Approved for release by the Golden Cobra Committee
Here's a list of the games submitted in 2018. Information about the games are available below for those shared by the designers.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g9WgKein7Q7OAlOz6ZAZkHBSwX3DGRpp
Styles of Play: Larp
The city stops, gathered around the stadium. The derby splits it in two. In the locker room, eleven players prepare for something more than just another game. On the other side of the wall, their long-time rivals. A ritual, a sacred space for the length of the match, only extinguished by the referee's final blow on the whistle. And between that, some sublime moments and many ridiculous episodes. In a word, soccer.
Tags: Soccer, challenge, team vs individual
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A larp about good taste...in literature.
Tags: Haute Cuisine, Intellectuals in a White Tower
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A game about living a parallel life with another - interacting with the same people, even often having mutual friends, yet impacting each other’s lives only ever indirectly.
Tags: Relationships, Drawing, Geometr
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_LF4ZPtFqhIleKAJQz9QOFAV0avK64E8GJP-gYutat0/edit?usp=sharing
Styles of Play: Larp
Nanolarp about grief. Siblings are looking through the things that were belonging to their late mother, weaving their share memory of her.
Tags: grief, nanolarp, memory
Styles of Play:Freeform larp, Larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
A tragic fantasy farce on the theme of benefits and bureaucrats.
Tags: Competitive, convention, clerical
https://www.amazon.com/Aukey-Wikoff/e/B00JJ37P20/
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Tabletop, Drinking Game?
You play as one of Brett Kavanaugh's high school friends who is comparing their own calendar of events against Brett's. This is all in order to corroborate Brett Kavanaugh's stories so that he can get that forever job he has always dreamed of. It is up to you to clear his name, redefine sexual terms, and most of all...lie your privilege off.
Tags: brett kavanaugh, calendar, devil's triangle
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Circle of Heaven teaches restorative justice techniques by inviting players to take on the roles of gods attempting to resolve pervasive injustices and violations in their community.
Tags: mask, teaching, justice, community
http://www.lessthanthreegames.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
The Clinic is a game about abortion. Players interact as patients and clinic staff at an abortion clinic.
Tags: abortion, pregnancy, healthcare
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
You are all college students the night before an exam. You've been cramming for hours and need a break and some food. During the break, at least one player is desperate and going over their study guide on a subject, quizzing other people. The others are just trying to do whatever it is college students do when they are sleep deprived at a diner.
Tags: Breakfast, studying, college
Styles of Play: Larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
Dim Sum originally began as a Cantonese weekend brunch where people eat a number of small dishes, and has since morphed into a cultural phenomenon where friends and families gather together. In this larp you play a group of family and friends who get together and navigate the complex social rules of Dim Sum and engage in games of status and face-saving, all over steaming hot tea and dumplings.
Tags: Dim Sum, Food, Pervasive, Passive-Aggressive Insults
Styles of Play: Larp
The families of a soon-to-wed couple meet for the first time, but things get awkward because every one of them is secretly a mind reader. While they are all capable of blocking their minds from being read complexly, embarrassing facts about each person inevitably slip
Tags: Comedy, Family Drama
http://ludoverse.blogspot.com/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RobbieBoerth
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
"Dungeons and Drudges" is a darkly humorous look at the tireless and largely unseen laborers who keep the master's dungeon in working order. The game is about the absurd demands placed upon the dungeon drudges, the surreal work environments they face, and their heroic struggles to earn respect.
Tags: oppression, resistance, labor, respect
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
A game of wheedling, surprises, and dexterity. 5-10 minute rounds for any number of players. Be egg-eating rabbits trying to convince a bird to let you eat its egg.
play, animals, physical
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
The Forest of Tamtonas is filled with small magics and mysteries. Play a Sage, an avatar of primeval force; or a Seeker, sent out to uncover and explore hidden wonders.
Tags: fairytale, scavenger hunt, all ages
https://eng.utah.edu/~zagal/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=a4a3GTMAAAAJ&hl=en
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
In this short-form larp you play a group of elderly lifelong friends that have known each other for as far as you can all remember. As players, you will collaboratively establish who your characters are and come up with some of the life experiences you have shared together over the last 60-70 years. You will play a series of scenes during which you all reminisce on some shared event from your past. Happy memories, for the most part. Towards the end, you will each forget each other until — as the larp closes — you all sit in the company of strangers. Content, but surrounded by strangers nonetheless.
Tags: ageing, alzheimer's, reminiscing, friendship
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Nobody in this survival bunker knows for sure whether a disaster has actually occurred, but the prepper in your midst seems to have a contingency plan for everything. All we can do is hope they know what they’re talking about, the food holds out, and there's a world to go back to...
