The larps (2013)

Programme for 2013:

The Secret Garden (FI/FR) - By Lila Clairence and Carolina Renman
Debt and Deliverance (SV) - By Sofia Stenler, Annica Strand and Frida Gamero
In Dependence (FI) - By Lauri Lukka
Autumn of life (NO) - By Tomas Mørkrid
Superheroes world (NO/DK/SV/BY/PA) - By Maria Kolseth Jensen, Mohamad Rabah, Emma Edlund, Aleksandra Franskevich, Anastasia Sinitsyna and Emma Greve
The Last Hour (DK) - By Rasmus Teilmann and Mads Holst
Huntsville (NO) - By Martin Nielsen, Grethe Sofie Strand and Ronja Lofstad
Bus Stop (FR) - By Lila Clairence
Guilt and Regret (FI) - By Tanja Lehto
Bipolar lush (NO) - By Gilbert Kraag
Have you come here to play Jesus (BY) - By Yauheni Karachun, Maryia Buhayeva, Volha Rudak and Alexandra Fraskevich
Papers (SV) - By Petter Karlsson and Martin Rother-Schirren
Playing the cards (NO) - By Frida Sofie Jansen, Tyra Grasmo and Trine Lise Lindahl
Mikodine XA (FI) - By Lauri Lukka
The Curse (US) - By Lizzie Stark
Toast to the War (SV/FR/FI) - By Hilda Levin, Leïla Teteau-Surel and Maija Korhonen
Next stop: Kymlinge (SV) - By Sofia Stenler, Annica Strand and Annica Lykta
The Hirelings (NO) - By Håken Lid and Ole Peder Giæver
Heist! (NO/SK/BY) - By Magnar G. Müller, Dominika Kovacova and Natasha Smolnikova
Truth to be told (SV) - By Tore Olbert and Jimmy Werf
Sarabande (DK) - By Jeppe Hamming and Maria Bergmann Hamming
Violation Circus (DK) - By Danny Meyer Wilson


Programme for 2012 can be found here.

---

The Secret Garden

Created by and directed by Carolina Renman and Lila Clairence

Instructions: English. Playing: English.

The Secret Garden is an intimate scenario about friendship and how easily we overlook the value of what we've got in the search for something better. Three friends are looking back to the years they had in The Secret Garden, their own homeground for friendship in all its aspects, closeness, conflict and separation. At the end of the scenario, death is looming to remind us how we sometimes neglect the most important things.

The characters are established thoroughly thorugh a workshop. The scenario is easy to play. It uses simple zones of different colours to facilitate seamless time-jumps but stays away from intrusive metatechniques to let the story flow completely in the hands of the characters.

---

Debt and Deliverance

Created by Sofia Stenler, Annica Strand and Frida Gamero. Directed by Sofia Stenler and Annica Strand

Instructions: English. Playing: English.

"Join in the TV-contest; Debt and Deliverance! Two teams compete in challenges that will test their bodies and their wits. As a winner, all debts will be paid and you can start anew. As a loser you will bear the debts of the winners but you will also get generous offers from our sponsors for lifetime employment. So, really, even as a loser you also win a chance for a secure future. Don’t hesitate, apply now for a spot in the show. You have everything to win in Debt and Deliverance!"

The scenario takes place in a near and possible future. A future where the social inequalities run wide and deep, a future where financial wealth and debt is inherited. This is also a future where a lifetime employment is just a nicer word for slavery. For some this is a tempting option, for others, the only one. The larp is played out behind the scenes and in-between the challenges in which two teams compete in this TV-show. Forced by contract to be open and honest about what they are feeling the contestants are closely watched and questioned as their fate is set.

---

In Dependence

Created and instructed by Lauri Lukka

Instructions: English. Playing: English.

In Dependence is a senario about indecisiveness, infidelity and relationships. The game explores a couple whose relationship has faded thin, verging on collapse, but neither is ready to admit it. The situation changes suddenly when one of them visits on old lover, and discover that they still have feelings towards each other…

The game emphasizes dramatic conflict and character immersion. It uses a variety of game mechanics such as scenes and voices to achieve this. The game is intended as a psychodrama session into which players project their past, unresolved crisis. The game may be emotionally demanding. It is strongly suggested for players who wish to reflect on their past relationships and crisis.

