Chapter 1: A Brief Introduction to Role-playing Games and Cousin Forms

Angie Bandhoesingh (Antzela-Sita Bandhoesingh) is an educator and larp designer with extensive experience in non-formal education. She has an educator’s degree from the Literature, Philosophy and Psychology department of the National an  Kapodistrian University of Athens and has worked as a private tutor, a child animator, and a non-formal education facilitator since 2010. She has experience in youth work across multiple projects, including several in Erasmus+. Angie is a co-founder of the Dragons’ Nest nonprofit organization (formerly RPG4Kids), is the company manager, and is the educational content supervisor for extracurricular school activities for children aged 5-12. She also co-founded the LARPifiers non-profit organization, where she is an edu-larp designer and organizer, including having co-designed the grant-funded edu-larp Superhero Union. A larper since late 2015, she has been an organizer of local larps from 2016-2019. She has been exploring arts and crafts as a way of personal expression and informal learning activities. Her interest in non-formal education stems from a desire to transform formal education into a children-friendly, student-centric environment.

Alessandro Giovannucci is an award-winning game designer and theorist working in the field of larp and immersive experience. He co-founded the larp collective Chaos League in 1992 and wrote the manifesto “Southern Way – New Italian Larp.” His work focuses on political and social topics, experienced through the participatory nature of larp. He has worked on different formats and styles of games, going from small ones (First They Came) to some of the bigger and most successful international larps (Sahara Expedition, Miskatonic University). Very active in the field of online larp, he designed games and organised several online festivals in the last years including the International Larp Festival. Alessandro is also regularly invited to host talks, larp design workshops and seminars all over Europe and their games are hosted in some of the most important festivals. Has already participated, both as a partner and leader, in European funded projects related to larp, civil rights and education. Alessandro is also a music teacher at the University of Teramo and University of Chieti, researching the relationship between materialism and storytelling in the arts.

Guus van Tilborg is a Ph.D. student at Groningen University. Originally from the Netherlands, he recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Game Design from Uppsala University Campus Gotland. Guus received an M.A. in History (American Studies), an M.S. in Social-Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Besides his academic pursuits, Guus has been actively teaching in various settings, ranging from language tutoring college students to teaching immigrants civics and history. Throughout his career, the central theme has been “belongingness” and how to make people feel welcomed and accepted: a theme that also happens to be his main research interest. Guus is a volunteer with Erasmus+ EDGE.

Taisto Suominen is an Associate Professor at the School of Information and Communications Technology of Turku University of Applied Sciences in Game and Interactive Technologies. He holds a Master of Engineering degree and has worked for 20 years in TUAS. He is a cofounder of Turku Game Lab and its predecessor Game Tech Arts Lab. He has been an active and key person on the TUAS game development curriculum design and Turku Game Scene activities. He was a board member of Neogames Finland 2018-2021 and continued in 2022 and 2023 as an observer member of the board. Neogames is a nonprofit association for the game industry to coordinate and support the growth and development of the Finnish game industry. His research interests include utilization of game and interactive technologies on various domains, serious and entertainment games, extended reality, game graphics and content creation.