Tags: Bunker, survival, apocalyptic
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A wink across the room. A cigarette, placed in someone else's mouth. "Why are you wearing that, love?" "Get you a drink, my darling?" Dancing with hips pressed together. A challenge to a fight. Fingers intertwined. "You need to leave, now."
In A Girl Like You, you come together with your friends and recreate a lesbian club in 1950s England.
Tags: lesbian, queer, historical
http://alchemicalgaming.com/games/
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
n this game, players create a society of numbers and form friendships, rivalries, and romantic relationships. Each player makes a mask to represent their number, and determines personality traits based on that number's symbolism. Numerical society also has fictionalized prejudices: Even numbers are well-liked and respected; Odds are eccentric and erratic; Irrationals are unpredictable and can't control their emotions; Negatives are dangerous criminals. Imaginary numbers are in play, but other numbers think they don't exist.
Tags: numbers, society, polyamory, stereotypes
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
GRIEF, ILLINOIS is a serious-tone game about a town where everyone knows each other, tragedies strike, and players collectively deal with the Anger, Guilt, and Compassion that comes with them. Players will create basic characters, form relationships between characters, deal with the Anger and Guilt that come from tragic events, get older, and do it all again.
Tags: freeform, grief, tragedy, compassion
https://dexposure.com/home.html
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
You're all dreaming variations on the same dream. But it keeps changing location, and it keeps changing perspective. You can change how it ends. But you won't escape until everyone gets everything right.
Tags: dreaming, metagaming, perspective, cooperative
https://twitter.com/DMarshallB
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp, Craft
A village of craftspeople are preparing for the annual Harvest Festival, a night of feasting and merrymaking (but also one of gratitude, apology, and forgiveness). Everyone is trying to make their best work to give away to their friends and loved ones on that day, while getting advice from their peers to make sure their gifts are accepted! Players alternate phases of origami-making and self-guided improvised scenes leading up to a cathartic climax.
Tags: pastoral, craft, origami, heartwarming
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
Krondar the Mighty is dying, and this time it looks like it's going to stick. "Heroic Measures" is a freeform scenario about medical decision-making at the end of life for fantasy heroes, based on the actual principles and practice of palliative care. An adventuring party must come together to share memories and help choose the magical care that will best help their companion die with dignity. This scenario lets participants explore the very real challenges of judgment and consensus around the care of someone unable to voice their own choices, couched in the familiar tropes of fantasy adventure, and maybe think more about their own wishes, worries, and plans for their loved ones and themselves.
Tags: medical, fantasy, serious, end-of-life, decision-making
Styles of Play:Freeform larp, Tabletop, Letter Writing, Rule Creation
How We Played is a game about three things we hold dearly: The times we spent playing games, the people we enjoyed them with, and the shared bond of memories we created together.
Tags: Meta-Game, Emotional, Game Design, Coping
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A larp for four to twenty players about a burnt out teacher trying to reconcile their career.
Tags: Teacher, Regret, Introspection, Time
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Jump is a LARP about a group of individuals contemplating suicide. It is intended to bring players deeply into the mental and emotional world of people driven to the brink of death by despair, and to explore if and how it is possible to save ourselves and others.
Tags: suicide, flashback, trauma, hope
http://www.rollinginitiative.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
In English, l'dor vador means "from generation to generation." It is the Hebrew phrase for the obligation of the Jewish people to pass down our way of life and the traditions. In this game, you play members of a Jewish family coming together for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, where you will have the opportunity to fulfill that obligation.
Tags: family, generations, hope, serious
http://tinyletter.com/BRUTALE
http://www.minimedifferenze.com
http://www.rugerfred.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
Leave or Stay is a quiet reflection on melancholy, change, nostalgia and the sense of estrangement linked to one's hometown. Players take the role of people from the same town or city: some of these people left a while ago but are now back, some of them never left. During the game you will have a series of conversations with the other players dealing with how each of you perceives the town and your role in it now that it's changed.
Tags: town, nostalgia, home, memories
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTOPTuq84czkP0i4-TIvwnY_chHtlRR_b
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
After the invention of universal Portamon translators, humans recognized the sentience of these species. Portaballs and Portamon enslavement is outlawed, and now their name has been changed to Libermon. For those who still want to be Libermon trainers, the only way to convince them to join your team is to build trust based on mutual respect, informed consent, and shared interests. If you want to catch em all, you’re going to have to go on a lot of dates.
Tags: Pokemon, romance, silly
https://thealeks.itch.io
https://thealeks.itch.io
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Players take on the roles of actors in a small, struggling theatrical troupe. One relatively ordinary day, they learn that a Very Important Patron will be in attendance at the venue where they are currently performing, and that this VIP has specifically requested at least one performance of "The Life, Death, and Apotheosis of Bastard Jim," part of an ancient theatrical tradition of partially improvised stories featuring everyone's favorite lonely traveler. It is now up to them, with their livelihoods and reputations on the line, to rally on short notice and put together a work of staggering beauty and genius.