“I can barely remember the time when it was different. I think our relationship used to feel warm, loving. Now there is only the coldness of being completely alone, even if we are together. Yet, there is the excitement of seeing the Third again. The Third makes me wake up inside…”

---

Autumn of life

Created and instructed by Tomas Mørkrid

Instructions: English. Playing: Scandinavian and English

This is a LAPP (Live Action Pocket-play) investigating death and friendship in a low-key play-style. It's a contemporary drama about ordinary adults on the threshold of death. What kind of life have they had? What kind of friendships? How do they die? What is said at the funeral wake, and what is kept silent? It's a short game; approximately 2 hours. It's played out-of-the-pocket, with no costumes.

---

Superheroes' world

Created by Maria Kolseth Jensen, Mohamad Rabah, Emma Edlund, Aleksandra Franskevich, Anastasia Sinitsyna and Emma Greve. Directed by Maria Kolseth Jensen and Emma Greve


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Superheroes' World is a music larp which deals with everyday problems the school students face. The larp takes on rather serious in a playful way, using the Superheroes to investigate the problems that school students meet at different ages. These problems are solved with the help of dance battles. Would you like to be your own superhero? Do you want to dance all your troubles away? Then this is the game for you!

---

The Last Hour

Created by and directed by Rasmus Teilmann and Mads Holst


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Some fight for them selves, some for their families, some again just to fight. All that comes to an end. Friends, Lovers, Family. Everything is left behind tonight, this is the night we die for what we believe. Let us spend this last hour to remember, those that we leave, and our cause.

Two countries, one oppressed, one oppressing. Freedom fighters, friends. Condemned to death by a system that they are trying to bring down. Now there is only memories and regret left.

In this larp you will play the freedom fighters as they remember and say their last goodbyes before the execution, and their inevitable end.

---

Huntsville

Created by and directed by Martin Nielsen, Grethe Sofie Strand and Ronja Lofstad


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

In a prisoncell sits Allen Anderson and awaits his execution. He's been sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Holly. It's the last hour of his life. Have he come to terms with what he's done? In the prison are also Allen's and Holly's families, waiting to witness the execution. What are they thinking and feeling about the murderer and the murdered? How do they remember Holly and Allen and the events that led to the murder?

Huntsville is a game about death penalty and the people who are directly affected by it.

Text by Carolina Renman. Picture by Nick de Fonzo (Creative Commons)

---

Bus Stop

Created by and directed by Lila Clairence


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Bus stop is a feel good game about friendship. In this easy-going game people meet randomly at a bus stop, and a what happens between them. Through seven scenes that take place under different circumstances, a relations building between the characters.

This game is based on an idea created by Lila Clairence, Taisia Kann and Amanda Sepiola at a workshop hosted by Tomas Mørkrid.

---

Guilt and Regret

Created by and directed by Tanja Lehto


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

This story begins with the morning after. The party was fun, as far as anyone can remember, but morning brings remorse. Characters awaken to the realization that they have done something they should not have. It could have been great fun at the moment, but will certainly create tension if word gets to the people who care.

My hope is that participating in this game will be a pleasant pastime, regardless of the gloomy atmosphere of the setting. The characters in the game are faced with negative emotions, that they are to cope with, but this is done from the secure distance of the character role. As the game has been influenced by sociodrama, exploring different emotions and situations through the enactment is ant the core of the experience.

---

Bipolar lush

Created by and directed by Gilbert Kraag


Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Bipolar lush is autobiographical scenario about bipolar disorder and alcohol addiction. Four players go through a story of ups and downs for a bipolar person that drinks too much. Two of them plays the different personalities of the main character and the other two are various bi-persons.

---

Have you come here to play Jesus?

Created by Yauheni Karachun, Maryia Buhayeva, Volha Rudak and Nastassia Sinitsyna. Design facilitated by Alexandra Fraskevich.

Directed by Yauheni Karachun, Maryia Buhayeva, Volha Rudak and Alexandra Fraskevich
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Have you come here to play Jesus? is blackbox larp that portrays the controversial phenomenon of eutanasia in the modern world. The characters face the unbearable choice of determining whether or not to end the life of a paralyzed family member. It`s about love, family and choices we make.

