Tag Archive for 'Finland'

I Regret Nothing

Published by Mike Pohjola on June 18, 2008 in Events. 0 Comments

I Regret Nothing was a Finnish-Norwegian art larp played at a city art festival in Turku, Finland in 2006. The minds behind the production were Juhana Pettersson, Eirik Fatland and myself.

Mr. Pettersson has published some documentation of the game. Go check it out!

A pirate radio station, a sheet monster, God and the Super-Ego, an underground complex and abducting passersby into the game. Read all about it.

Freefall - Larp Art Festival in Helsinki

Published by Andie Nordgren on March 14, 2008 in Events. 0 Comments

Freefall is a larp festival in Helsinki during the week before larp conference Solmukohta. The festival features four days (March 31 to April 3) of short and sweet larps that can be played in a day with little preparation. If you are curious about larp and want to experience nordic style larp the Freefall festival is definately the place to be. Roleplaying and art meet and techniques from many fields are used to bring out the best in short larps.

The whole programme has just been posted to the Freefall Livejournal, and includes everything from violent plastic cups, sad dates and train rides in Italy to war councils and neolithic tribes.

Katvealue: Larp goes museum

Published by Mike Pohjola on February 23, 2008 in Events. 0 Comments

I’m designing a larp called Katvealue to be played in the Finnish Museum of Fine Art (Ateneum) and the Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art (Kiasma).

The larp is part of the project Art Museum of the Future. The research question of the larp is if larp can experiment with new ways of being in a museum and experiencing both the works and the space itself. The fiction of the larp is still top secret, but has to do with art, as well.

The game is designed by artist Oona Tikkaoja, art historian Henna Kontusalmi and myself. It is produced by us in collaboration with the national art museums.

Katvealue will be played in Ateneum on April 23rd, and then in Kiasma on May 22nd. The name of the game means either Dead Zone or Shade.

Tähti

Published by Mike Pohjola on January 23, 2008 in News. 8 Comments

Just a short blurp about something only available in Finnish, but which might be of interest anyway. It’s my third published roleplaying game Tähti (Riimuahjo Publishing, 2007). (Ask to see or buy a copy at Solmukohta!)

The cover of Tähti

This is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play the member of a Maoist mutant girl band in the Finland of 2017. The action of the game revolves around dating, school, parents, rehearsals, fans, gigs, managers, celebrity and so on.

The insides look quite a bit like a teen mag. The 90s RPGs that read like phone books are ancient history by now. The only conflict resolution mechanic here is based on interpreting fortune cookies.

I wanted to mention this, as I know at least many of my Norwegian and Danish friends consider larp much more experimental and artistic and interersting than tabletops, but the situation is much more balanced in Sweden and Finland. …or am I just being prejudiced here?

Solmukohta, 4-6 April 2008

Published by Andie Nordgren on December 6, 2007 in Events. 0 Comments

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Every year there is a nordic conference where people interested in nordic style live action roleplaying gather to have seminars, workshops, parties and catch up on what is happening in the nordic countries. Some germans, americans, russians and other nationalities have been known to show up, apart from the usual visitors from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. The conference moves between the four nordic countries, and changes it’s name every year to the local language.

The upcoming event is in Finland and is thus called “nodal point” in finnish: Solmukohta. The event will be held at a conference center outside Helsinki on the 4.-6. April 2008. What you can expect as an outsider to the scene is an event with an informal tone and lots of old friends meeting up, some mad parties and very interesting topics in the panels, seminars and workshops. This really is the place to find out about the events to go to and get to know the people behind them.

The event website can be found at solmukohta.org and introduces the event with these words:

Since the first event, Solmukohta has evolved into the main venue of cooperation between Nordic role-playing gamers. The panels, lectures and workshops are a goldmine for finding new ideas about gaming and game organizing, and for floating old ideas around - it is a wonder how many old ideas in one gaming culture are found to be a novelty in another.

If you are not familiar with games and roleplaying at all, expect to do some catching up or prepare to not understand every part of the conversations you end up in. If you are involved with some other artform or just curious and open minded, you will quickly become part of the social context.