Tags: performance, theater, cooperation
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Drawing a live human model can sometimes reveal more about you than it does about the subject. In Life Lessons, you will play a student at a weekly life-drawing class, across a series of six lessons. The process of drawing will open up your characters "to themselves, and to each other" and they will share and bond. [Important note: you don't have to be able to draw, or even to be interested in drawing, to take part. Drawing is just a mechanism for approaching the exploration of your character: what you draw during the larp will not be seen by anyone other than yourself, unless you wish it to.]
Tags: Drawing, community, self-exploration
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A look at consequences of magical fairytale romance. An STI support group in a magical kingdom.
Tags: adult, storytelling, lighthearted
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bsgrisingstar/
https://www.facebook.com/Eleventh-Hour-Productions-1485550028392331/
Styles of Play: Larp, Educational
Lowell is a LARP designed to be used by both game runners and in the educational setting to teach the struggles of the Lowell Mill girls of the 1830s. In this game, your group will take the position of a worker an hour from the time that management will be docking your pay. What grievances will you bring to management? What slogans or information will you produce to have the world come to your side before management makes their announcement?
Possible conflicts: Workplace Harassment, Dangerous Workplace Conditions, Suicide
Tags: Resistance, Labor, Strike, Communalism
Styles of Play: Freeform larp. Larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
Mech Force Nostalgia is a live-action role-playing game about giant robots and their pilots exploring a world they failed to save, full of sorrow and memories. It supports two to twenty players of age seven or older and takes about two hours to play.
Tags: robots, partnership, memory, exploration
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A brave group of adventurers have begun an epic quest to defeat the Dread Sorcerer, as related though fireside talks about their adventures. Yet one of them is secretly an intelligent magical weapon puppeteering an unwilling human host. At the end, this information is revealed, leading to conflict.
Tags: Fantasy, Morality, Collaborative
https://twitter.com/SpookySlag
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
Bros rise from the grave to celebrate Thanksgiving and not feel feelings
Tags: Masculinity, Dark Comedy, Hyperbole, Party
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
A modular larp that can begin play with two players, and include others as soon as they arrive, Oh Thank Goodness You're Finally Here is an absurdist take on corporate culture, meetings, clueless executives, "managing up" and bullet points.
Tags: Modular, Improvisation, Zero-Prep, Spontaneous
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
We went to the moon once. We don't go there anymore. This game explores what happened, what it felt like, and why we did it in the first place.
Tags: Space, Exploration, History, Memory
http://spoiledflushgames.com
https://www.patreon.com/blsichling?fbclid=IwAR1ZMgA9Ux6k4pG0Na0LIbNRgdh1L1gJtoX7jczpk4RvQ73YwghNabdIiIc
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
Open Mic is a game about addiction and sobriety, played at a real open mic or karaoke event being run in the real world. The game uses play to appropriate a real world space, transforming it into a sober open mic where players explore their characters relationship with alcohol.
Tags: performance, sobriety, addiction, public
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
The aliens have won. Humanity will be eaten; the planet, obliterated. But the aliens love keepsakes! They've chosen your small community to simulate for all eternity as the last reminder of humanity— if, that is, you can set aside your differences... E
Tags: class, suburbia, simulated "utopias", play to lose
Styles of Play: Larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
Search for like-minded criminals in this party LARP, but be careful what you say to whom, because everyone's a snitch for the crimes they don't commit.
Tags: criminal, party, talking
http://www.briecs.com
http://www.briecs.itch.io
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Pillowcases is a freeform live action roleplaying game set in the late 2000s in the rural United States. Characters are guests at a Halloween party masquerade. By matching candy wrappers, they will determine whether they have a romantic encounter or a change of plans. Through the night, ghosts will haunt them, for good or ill.
Tags: intimate, emotional, spooky, group
https://wizvisibleink.wordpress.com/
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Improv game
Polka Pillow Production aims to immerse players, if only for a moment, into a small country village, where everyone knows everyone, early to bed and early to rise is the practice and a hard days work is it's own reward. Prepare to produce pillows and practice your polkas!
Tags: Polka, Pillows, Workers cooperative
https://coxart.weebly.com/artwork.html
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Five proud pillow-fighting warrior clans,
Don iconic masks and trumpet their brands,
They meet and discuss how best to forestall,
The Promise of Sleep that awaits them all.
Tags: Pillow Fighting Warriors
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
A revamp of a classic icebreaker game; take on the role of rats preparing for the return of their king.
Tags: simple, rats, icebreaker
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
To ensure a bountiful spring you must appease the ancestors through ritual dance and sacrifice. A highly active, noisy but non-verbal, live-action adaptation of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du printemps".
