Implementing Transformative Role-playing Games in Specific Applied Contexts

Sarah Lynne Bowman is a scholar, game designer, and event organizer. She received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in Radio-Television- Film and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas in Arts and Humanities. Bowman has taught in the Humanities, English, and Communication. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Game Design at Uppsala University Campus Gotland. She formerly served as Coordinator for the Peace & Conflict Studies program at Austin Community College, where she teaches Humanities. Bowman is a founding member of the Transformative Play Initiative, who research analog role-playing games as vehicles for personal and social change. She co-edited The Wyrd Con Companion Book (2012-2015) and currently edits for the International Journal of Role-Playing and Nordiclarp.org. Bowman has co-organized several conferences, including Living Games (2014, 2016, 2018), Role-playing and Simulation and Education (2016, 2018), and the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar (2022). More information at sarahlynnebowman.com.

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 and 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.

Elektra Diakolambrianou (Ilektra Diakolamprianou) is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, a certified adult educator, and a larp designer. She has a B.Sc. in Psychology from Panteion University, a Pg.Dip. in Person-Centred counselling from the University of Strathclyde, a Prof.Cert. in Art, Drama and Play Therapy from Edexcel, and is a European Certificate of Psychotherapy holder. Currently she is pursuing a M.A. in Creative Writing offered by the Hellenic Open University. A certified trainer of communication skills by Gordon Training International and member of the trainers’ pool of the Greek National Agency for Erasmus+ Youth 2014-2020, Elektra has had continuing education in cinematherapy, music therapy, bibliotherapy, therapeutic writing, gamification methods, game-based education, restorative justice, and social psychology. Since 2012, she has been working as a psychotherapist working with socially vulnerable groups, including: unaccompanied minors, refugees, immigrants, NEETs, unemployed people, former prisoners, and women. Since 2013, she has been an academic staff member at the Institution for counselling and Psychological Studies in Athens. Her academic work emphasizes the potential of larp as a medium for personal development and psychotherapy. She is also a co-founder of the LARPifiers. Elektra has experience in working as an emotional safety person in games and projects, as well as in curating larp designs for emotional safety.

Felipe García-Soriano is a sociologist from the University of Chile and a PhD candidate in Economy, Business and Society at the University of Alicante. He works primarily as a consultant and designer of non-formal learning experiences, with a focus on organizational development, civic engagement, and systems thinking through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) and participatory methodologies.

Kjell Hedgard Hugaas is a Northern Norwegian game designer, organizer, writer, theorist, and trained actor. In particular, he is engaged within the Nordic larp tradition, where he has been active for a bit over two decades. For the last few years, he has explored the transformative potential of games, and has proposed specific intentional game design practices that facilitate transformative effects. As well as being a founding member of the Transformative Play Initiative, Hugaas has theorized how ideas impact players through the processes of memetic bleed, procedural bleed, and identity bleed. His work on bleed has so far culminated in his 2022 Master’s thesis in Game Design at Uppsala University, and he is planning to expand on this theoretical work in the future. In 2023, he completed a second thesis for UU on the impacts of larp on participants’ attitudes and anxieties around death. He works as a project assistant on EDGE, the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership ROCKET, and the Horizon Europe Larpocracy project through LARPifiers. Hugaas is the co-founder and CEO of the game studio and research company Evocative Games AB, where he currently works as a consultant, researcher, narrative designer, and writer, including for the Erasmus+ Dystolarp project

Josefin Westborg is one of the world’s leading designers in edu-larps. She has a background in game design and pedagogy and is one of the founders of Lajvbyrån (previously LajvVerkstaden Väst). Josefin has worked as a research assistant and teacher at Uppsala University’s Department of Game Design where she was a founding member of the Transformative Play Initiative with focus on analog role-playing games. Westborg co-designed curriculum for Uppsala’s Master’s in Transformative Game Design and has worked as a teacher in its introductory courses, upon which EDGE is based. She has also been a teacher in game design at both Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg. She recently published an article for the International Journal of Role-playing entitled “The Educational Role-Playing Game Design Matrix: Mapping Design Components onto Types of Education.” In addition to EDGE, she also works as a project assistant in the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership ROCKET. Throughout her career Josefin has met thousands of students of all ages, and run and designed larps for them. She is passionate about designing for interaction, storytelling and learning. When she is not involved with games you will probably find her at the dance studio doing ballroom dance.