---

Papers

(Papper)
Created by and directed by Petter Karlsson and Martin Rother-Schirren
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Papers is playful and surreal experience at a company visited by management consultants. The larp caricatures corporate culture in a fun and fast-paced way, using music and rituals in a cartoonish way to energize the players.

"Are the people in the office happy? What will make them happy?"

"This is totally normal. This is something you do at the office."

---

Klassefesten

(Playing the cards)
Created by and directed by Frida Sofie Jansen, Tyra Grasmo and Trine Lise Lindahl
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

A game about being a teenager. About fitting in. About knowing your place in the hierarchy. You’re in high school, you know who you are, what your position is, and most importantly; who you want to be. Bring every ounce of angst, happiness and hormones from when you where 15 into a teenager of today.

This is the first real house party. No parents. That important party where everyone shows up and anything might happen. We use a deck of cards to indicate high schools unspoken, but oh so public popularity rating. The Hearts are the popular girls led by their queen, The cool guys are The Spades, The Clubs are the alternatives, engaged in politics or culture, and then you have The Diamonds, the outsiders and nerds that no one likes, who stick together because they have no one else.

The idea of this game is to give the players the opportunity to relive the feelings of their teen years, both the good and the bad, see the situation from different perspectives, and most of all: Remember the experience that your feelings and all the little events of your everyday teen life was the most important things in the whole, wide world.

---

Mikodine XA

Created by and Directed by Lauri Lukka
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Set in the modern-day office of Reyes & Shaw pharmaceutical company located at the heart of London, Mikodine XA is a game about the conflict between conscience and selfishness; supression vs. expression of emotions.

“Eat your weight away With Mikodine XA!”

Reyes & Shaw has brought you effective and innovative, but most importantly safe, medicine since 1926. Now it brings you a clinically tested, scientifically effective product to help you achieve your weight goals. Mikodine XA reduces the amount of energy absorbed from food to our system enabling only the important nutrients to be digested. With Mikodine XA there is no need to starve yourself thin. Just one, easy and safe pill a day and you are on your way to the figure of your dreams. And for those concerned about gaining weight in the future, there is also good news – Mikodine XA can also be taken preventatively!

Winner of the larpwriter challenge for Knutepunkt 2013. The jury stated: This larp has it all - morals, politics, boardroom drama, voices in your head, ethical conondrums, slapping and clapping. The concept is polished, the presentation clear and detailed. The kinds of questions that occupy ethical philosophers and critics or employees of big pharma - but pretty much nobody else - are turned into drama and entertainment and then back into questions. “Mikodine XA” is for larp what “The West Wing” was for television.

Photo credit: Fillmore photography

---

The Curse

Created by and Directed by Lizzie Stark
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Would you cut out healthy body parts if you thought it might save your life?

Rita and Elle bear a heavy legacy: a mother who developed breast cancer at 30 and died of ovarian cancer 20 years later. There’s a BRCA mutation lurking in the family DNA, an inherited genetic error that dramatically ups a woman’s chances of developing aggressive breast and ovarian cancer at unusually young ages. After Rita and Elle test positive for the family mutation, they can choose: To live with their fear or to cut it out with a scalpel.

This freeform scenario is about making life-altering decisions in uncertain circumstances and passing on the horror of that choice to the next generation. A scenario about fear of death, vanity, and relationships under pressure.

---

Toast to the war

Created by and Directed by Hilda Levin, Leïla Teteau-Surel and Maija Korhonen
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

It's been one year since the end of the war. And today is the day for celebration and memories. Everybody is happy with the war and its outcome. Or at least that's what you all say, making toasts to the war with the others, while deep inside, you're keeping your sorrow and your hate.

Toast to the war is a roleplay for 11 players about strict social regulation of certain expressions of emotions. It takes place in a post war setting, were the price of winning was so high, that it has now become tabou to talk negatively about the war and the losses made. This larp plays out in a small village, one year after the war ended, where the families meet to give memorial to those they lost in the war. Everyone present at this memorial has lost someone close to them. This loss will for some characters get too heavy, which will make them break the set social rules.

If you want to feel the burden of social pressure and the fear of punishment, if you want to, litterally, throw your pain on the floor or make a toast for forgiveness - this is a game for you.

---

Next stop: Kymlinge

(Neste stasjon Kymlinge)
Directed by Sofia Stenler and Annica Strand
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

It's an ordinary day. You are on the train on your way in to Stockholm, the scenery swooshes past outside the window. Then something happens, it is sudden and yet you feel like it has happened before. It has always happened.

