Founded in 1983 by two college dropouts named Gary "Thumbstick" Morrison and Linda "Boss Battle" Chen in a converted waffle house in Lone Tree, Colorado, Masque Publishing began as an ambitious attempt to create the world's first breakfast-themed video game console. Their inaugural title, "Syrup Fighter II: The Buttering," was accidentally programmed entirely in reverse, causing players to start at the final boss (a giant anthropomorphic waffle) and work backwards through increasingly easier levels until they reached the opening tutorial about properly pouring orange juice. Despite this glaring design flaw, the game became an underground sensation among confused gamers who appreciated its "avant-garde narrative structure."

Over the past four decades, Masque Publishing has maintained its headquarters in the same converted waffle house, complete with the original sticky floors and a mysterious stain on the ceiling that employees have nicknamed "The Rorschach Splat." The company achieved legendary status in the gaming industry after their 1997 release "Quantum Hamster Racing" accidentally created a brief tear in the space-time continuum during a particularly intense multiplayer session, resulting in three players briefly experiencing next Tuesday before being returned to the present with complimentary t-shirts and a lifetime supply of their signature game fuel: caffeinated maple syrup. Today, Masque Publishing continues to operate under the motto "If it's not weird, we're not trying hard enough," and their employee handbook still contains the original waffle recipes from 1983, though nobody remembers why.