includes the annual Wales Book of the Year award).
The website was part of Visit Wales’ Year of Legends campaign, which celebrated Welsh legends of many shapes and forms, from literary legends to legendary landscapes. Our website, which still exists, focuses on the literary legends of Wales. It features an interactive map that, when clicked, shows you local Welsh myths, folklore and legends related to that geographical point. It shares myths and legends, such as the Lady of the Lake at Llyn Y Fan Fach, and things or places to do with writers from Wales, such as Dylan Thomas' boathouse.
We wanted to do more with Welsh legends, possibly by making a video game
In big fantasy properties, there's a lot of Celtic influence. However, there aren’t necessarily associated back to the original sources, whether those are Welsh or Irish myths, literature or similar. We were thinking about how to get people to engage with those myths, and we thought video games would be an interesting place to explore that we hadn’t worked in before.
Video gaming is a huge, growing medium that intersects with literature. There's a lot of writing within video games; they involve telling stories, even though they're interactive and told very differently. There are already big fantasy video games like The Witcher, which includes Eastern European myths and legends, so we felt that having a game directly inspired by Welsh legends would be a natural overlap.
Before we considered building a game, we wanted to do research
We felt that we needed to find out more about how games development works, how developers tell stories through games, how they come up with ideas for games based on stories and where storytelling fits within the video game development pipeline.
We also wanted to find out more about the audiences that play fantasy video games, including international audiences; we wanted to know what they are interested in, which elements of a game are most important to them and how much the storytelling matters. We wanted to find out what awareness they had of Welsh myths or things inspired by Welsh myths, and whether they made the association with Wales.
Initially, we wanted to do a second phase, too
We had plans to actually create assets for a video game based on Land of Legends. This might have involved drawing out characters, objects, or the digital environments and landscapes and so on.
We applied for both phases at the same time: research and build
We ended up getting the funding for the first phase, which was around £13,000. This focused our sights on the research. At first it seemed a shame to not have the second phase lined up, but over the duration of our project we realised that it wouldn’t have been the right thing for us to do. Most game developers like to either design their own characters and assets or personalise freely available assets to make them suit the game.
At the time we started our Clwstwr project, we had three strategic priorities
These priorities were things that we tried to tie into everything we did, including the research we went on to do. They were: representation and equality (which involves improving access to creative writing and reading across the population), health and wellbeing (which involves using creative writing as a tool to improve people's wellbeing and mental health), and children and young people (which involves trying to increase accessibility among children and young people for future generations of writers). Informed by our priorities, we split the project into two main strands and a small strand.
The first strand involved quantitative research
We wanted to survey lots of international players of video games to try to understand that audience. We worked with a company called Strategic Research and Insight, based in Cardiff. We surveyed about 1000 people, focusing on four markets: UK, USA, Germany, and Japan. The only qualifying criteria was that they had played a fantasy themed video game in the past two years. We asked a lot of questions and had them choose answers from lots of options.
We found out so much
Our research showed that people were familiar with some of the key Welsh myths and legends, such as King Arthur and Merlin. People were also familiar with things inspired by Welsh myths, such as things from The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Howl's Moving Castle, but only 25 people surveyed associated any of them with Wales. There was an interest there, but not an association with Wales, which showed us that there is an opportunity to do something.
Those surveyed said that characters are the most important thing in fantasy games, even more so than graphics and gameplay. This was very encouraging, because it shows that if we were to develop strong characters it would appeal to the target audience.
There were also other story elements that were important to people, things like the lore and narrative. In terms of themes, characters and objects, many people said they like magic, spells, relics, curses, saints, banshees, war and weaponry, castles and towers - all of which feature in Welsh myths and legends.
The research results resonated with our priorities
One of the key reasons why we were doing this project was that we wanted to reach new audiences, people who might not necessarily be reading or be reading books from Welsh writers and publishers. We wanted to see if using a different medium - video games - would work, but we had to also think about how it'd fit into our priorities. For example, we needed to consider if it could lead to engagement with a more diverse audience or an audience who don't typically engage with literature much. Around half of the people we could potentially reach with a game would fall into one of our target client characteristics, which is great.
We also asked people to identify some of the effects of playing fantasy video games, to see if there was an overlap with our health and wellbeing priority. Many said that playing games helps them feel happier, helps them learn new skills and develop existing ones and it inspires some people to write their own stories or fan fiction. That suggested we're on the right track with using video games to engage people with creative writing and literature. 27% said they'd be inspired to visit a culture that inspired a video game, which is interesting from a literary tourism standpoint.
The second strand focused on games development
We spoke to developers from the video game industry, ranging from small Welsh developers to much larger developers, such as Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Fortnite, Rocket League). We also spoke to academics who taught video game development and design in universities.
The conversations helped us see how we might progress if we were to make a video game
We understood more about the technical process of video game development, storytelling and how the two processes work together. The story is a really important part of the development process, particularly with smaller developers. It's often the first thing they look at.
Welsh mythology was of interest, especially amongst Welsh developers but not exclusively. But, people said that they didn't know where to find the myths and how to engage with them. One developer told us about how they draw from lots of different folk laws, including ones from UAE, Siberia and Arabic texts, but they didn't draw from Welsh myths despite being based in Wales. They might have done, if there were more resources and support.
Welsh university courses in game development and Wales' independent developers are highly regarded
However, because Wales doesn't have any big game developers that can hire lots of people, graduates don't necessarily stay in Wales; they leave to go to the bigger studios. It's a big problem here. This led to us thinking that, if we were to develop a game, we could possibly offer funding to someone from one of those courses to develop a prototype based around Welsh myths and legends, killing two birds with one stone.
The final strand involved secondary research into how myths and legends are used in games to reach certain audiences
We looked at existing fantasy video games, how successful they were and how they drew from myths and legends. Many games drew from different folklore - including small amounts from Welsh myths, folklore and culture in a subtle way. For example, some characters in The Witcher have names that draw on Welsh language, while Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has some Welsh dialogue and references Mari Lwyd. They are derivatives of Wales, but the roots are not necessarily obvious to players.
On finishing our project, we looked for further funding
We applied for second phase funding from Clwstwr, with the idea of creating opportunities for emerging Welsh developers who could help build our prototype, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful. After struggling to find funding opportunities elsewhere, we decided to park the idea. Being Literature Wales, we still don't know much about game development. We wondered if we weren't the people that should be trying to do this.
This doesn't mean the Clwstwr research we did was a waste of time, though. We now have a deeper understanding of Welsh myths and legends, as well as lots of audience insights.
The whole project has given us confidence that Land of Legends is something that's worth doing more with
We have a broader awareness of how people can engage with Welsh myths and legends, and how that connects with more recognisable things within culture. It taps into our goal of encouraging more people to try creative writing and the broader interests we have at Literature Wales.
We're still interested in doing something with video games when the opportunity emerges. We have a better understanding of how video games relate to literature and storytelling. It's opened doors to new activities for us.