Help Support the Living Games Conference!
Live Action Role-Play is a vibrant and exciting corner of the game world. Across the world, hundreds of thousands of people get together and enjoy LARPs that range from high fantasy to personal drama, big budget live combat games to intimate freeform Nordic dramas. From battleships dressed up to be Battlestars to educational games that inspire children and adults to learn, LARP is a genre of games like no other. That's why scholarship and exploration of LARP is so important to keep the field growing.
That is the purpose of the Living Games Conference.
My name is Shoshana Kessock. I'm a graduate student at the NYU Game Center in Brooklyn, New York. As a game designer and scholar who specializes in LARP, I chose to create the Living Games Conference as my graduate thesis so as to create a place where scholars, designers and community leaders could come together and share their expertise and passion for LARP. My aim was to create a three day conference that would feature panels, workshops and even a games showcase for the attendees to enjoy. Now, with the support of the NYU Game Center, that dream is becoming a reality.
But to get the conference on its feet, I'm reaching out to you for help.
While fundraising has covered much of the cost of the conference, additional funds are needed, especially for one of the biggest parts of the conference: documentation. An important part of LARP scholarship is documenting events for posterity to be studied later. I want to make the events that go on at the conference can be made available not only to those who can't attend, but to those who might want to study the talks for future reference and inspiration. For that, some money must be raised.
What We Need & What You Get
To properly fund the conference and provide the equipment for documenting the content properly, we are seeking $1000. This will contribute to:
- Getting equipment for documentation (audio/visual equipment and assistance)
- Graphic design and printing costs for conference materials.
Should our initial goals be met, the additional funds will be added to sundry needs for the conference, including aiding conference attendees who seek financial assistance to attend the event.
For your contributions, depending on the tier you donate, you get access to certain perks:
- At $10 you receive a thank you email from the conferences director, and your name is listed on the website as a conference supporter.
- At $30 you receive a signed Living Games Conference poster! This limited run of posters will only be created for this conference, and contributors will have theirs signed by designer Cryssy Cheung.
- At $100 you receive the conference proceedings sent to you on a USB drive straight to you address. No need to watch the videos online when you can have them all for your own. You will also receive a copy of the poster.
- At $300 you will receive a short freeform LARP written for you by conference director and veteran LARP writer Shoshana Kessock. You will discuss with Shoshana what elements you want in the LARP and will receive a short game in return for you and your friends to play. (To be received summer 2014 - writing LARPs takes some time!)
No matter the tier, you will receive updates from the conference team about the conference, as well as links to the conference documentation once it goes online. You'll be contributing to our success, and we will share the fruits of that success with you as soon as they go online.
The Impact
This conference is the very first live action role-play conference of its kind in the United States. By supporting Living Games, you'll be supporting not only the expansion of LARP and game scholarship, but you'll be helping to build a space where people can come together to share their ideas and design tools to build better games. Not only that, but with your support we'll then be able to take what happens at the conference and share it with the rest of the world through our documentation.
Should the conference go well this year, we're hoping to make Living Games an ongoing project in the years to come. But to do that, this year's event has to happen first! I'm passionate about seeing this space built for games and with your help, I believe we can make it happen.
Can't Contribute? There Are Other Ways To Support The Conference!
If you find that you can't contribute, help us get the word out to the community at large! Share this fundraiser or spread the word about the conference itself to those that might want to attend. Every little bit helps to bring this conference to life.
I appreciate your support and thank you for helping make this event a success!
