Cien Años de Soledad larp

Cien Años de Soledad larp is a Czech experimental larp introduced in 2016 and played multiple times since then.

Summary

Cien Años de Soledad larp is inspired by the book One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. The game is trying to explore specific experience and culture of the South American people in drastic changes during one hundered of years it describes. It connects mythical stories with everyday life through intimate stories of one family. To achieve the feeling of the book and magical realism as a genre it uses several game design techniques.

Statistics

The production had 31 players in one game of cca 30 hours. Before the game, there are few hours of workshops to learn to use specific game techniques and play style fitting with the mood of the game. There were 4 runs in Czech Republic - two more shoudl be run in 2019. Participation fee in Czech Republic was cca 80 EUR per run, food and accommodation (camp style) included.

Techniques

• Pre-larp Workshop - workshops game techniques and play style for cca 6 hours.
• Flying Start - at a specific signal.
• Sudden end- specific event ending the story.
• NPC - many, mostly short time appearence.
• Soundtrack - specific sound to create the feeling of time progression.
• Tap Out - non-verbal and Safewords.
• Alter-egos - three players play one character.
• Reincarnation - each player playes more than one character.
• Fateplay - each character had scripted story.
• Taste of Intimacy - sex was symbolised by feeding each other a lolypop.
• Colours of Relationships - relationships of characters were communicated to players through colors of clothes.
• Game Master - giving new inputs in the game.
• Fluid Time - in line with magical realistic genre, time of the game is a divided in parts but they are not binding and too specific.
• Cut Scene - Flashbacks and reinterpretation of the past scenes as much as players want and any time in the game delivering feeling of very fluid time and magical realism.

Game design choices

• Openness - game is cca 80% transparent.
• Scenography - closer to 360°, but not focused on detail.
• Character Creation Responsibility - characters storyline mostly created by organisers with only limited input from players. But it us up to players to intepret the motives of characters actions, which are not clearly stated.
• Runtime Game Mastering - Quite strong influence of Game Masters in the game.
• Story Engine - Colaborative, focused on emotional drama.
• Loyalty to Setting - Playable, strongly inspired by magical realism.
• Bleed-in - Quite differentiated.
• Communication Style - Combined physical and werbal playing.
• Representation of Theme - Abstract related to genre.
• Meta-techniques - Many, see above.
• Player Pressure - Pretense, but mentally demanding, considering quite complex game design.

Articles

• One Hundred Years of Solitude - mapping of a temporary network
• The binding of Jose Arcadio to the fence_ a cognitive ethnography of situational normativity of moral controversy in the LARP game Cien Años

Authors

• Sarah Komásová
• Lukáš Brychta
• Tomáš Hampejs
• Kateřina Morgain Holendová

External Links

• Czech page of the game
• Facebook Page