There’s two of them this year: The Cutting Edge of Nordic Larp, consistign of the usual mix of semi-academic and academic articles, and The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, which is a collection of reprints of significant and oft-cited articles from the past.
Some highlights from the Cutting Edge:
[ul]
[li] Larps from the Factory: How to Write a Good Larpscript (Elin Nilsen, Lizzie Stark & Trine Lise Lindahl): Content is obvious from the title. Interesting for presenting an argument for publication, and for its comments in passing about the anti-publication culture of the Nordic scene. Until recently they apparently thought that you couldn’t publish a game, in part because their games are usually frameworks with characters created by the players. Larps from the Factory proved that wrong, but at the same time showed how thin a lot of these games are, and how much the players are expected to bring to the party. As for their practical advice, you can read it here.[/li]
[li] Sharpening Knives: Integrating Phone Use in Larp Design (Elin Dalstål): Not an academic article; instead talks about how a particular horror campaign used cellphones to enhance their play. Useful practical advice.[/li]
[li] Bringing the Occupation Home (Kaisa Kangas): A description of the Finnish / Palestinian co-production Halat Hisar / Piiritystila / State of Siege. The game brought the reality of life in Palestine to Finland; getting people into the right frame of mind required creating some interesting alternate history, which worked for Finland (given its revent history of Russian occupation) but wouldn’t work for other countries. Larp for Change: Creating Play for Real World Impact (Juhana Pettersson) deals with the same game.[/li]
[li] New Tastes in Brazilian Larp: From Dark Coke to Caipirinha with Nordic Ice (Luiz Falcão): A short history of larp in Brazil, from its introduction through VtM and One World by Night to its newer, experimental phase. They’re also producing books (sadly, in Portugese), but skimming their first one (which includes a worldwide guide), NZLARPS is on their international radar.[/li]
[li] Crowdfunding Celestra (Markus Montola): We’ve all heard of Monitor Celestra, right? The game was hugely expensive - a budget of 120000 Euro - and they crowdfunded some of the up-front money to pay for costumes and tech development. This article talks about some of the problems and risks of doing so.[/li]
[li] What Does “Nordic Larp” Mean? (Jaakko Stenros): text version of his 2013 Nordic Larp Talk. Reasonable definition too.[/li]
[li] So You Want to Spread the Larp Revolution? (Claus Raasted): Good, practical hints about marketing larp to mundanes.[/li][/ul]