Cloak and Boffer, a LARP adventure
Cloak and Boffer is a 2D action-adventure about a group of people at a Live Action Role Play (LARP) event called “The Dragon’s Meadow”, where they play characters in an action-packed fantasy world of their own making while exploring the thin line between reality and fantasy in a highly social, multicultural, in-person event.
LARP, or Live Action Role Play, is a real world activity, rarely a subject of audio-visual works, and has never been the main subject of a video game, as far as we know. Larp is a kind of improvisational theater with elements of play and psychodrama. Players apply to the larp in advance, and are given their roles, goals and motivations, which are used as a frame to interact with others, often people outside their immediate socioeconomic circle. By playing these characters out through the course of the larp, an intricate and unique improvisational story is created each time an event takes place. Our game, Cloak and Boffer, deals with a small fictional fantasy LARP called “The Dragon’s Meadow” and the community of players within it.
The player plays a character from a foreign country who visits this small LARP community and gets involved in a fun activity of action and adventure, while getting to meet other LARPers from different backgrounds. After digging below the surface, the protagonist discovers how many rivalries in the LARP story stem from arguments and fights that happened outside the LARP, and how complex it is to engage with an activity that transcends fictional and factual. Since every LARPer in The Dragon’s Meadow deals with their own lives and personalities, while at the same time exploring the in-game storylines and setting, the lines often get blurred, thus producing “bleed”—a real-life effect in LARPing where the characters’ and the players’ lives get entangled beyond what can stay confined in the LARP event itself.
The gameplay loop consists of traveling across the terrain and conversing with other characters, but also an occasional fight by using latex or foam weapons, colloquially called “boffers”. The weapons, safe for use in real-life LARPs, are oftentimes made, maintained and repaired by the players themselves. Combined with the outdoor events and camping nature of fantasy LARPs, it makes LARPing one of the more sustainable and eco-friendly gaming activities, which is reflected in the game design of Cloak and Boffer. While the combat can be challenging in some situations, there is no real death for any character, as it’s a LARP where everyone has unlimited lives. So if someone is proclaimed dead, they just walk back to their spawn point and try again, which provides a safe learning opportunities for players, especially regarding their behavior and interpersonal communication skills.
The story of Cloak and Boffer explores the themes of pretending to be a character and the ways people use that pretense to escape societal norms and their personal problems of the real world. In some cases in the game it is obvious that they use the pretense as an excuse for toxic behavior, which poses a problem in LARPing because the players can use the cover of “character actions” for their personal transgressions. The larper characters in Cloak and Boffer can also drop their act if they get too excited or annoyed, which can help the player find the “real” stories behind the fantastical ones.
