This presentation was delivered on October 20, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
When designing role-playing games and larps, in contrast to digital games, the design will often include not only what happens as part of the gameplay but also what happens before and after the game. From a design perspective, we can categorize this as two different designable components; the gameplay and what happens around the game, aka the framing of the game. Both of these designable areas can be designed for either leisure or educational purposes. Based on this, I propose this Educational Role-playing Design Matrix over the different designable components in relation to their purpose. The reason for this is to get a language to talk about the different parts of the matrix, to help make decisions about what part to design based on your design parameters, and to highlight what this means for the learning process.
Bio: Josefin Westborg is one of the world’s leading designers in edularps. She now works as a teacher as part of the Transformative Play Initiative with focus on analog games at Uppsala University at the Department of Game Design. She has a background in game design and pedagogy and is one of the founders of Lajvbyrån(previously LajvVerkstaden Väst). Throughout her career she has met thousands of students of all ages, and run and designed larps for them. She has also been a teacher in game design at both Chalmers University of technology and the University of Gothenburg. She is passionate about learning and teaching in relation to games, designing for interaction, and storytelling. ”Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
Click here to read a PDF of the slides.
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This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
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Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).