Standing in line

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) produces board games for historical education purposes. One of their games, The Queue (Kolejka), tells a story of everyday life in Poland at the tail-end of the communist era.



- At first glance, the task of the 2 to 5 players appears quite simple: they have to send out their family, which consists of 5 pawns, to various stores on the game board to buy all the items on their randomly drawn shopping list, says Katarzyna Hołopiak.



- The problem is, however, that the shelves in the five neighborhood shops are empty…



The IPN is the biggest archive in Poland. The basic tasks of the Institute include: gathering, assessing and disclosing of documentation created by state security agencies in the years 1939-1989.

Web: Institute of National Remembrance
Downloadable game: The Queue
Illustration: The Queue board game

The Belarusian Larpwriter Challenge


The competition invited Belarusian game authors to contribute short, re-playable larps discussing human rights and society. The best games will be played at the international larp festival Grenselandet 2011 in Oslo 28-29 October. Hosted by Laivfabrikken and Fantasiforbundet.

The winner will be announced after the jury has played the games at a larp festival in Minsk later this year.

Web: Grenselandet 2011 & Larpwriter Challenge

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

Larpwriter Challenge


At Grenselandet, the international short larp festival organized by Norwegian Fantasiforbundet and the Larp Factory in Oslo in November, the jury of the Larpwriter Challenge announced the winner of the competition: J. Tuomas Harviainen with the game “The Tribunal”, which according to the author is a “A participatory scenario about the mechanics of oppression”.

Harviainen receives a game developer grant of NOK 4 000 (500 Euros) and the possibility to go to Belarus on a conference on educational larping to hold the game and a workshop on educational game design. The game will be translated to Russian and/or Belarusian to be used by Belarusian NGOs in their work with young people.

Web: Larpwriter Challenge

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

Educational larping




Education Larpers’ in Sweden (ELIS) is a network of people and organizations utilizing larp for educational purposes. One of the network’s members, LajvVerkstaden, is a commercial society working with larp as a cultural form and a pedagogical tool. They organize everything from serious role playing games about democracy and oppression to playful larps in fantasy settings.

“We’ve worked with thousands of kids and youths where we together have created strong stories, unique to every group and in which everyone has been a co-author”, the group writes on their webpage.

Web: ELIS (In Swedish, English with Google Translate).

Article by Ole Peder Giæver