Congrats to all! Especially to 2025 MAS author Peter Hagmann on the win!

Check out all this cool art! I have so much reading material now to prepare me for next year!

Hssssss

WHAT? @goldencobra.bsky.social invented a special category...for me?! I'm FLOORED. Thank you!

Woo it was a joy to judge for the Golden Cobra Challenge this year! (Also this might be the first time I’ve live presented a game award? I want to do this more often…)

super congratulations to @luckoftheharbor.com on her Honorable Mention!!!

Omfg I got an honorable mention!! I'm so freaking hyped!! I wrote Final Commencement 🎓

Thanksssssss to the judgesssssssss and congratssss to all the winnerssssss

I want to play this for my next book. And I’m scared to.

There are live physsical people at Metatopia presenting the awardsss thiss year.

sssssss tesssting tesssting sssss *mic tap*

Today the @goldencobra.bsky.social awards(ssss) are announced! While I cannot make it, you can find my entry along with all those other cool games at www.goldencobra.org/submissions2...

Tomorrow, JOIN USSS at Metatopia, 7 pm, to hear the Golden Cobra Awardssss announced. OR: Ssubscribe here and we'll fill you in. Either way: PLAY THESE GAMESS!

No need to wait for the awards to get playing! There's a "vibe edition" of Shawn Roske's Roots Underground inspired by local MN game Still Life. Plus a fresh game from past MAS contributor Alyse Leung.

You can read ALL the ssssubmissionss now. Awardss announced THISS Friday at Metatopia! www.goldencobra.org/submissions2...

The @goldencobra.bsky.social 2025 entries are up, including my game "a person is just meat" Go check them out! www.goldencobra.org/submissions2...

I’m enjoying reading these unhinged games. Even the ones I’m not considering for awards are weird and wonderful. Keep making experimental art everyone. The world needs it.

Send us your larps!!

Sssubmissssions now arriving!! We needss them. We needss YOURSS. Due: Monday goldencobra.org

ssssssssss Gamess are due THISS coming Monday, the 13th. Let'ss ssee your larp ideasss cook!! www.goldencobra.org

I was super excited to see that this year's @goldencobra.bsky.social theme is "Connection and Community". I feel like I mostly make social technology games, so this is my jam. Here's a game I made a few years ago to help end the year with purpose. kierancutting.co.uk/blog/a-game-...

It’s Golden Cobra tiiiiiiiiiime! Everybody up let’s go let’s go let’s go! Make weird games and put them out into the world!

Thisss year'ss contesst is there to fosster CONNECTION and COMMUNITY through your gamess. You and your ideasss are valuable and important! Otherss should sshare them. Ssssubmit! www.goldencobra.org

The Body(tm) is navigating a Space(tm) to escape a Situation(tm) …and you are the light that leads it. 🕯️

Golden Cobra inssspiration sstrikess at all different timesss: * At lunch * During a late-nite existential crisiss * While wearing socks * In a car * Definitely not *in bed* doing *that* * Eating small rodents Etc. When does yourss sssstrike?

Our Queenblessed Bodies, my Golden Cobra entry I wrote in a fervent 24 hours is available now on my website and specifically not on itch. This is a weird one and I'm really proud of it. Check those content warnings friends! luckoftheharbor.com/our-queenble...

Nudity, surgery, everyone making squishing sounds, becoming monsters together, one left behind, queenbless

Well I mean SOMEONE should probably stop me from doing a mechsplo-inspired three-player Discord larp but. You know.

Vaguepost your game!

Here's a thread on how to win a Golden Cobra. I've won it twice and judged it once, not that that's any guarantee. (Golden Cobra is a larp competition, which launched today, and you should totally enter). 🧵

Ssßssss

E aí, quem vai pro Golden Cobra?

Looking forward to judging this year! Ssssend ussss ssssstuff!

Theme: Connection & Community. A game that makes you feel a lasting sense of connection, makes you feel capable of working with others, rekindles your faith in other humans, leaves players feeling empowered, and/or leaves you feeling seen and connected, be that socially, intimately, or spiritually.

The Golden Cobra Challenge 2025 is NOW LIVE! Get your gamesss in by October 13th! goldencobra.org

Ssssssseptember 8 SSSOON

When people ask "How do you design a larp?" -- I have 3 responses: --Get together a group of adults to play costumed "Let's pretend" and let me know how it goes. --Peruse @goldencobra.bsky.social contest submissions. Now write your own. --Read our free textbook! trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024...

In last year's @goldencobra.bsky.social awards, I think there were a few games about parenting, because one of the categories was "Best game that lets children be present". We put that in to encourage games that let parents play, but parenting often became the subject. www.goldencobra.org

ssssssssssssssss

ONE YEAR won the 2017 Golden Cobra for Best Game That Gives Us Hope. It "focuses on building, growing, and managing change without an immediate descent into bloody conflict." www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2017/One...

The Golden Cobra Challenge was one of the first times I thought “maybe I could try designing a game”. That was 10 years ago and I haven’t stopped

Sssssss The Golden Cobra iss a 100% free archive of freeform larpss to which their creatorss retain the rightss. Our impact over 11 yearss may be sssmall, but we have never become sssomething other than what we are: a friendly game design challenge. bsky.app/profile/ella...

4-3 is a 2018 Golden Cobra game by Oscar Biffi and Alessandro Giovannucci that is unwaveringly dedicated to soccer drama. Players take on different team roles and then experience what it's like to be at the center of it all. www.goldencobra.org/submissions2...

EGG-EATING RABBITS is a 2018 Golden Cobra game by @timhutchings.bsky.social in which players balance a pillow (a bird) on a balloon (an egg) and then try to convince or intimidate the bird to give up the egg, with one last resort: simply stealing the egg. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2018/Hut...

THE WORLD IS ENDING AND WE ARE HERE ON THIS ISLAND is a 2024 out-of-competition submission by Golden Cobra judge @sparklebliss.bsky.social about ill-fated survivors who over-confidently think they will thrive in a hostile place. One PC is secretly behind it all. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2024/CKo...

Ssssssss Reminder that *all* gamess from Golden Cobra sssince its founding in 2014 reside on the websssite and are available for free in perpetuity. All creatorsss retain their rightss and are welcome to make a way more polished version than what's on the sssite. Sssssss goldencobra.org

POLKA PILLOW PRODUCTION won the 2018 Golden Cobra for the Best Game About Something No One Writes Games About. Martin Tegelj's freeform larp concerns Warsaw-Pact-era Slovenian workers' co-ops who dance and yodel while making pillows together. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2018/Teg...

5E COMPATIBLE is a 2019 freeform larp by Mendel Schmiedekamp in which you play D&D without saying a word. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2019/Men...

What a smashing sstart point for #larp basics! Props to @jmstar.bsky.social for hiss work on those ssound basicss for gamers!

Good stuff - read on!