Narrative Design for Transformation -- Halfdan Keller Justesen, Martine Svanevik, & Sagalinn Tangen

Enjoy our lecture in the Erasmus EDGE Event Series: "Narrative Design for Transformation: Encouraging and Enabling Transformative Play" by Halfdan Keller Justesen, Martine Svanevik, and Sagalinn Tangen from Avalon Larp Studio. This event is part of our Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership for curriculum development in transformative game design.

This event took place on January 21, 2025.

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Description:

This talk by members of Avalon Larp Studio will discuss narrative design practices that encourage and enable transformative play. In the first part, Halfdan Keller Justesen will explain designing for player buy-in, including the structures designers need to have in place to facilitate a sense of safety and ownership that will allow people to opt-in. Then, Martine Svanevik will focus on character creation and character stories, offering different approaches to playing with other people's lived experiences or rediscovering one's own. Finally, Sagalinn Tangen will discuss the importance of agency to enable transformation for individual players. The talk will end with a special focus on intergenerational storymaking as a tool for deepening stories, bringing in multiple generational perspectives to aid transformation.

Presenter bios:
Martine Svanevik is a content developer at Aschehoug Education and a founding member of Avalon Larp Studio. She is a concept and content developer, game designer, and writer. Her work relates to digital learning and education, exploring the ways interactive experiences allow you to live the stories of others and see the world from a different perspective. She has been working with computer games since 2012 and with museums and publishers since 2018. Svanevik's expertise is in creating concepts, narrative design, and content for interactive museum exhibits, experience centres, and digital learning. Working on digital learning games, physical-digital interaction, and cutting-edge content design, her work ranges from high concept to finished script. She is published in Norwegian and English. She holds a B.A. and Master’s of History from the University of Oslo, as well as education in Creative Writing and Literary Stylistics. Her list of clients includes Funcom Games, Megapop Games, The Vestfold Museums, Sagastad Visitor Centre, Gyldendal Publishing, and the UK Refugee Council.

Halfdan Keller Justesen is an event manager and larp producer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has made larps with Avalon Larp Studio since 2017, and been a board member since 2018. In 2019, he completed a MSc in Engineering with specialisation in Sustainable Design from Aalborg University, Copenhagen. Halfdan has larped as long as he can remember. Since 2016, he has volunteered at more than 30 international larp events, where had a designing and leading role in five of those productions, and he slings a mean pizza. Since 2021 he has been one of the organisers behind Blackbox Copenhagen, and in 2023 he became a board member of Gnist. His current design interests are in runtime activities, modularity in character design, and how to include players as participants in the design of their own experience during the workshop process.

Sagalinn Tangen is a second generation larp designer, who focuses on storytelling and world building. Before turning 20, she set up her first Nordic larp production on her own. She is interested in how larp can be used as a tool for self-discovery and exploration, and believes there is a story hidden in everything – from the way we move to a piece of music, to the frequency with which we blink.

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Erasmus EDGE is a joint Higher Education Cooperation Partnership project between Uppsala University, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Dragons' Nest, Chaos League, and Avalon Larp Studio.

Learn more about Erasmus EDGE: https://erasmusedge.eu/Like

Avalon Larp Studio on Facebook:   / avalonlarpstudio  

Learn more about the Transformative Play Initiative: https://tinyurl.com/t8ba637d

Learn more about Turku University of Applied Sciences' Game Lab: https://www.turkugamelab.fi/

Like Dragons' Nest on Facebook:   / dragonsnestgr  

Like Chaos League on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/yc73r4jy

Like Transformative Play Initiative on FB:   / transformativeplay  

Subscribe to the Transformative Play Initiative YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/4hb5kpv3

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