Where do you find beauty in larp? How to create larp in the intersection of politics and emergent play? How to design for player desires and make larp while avoiding burnout?
Engines of Desire is a collection of 31 articles and essays about larp by Juhana Pettersson. Many of the texts have been published before and there are nine new articles as well as a foreword by the play researcher Jaakko Stenros. The cover seen above as well as the book’s graphic design is by Anne Serup Grove.
The book’s essays span twenty years of Nordic Larp. The perspective is that of a larp designer, a player, a member of the Nordic community of play. The book is an exploration into the ideas and dynamics of larp during a time of intense artistic development in the community.
“I’ve been making larp for over twenty years now. I wanted to put everything I know about it into one book,” Pettersson says.
Engines of Desire will be available as both a physical book and an electronic release.
Juhana Pettersson (born in 1980) is a Finnish larp designer, novelist and game writer. Larps he has created or worked on include Luminescence, Halat hisar, End of the Line, Parliament of Shadows and Enlightenment in Blood.