Together with the other passengers on the train you will have to face your destiny and make some hard and soul defining decisions. Time is eternal, yet running out. Can you define it's value?

Created by Sofia Stenler, Annica Strand and Annica Lykta.

---

The Hirelings

Created by and directed by Håken Lid and Ole Peder Giæver
Instructions: English. Playing: English and Scandinavian

The Hirelings is a larp joking about fantasy roleplaying stereotypes as well as contemporary trends such as human resource management taken care of by coaches and alternative theraphy.

In a world of perilous adventure and dark dungeons filled with precious riches, one group of aspiring adventurers are having their first day in a new job, and it’s not quite working out as planned. The Hirelings is a role playing game in which you play out the preparations and the aftermath of a failed dungeon crawl.

The game has three acts. Most of the time is spent in the first, with the adventurers training for their mission with their Paladin coach, and the third, when they simultaneously divide up the plunder and process their trauma with a cave therapist.

Art Credit: Hanafae@Deviartart

---

Heist!

Created by and directed by Magnar G. Müller, Dominika Kovacova and Natasha Smolnikova
Instructions: English. Playing: English and Scandinavian

We are pleased to announce the first programme item for this year's Grenselandet. The first game is a fun, action-packed game about robbers. That are destined to fail.

The plan for the bank robbery was perfect! Down to the smallest detail, yet something went wrong. Who is the traitor? Heist! is a short larp for 5-6 people in the style of movies by Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. Expect silly small talk, lots of swearing and a plot twist towards the end.

The game was designed in less than three days at this year’s Larpwriter summer school, and was well recieved by the initial players. Since then it has been tested and further developed. Grenselandet will be the premiere of the final, polished game."

We plan to announce larps every day or so for the upcoming days, so stay tuned!

Photo credit: DylanofTilden@DeviantArt

---

Truth to be told

(Om sanningen skal fram)
Created by Tore Olbert and Jimmy Werf, directed by Tore Olbert
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

"Truth to be told" (Om sanningen skal fram) by Tore Olbert and Jimmy Werf is an intense larp about coming out as a gay man. Through several short scenes, the director takes the players through the chapters of a story. Truth to be told utilizes several innovative game mechanics to enhance play and touch upon very serious topics such as rape and death.

---

Sarabande

Created by and directed by Jeppe Hamming and Maria Bergmann Hamming
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

Twelve people in a café on Montmartre at the end of the 19th century – all entangled in issues of love, beauty, freedom and truth. Day after day they live out these issues through their art, trying desperately to break free or to find that one true love. Day after day goes past, and for each day another passed chance.

But tomorrow… tomorrow will be different…

Together we will create these 12 fates and live them out through the use of body, emotion, music and art rather than talking about it. We play with our bodies rather than our heads.

---

Violation Circus

(Circus uden grænser)
Created by and directed by Danny Meyer Wilson
Instructions: English. Playing: English.

"Luke looked into her dark blue eyes: “Are you sure you want this?” The pompously clad mannequin dolls stood silently around them, staring into the faded walls of the old apartment. Her face was pale and shaken. Bits of her hair lay scattered on the floor around her. After a moment’s pause, her lips started moving: “This is what I want”.

“Violation Circus” is a psychological horror scenario about love and relationships turning toxic and breaking down the people involved in them. If you want a physical play with innovative communication methods, and first and foremost, a horrible experience, this is the larp for you.

A young couple rediscover their old lost invisible friends when they move into a recently departed costumier’s apartment. As time passes, the games they play take on a progressively more sinister note. Slowly, the friends start taking over.

During the game, the participants will play scenes with their bodies positioned as frozen mannequin dolls. Unable to move themselves, their bodies will be puppeteered by the others. A symbol of the characters losing control of their feelings

Two participants play the couple; the other two play the invisible friends. Focus is on the characters and their relationships. Some of the scenes focus on couple’s relationship, quiet dinners along with tender sex is the living room. Other scenes focus on the games they play with the friends in the cluttered apartment. Things do not turn out well.

Violation Circus won the award for best effects and was nominated for best character roles at Fastaval 2013

The scenario is a horror story with adult themes and close physical play. As such, there is an age requirement of 18 years for all participants.