Last Saturday, we ran the Kiel game of our Baltic Warriors campaign which tours the countries around the Baltic Sea this summer. Kiel is a small coastal city in northern Germany, close to Hamburg. The larps have a story continuing from game to game. They are set as close to Continue Reading
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Pikseliparatiisi: Lepakkomiehenä olemisen vaikeus
Batman-aiheisten Arkham-pelien ideana on alusta asti ollut: “Sinä olet Batman.” Pelatessa Arkham Asylumia tai Arkham Cityä pääsee fiilistelemään, millaista on olla suvereeni yön kostaja. Ylivertaisen osaamisen illuusion takana on yksi keskeinen pelisuunnittelullinen kikka: Monimutkaisia ja vaikuttavia asioita pitää tapahtua yhdellä napinpainalluksella. Batman syöksyy ympäri taistelukenttää kurmottamassa vihollisia. Minä rämpytän vain Continue Reading
Pikseliparatiisi: Sauna, kylpylä ja Witcher 3
Witcher 3:ssa on kaksi kohtausta, joissa puhutaan ja peseydytään. Ensimmäisessä miehet istuvat roomalaistyylisessä kylpylässä, ja toisessa naiset saunassa. Kummassakin tapauksessa ympäristö vaikuttaa siihen miten asioista puhutaan. Kohtaukset ovat myös esimerkkejä siitä, kuinka Witcher 3 onnistuu varaamaan itselleen kulttuurillista tilaa jenkkistandardin ulkopuolelta. Pelin päähenkilö Geralt on Novigradin vapaakaupungissa etsimässä tietoja suojatistaan Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Beach Larp Manifesto
Today, we played the third of this summer’s seven Baltic Warriors eco zombie larps in Sopot, Poland. Finding a good venue for the serious political discussion and the even more serious zombie action proved to be difficult, but we found a wonderful host in a place called Klub Atelier, a Continue Reading
Non-Digital: The Joy of the Zeigarnik Effect
I’m standing in front of a wall. It’s made of wood, painted white. There are two black, small holes, probably made by nails, at my eye level. I run my hand along the surface of the white paint. I’m in the present, aware of what’s right in front of me. Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Baltic Warriors in St. Petersburg
Last Saturday, 6th of June, the second Baltic Warriors game of summer 2015 was played in St. Petersburg. I’m working on the project as a larp producer, and it’s surprisingly strange to make a game that’s being run in a language I don’t understand, in this case Russian. Others have Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Mechanics Against Character Immersion
In my last post, I complained about the lack of published game systems conductive to tabletop roleplaying with a focus on character immersion. I said that the kind of roleplaying that I like the best seems difficult to put into a published book. In this post, I’ll attempt to elaborate Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Character is All
As a matter of purely personal taste, here’s what I like about tabletop roleplaying games: 1 – Playing a complex and contradictory character engaged in interesting social environments. Experiencing the game principally through this character. 2 – Sex and violence, craziness and stupid decisions, the kind of stuff that is Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #138 – Throne of Ice
Comic book: Alain Paris et al: Throne of Ice (Humanoids, 2014) Right now, Antarctica is an arid continent of ice, but it hasn’t always been so. A long, long time ago the location of the continent was different, and so was its climate. This is borne out in the fossil Continue Reading
Roleplaying Game Movie Night #19: Mazes & Mutants
I and some friends have a project of trying to watch all movies, tv episodes and other stuff with moving pictures related to roleplaying games ever made. We’re pretty far along on this goal. I’ll write here about old and new things we’ve found and watched. Mazes & Mutants is Continue Reading