PanoptiCorp, part 2: When Now Is Too Late

This is the second post about PanoptiCorp. The first was about personal experiences, so it actually makes more sense to read this first to get some context for the first one. PanoptiCorp was a larp about a dystopian marketing company with all the worst parts of capitalism. Everything and everyone was on the line of not being good enough, everyone’s performance was constantly evaluated and the company ran under a spirit of constant competition. Deadlines were usually very soon and the office worked more or less around the clock. ...

June 24, 2013 · 4 min · 799 words · Jonne Arjoranta

PanoptiCorp, part 1: the Soul of a Corper

Warning: this is long, rambly, and has no context. I will write a part 2 with more context, when I’ve had some time to process what I experienced. My flight left Denmark before I had time for a proper debrief, so this is also me pouring out my thoughts on my character. I noticed afterwards how much I could’ve used the debrief: the game was very present in my mind afterwards. Note on the person used in this text: I deliberately create a difference between myself and my character by referring to him in third person, as per debrief-instructions given after the game. ...

June 17, 2013 · 5 min · 917 words · Jonne Arjoranta

Ingress as a portrayal of American politics

I’ve played Ingressfor several months now. It is interesting to note that it happens to reflect the binary nature of American politics so clearly: There are the Englightened, who are welcoming to change, and see it as a possibility. There are even undertones of migration with the alien entities clearly trying to gain a foothold in our reality. These values happen to coincide with the progressive side of the political spectrum. ...

May 31, 2013 · 1 min · 130 words · Jonne Arjoranta

Gamified apps and tools

I’m taking a Coursera course on gamification and as part of that I looked into what kind of things have been gamified and how. Here is a short list of the more interesting ones I found: Epic Win: Gamified to-do list. For iPhone. Duolingo: Language learning. At least partly free. Available online, has a iPhone app. Trover: Travel photo app. For iPhone and Android. ClassDojo: Teaching tool (they call it “behavior management software” - sounds creepy) . For many different platforms. ...

April 19, 2013 · 1 min · 130 words · Jonne Arjoranta

Jeepform scenario, iteration 2

I ran a simple jeepform scenario based on Reservoir Dogs a few years ago. I recently became interested in larp again, partly because of Monitor Celestra. Inspired by my experiences in Celestra, I started rewriting the jeepform scenario again. I still don’t have a proper name for the scenario: I called it Reservoir Hounds the last time I ran it, but that sounds a bit too much like copyright infringement, so I need to come up with a better title. ...

March 29, 2013 · 1 min · 202 words · Jonne Arjoranta

Embodied Control Schemes

Modern games often use control schemes that rely on our intuitive understanding of the human body. With modern controllers, this has become even more true. ...

March 28, 2013 · 6 min · 1074 words · Jonne Arjoranta