Tags: Dance, noise, primal
A long time ago--perhaps 100 years ago, perhaps 200--a heinous crime was committed. The passage of time has since erased it from human memory, but the lingering psychic trauma has indelibly scarred the landscape. You always had a strange affinity for this place, but in the past several months, the landscape has begun to haunt your nightmares. You have come to realize that the land is crying out for healing to all of you, the remaining relatives of the victims and the perpetrators. Over the past several weeks, you have found each other and have gathered here to set this right. To this end, you will set out upon the landscape's trails, in search of the scars that most reflect the wounds caused by this crime, mark them on your map, and ritually purify this land. Only then do you have a chance at peace.
Tags: hiking, folk horror, nature, map reading, learn a skill
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/browser/publisher/id/13033
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A cyberpunk honobono game about rush hour at a noodle joint. Can be played with or without food.
Tags: Social, cyberpunk, dramedy
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
Ten years ago, the Empire of Dust conquered Vicen, a city of strange and sinister arts. The occupation has not gone smoothly and an active resistance movement still has a powerful presence in the city. Moments ago, soldiers entered the home of a Spy working for the resistance. A spy who one Soldier is only now realizing they know very well.
Tags: silence, eye contact, fungus
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
High Schoolers play Spin the Bottle. For each spin, we play the ensuing kiss - and then the possible future marriage proposal scene for the potential couple.
Tags: drama, romance, desire, hope
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Tabletop
Explore how cultures morph during an interstellar voyage to save humanity.
Tags: space, culture
https://jonnyggarcia.wordpress.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A Suicidal person is trying to end their lives, but they must traverse through a series of Obstacles that will try to stop them.
Tags: Suicide, Intense, Touch
http://guyintheblackhat.wordpress.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
A dark comedy about a propietary cartoon villain from the 1990s and his one-sided relationship with his neighbors.
Tags: Suburbs, Community, Villains, Intimidation
Styles of Play: Freeform larp
Two people fishing. Definitely nothing else going on
Tags: surreal, cyberpunk, internal
https://sharangbiswas.myportfolio.com/
https://twitter.com/SharangBiswas
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
Eldest has died. Together, the Family must prepare a traditional, 5-day funeral. Having moved abroad as a child, Youngest must travel to the funeral and deliver a eulogy to their Relatives, while grappling with traditions
and customs that feel alien, but that are expected of them.
A LARP about cultural confusion, misunderstandings, and family.
Tags: culture, identity, family
https://immerton.com
https://magischola.com
https://beatgenlarp.com
https://insideavernus.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
The Three Faces of Eve explores the categorization of women as maiden, mother, and crone, based on their reproductive capacity and beauty. It juxtaposes those idealized categories with the real bodily symptoms of puberty, pregnancy, and menopause, and encourages intergenerational conversations among women through a series of everyday scenarios.
Tags: feminism archetypes, women, freeform, intergenerational
https://goatsongrpg.wordpress.com
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
The trials and travails of the crew of a colony ship over the course of several generations.
Tags: Space, multigenerational, tarot, scenes
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
A tragicomedy for 7+ players about toxic role models in the entertainment industry.
Tags: workplace, harassment, rebellion
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/234653/Dead-Friend-A-Game-of-Necromancy
https://200wordrpg.github.io/2018/rpg/finalist/2018/05/23/SameBatTimeSameBatMitzvah.html
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Larp
It is the year 3000 and you are inmates in a prison colony who are about to spend 90 minutes together in the beautification pod before shipment to your final destination. You will ask and answer questions. You will give and receive makeovers. Your choices are limited.
Tags: dystopian, futuristic, makeup
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Parlour larp
The game follows a group of people at a safe house in the last two hours of the annual night of lawlessness. They just have to survive each other.
Tags: Survival, drama, intrigue
http://www.kong.cat
www.ko-fi.com/albertkong
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
The We-ness is a game about collective consciousness. Through a series of language rules, a group of players shifts away their individual identities and into the role of a hive mind navigating the world together.
Tags: Hive mind, language, pervasive, non-illusory
Styles of Play: Tabletop
In summer 1944, Poles started the Warsaw Uprising to fight back the Germans in occupied Warsaw, hoping, that incoming Red Army would help them. Instead, beasts crossed Vistual river and wiped out majority of people living in Warsaw, Poles, Jews, Germans, British, Russian, whoever they could find. Players are part of a small surviving military group tasked to find out what happened in Warsaw.
Tags: WWII, Warsaw, Mystery
Styles of Play: Freeform larp, Pervasive Game/Public Play
After a battle, women gather to trade and share news, though they are enemies who speak almost nothing of one another's language.
Tags: language, cooperative, freedom
Approved for release by the Golden Cobra Committee