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Long-distance LARPing is an ERASMUS+ funded artistic research project developed by Nerdlab and Sickhouse. Our primary question is how we can build physical and digital spaces that foster connection and self-expression and where agency remains in the hands of the participants.

We draw inspiration from live-action role-playing games (LARPs). Our goal is to synthesise LARP design practices into a methodology for youth workers, social workers, artists and experience designers to enrich their practices and provide more creative spaces for the groups they work with.

In the spring of 2018, Jana’s great-aunt Lucia made the conscious decision to stop taking her medications and passed away several days later. For reasons that initially seemed random, Jana’s grandmother tore apart every photograph in Lucia’s family archive and was about to throw them away until Jana stopped her. Ever since that moment, Romanova went on and on for years with attempts to repair what was left of those images. This work is ongoing research on the societal pressure to define one’s identity and worth through fitting into family expectations centered around work, level of income, successful marriages, and certain types of behaviors, exploring the emotional toll of feeling inadequate in a culture that prioritizes productivity and obedience above all.

In the role-playing experience, you are invited to collectively narrate a story of a family based on the pieces of torn-apart family photographs. You’ll create characters as family members, explore the secrets and dramatic events behind the photographs by playing out short scenes, and eventually discover the reason why and by whom the archive was destroyed.

Time: 4 hours
Participants: 5-15 (depending on the size of the space, possible to do even more)
Topics: family secrets, family archives, photography
Mood: sometimes serious, sometimes not
Set-up: any calm and quiet space with a table and five chairs (per group) and a table lamp

ArteForge is rooted in the creation of mythologies through crafting symbolic amulets, relics and magical objects.  
Beladrys’ methodology bridges 3D printing, nail art techniques, jewellery making, and creative world-building inspired by roleplay game mechanics.

Participants are invited to craft a magical object using upcycled materials, experimental processes, and intuitive crafting. Through hands-on exploration, forgotten elements are transformed, and matter becomes a vessel for meaning.

 It is a sensory and imaginative experience.
By activating intuition and engaging the senses, participants witness a new mythology emerging through their hands.   Each artefact becomes a portal revealing shared values, stories, and symbolic languages that can strengthen a community or define a world.

The Line Is the Game is a short, comedy live-action role-playing game that turns the everyday frustration of waiting into something playful and a little chaotic developed by Jana Romanova. Get your role from the ticket machine and join the line — possibly for a bathroom, possibly for art. Complete your task and use your one-time superpower to change the line before the doors finally open. Tired of waiting? Step out, come back as someone new, and see whether how you wait is a more interesting story than what you’re waiting for.

1987, Norfolk, England.
A group of friends on holiday together are cut off from the world when a violent storm causes a blackout.

A series of teletext broadcasts become their only connection to the outside world. But such broadcasts shouldn't even be possible during a blackout and they are getting increasingly personal...
Something is dying to communicate.

Transmission is a cosmic-horror, Zoom based LARP. Here is a collage of images and quotes from the play.

A story of friendship and selflessness. Bridging the worlds between VRChat and reality, this unique documentary follows a friendship founded in VR that blossoms into an act of life changing generosity. Hiyu, a Stockholm-based VR creator is battling imminent kidney failure. His online friend from New York, Photographotter, hears the news and volunteers to donate his kidney, thus saving Hiyu’s life.

By a series of embodiment exercises, we shift our awareness to our virtual bodies and our attention to each other in the social VR environment. We aim to feel fully present in our virtual skins and fully connected to each other.

"The Language of Plants" is a LARP scenario about listening to plants. Players will take turns to embody plants, to listen and communicate verbally and non-verbally. Players take their problems to the plant, the plant listens and responds. The scenario can be played close to home and used as a therapeutic journey, or the stories talked about can be completely invented, it's up to you.

Welcome to a hybrid party! Boris Molchanov is performing an improvised electronic music live-set while being in VR using the PatchWorld. The best part, you can join in and jam together on virtual instruments, all designed inside the app.

VR optional, dancing recommended.

facilitated by Lucas Dewulf
developed by Sarah Ticho & Niki Smit

Much as the bottom of the oceans, and the far reaches of space remain mysterious to us, there is still so much to explore and learn about our inner worlds.

Soul Paint brings together art and science to explore the diversity of human experience. We end the VR weekend with it as a guided reflection experience .

by Steph Holl-Trieu & Carina Erdmann

How do you give and take time –
and what for?

Temporal Worlding is a Remote Reality Game that blends digital gaming with Live Action Role-Playing (LARP). In pairs, you will embody a single character split into two bodies: gamer and avatar. Connected through a video call, you go on a walk together, navigating time through voice, movement, and a shared narration. Along the way, you will come to terms with how you perceive time – not only through standardized clock time or your own bodily rhythms, but also through social senses of the future, past, and present.

Eating Oranges in the Shower 🍊is a remix of The Bathhouse by Rex England. It is about the queer joy that can be found in online communities and the connections that can be found in stories on those platforms. Players will begin with their characters bonding the way they know best - debating recent reddit r/AITA and r/relationships posts. In the middle of the game, players will find out about the r/ShowerOrange subreddit dedicated to eating oranges in the shower. They will then go off and take a shower - during which they will eat an orange. They will then return and talk about how they found the experience.

by Hazel Anneke Dixon

A great land-owner has bought the forest, and now the plants are contractually bound to build his Golf Course! Will they comply, or secretly resist?

“Growing Together” is a game about embodying sentient plants, a game of semi-competitive make believe. Try to coexist while keeping each other happy: the rich clients and the plants.

played on Discord

A group of random people are busy at the library when a sudden earthquake hits. In shock they look around. A previously unseen Fax machine jumps to life.

A group of random people walk by each other, and suddenly an earthquake hits: light flashes and explosions are heard in the distance. In shock they look around, they’re trapped. A previously unseen Fax machine comes into view.

Missing (l)ink is a short LARP about communicating through time. You do not have endless resources to communicate, the ink will run out, so don’t miss the chance to say all you want to say.

played through fax or two printers

The world fills with darkness. A curse of the darkness has been unleashed, turning everyone into gargoyles. The only thing stopping this curse is the light of fire. You got split up from the one you cannot go without just before this happens and are trying to survive this together.

Tides of Life is a bittersweet short larp about melancholy, regrets and acceptance. It’s an experience that invites the players to reflect about their past self and the choices made through co-creative memory as well as bridge building between different versions of the same character.

In Tides of Life, two players will be sharing the story of one character that has a strong, unmistakable bond with the sea. At one point in their life, their longing for the sea is challenged, and their ties with the sea and the land are shaken up and questioned. As the end of their life is nearing, they look back at this moment in their life, and the decisions they made. They start wondering about how they fared in the tides of their life, or how they might have fared differently. In this lonely moment of reflectiveness, they pick up the phone for an unexpected meaningful call.

played through a webpage and a phone call