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). 🧵

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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

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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!

THE 2021 GOLDEN COBRA COMMITTEE LARP GUIDE written by Golden Cobra co-founder @jmstar.bsky.social isss a great sstarting point for any larpwright trying to get the basics right. How do you structure a human meeting so it'ss interessting to its participants? docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A WAKE IN THE DREAM OF THE LAST DRAWER by Christopher Tang won "Most Loving Dedication" in 2022. The game is a funeral wake in remembrance of Captain Valor, who is part of a community of heroes drawn by women and minorities in the early 20th Century US. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2022/Tan...

If I remember correctly this got an honorable mention which is my highest Golden Cobra accolade to date (of which I am very proud!)

TOO MANY MEDIUMS by @stephendewey.bsky.social is a 2016 game to be played by 4 players at a noisy gaming convention. Your quiet spirit-summoning space has been overbooked with 3 other mediums of varying repute. How will you hear the ghosts now? www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2016/Too...

THE FORTUNATE ONES by Julian Blechner is a two-person remote experience written in 2020 about an AI preparing a human to have their consciousness uploaded. The game uses the asymmetrical information offered by Zoom as a sensory opportunity. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2020/Ble...

Ssssmaller gamess Ssssmaller gamess Write a ssmall game For usss thiss year bsky.app/profile/majo...

I just wanna add that the @goldencobra.bsky.social larps occupy the space of free, outsider art games, like zines. There's little "high art" about them, and they've been written all over the world. Expansion of the larp medium is the goal, in all directions.

CALOR É BOM PRA MOSQUITO! is a 2023 Golden Cobra Honorable Mention by Tadeu Rodrigues and Caue Reigota. The committee game uses literal ice and Brazilian idiomatic expressions to deliver a direct climate-change class critique. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2023/Ama...

This is my favourite Golden Cobra game ever. I wish there were more like it. It's free, so have a look.

Turns out I've been designing larps for over ten years. This was my debut and it's been played in more countries than I've been to!

UNHEROES by @joannajanuary.bsky.social is a 2014 Golden Cobra award winner in the "Most Appealing to Newcomers" category Play "normal" people who are actually superheroes who lost to a supervillain who erased their reality after they failed to stop them. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/Unheroes...

WE CONSIGN THEM TO THE DEEP by @hazelxd.bsky.social is a 2021 Golden Cobra submission about a group of mermaids who have to decide which human ship to sink, possibly to save their own souls. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2021/Dix...

AND THEY WERE CHECKMATES! by Dustin Freeman is a 2024 Golden Cobra submission. A freeform larp about an erm... intense chess match. "No player needs to know anything about chess; the less, the better." www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2024/DFr...

TOURNAMENT OF THE JADE VIPER by Jack Rosetree is a 2019 Rock-Paper-Scissors homage to Mortal Kombat. Players bluff and bluster their way to victory in a 200-year fighting tournament. www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2019/Ros...

A​ ​BEGINNER’S​ ​GUIDE​ ​TO​ ​SURVIVING​ ​GOVERNMENT​ ​ACTION is a 2017 Golden Cobra submission by Aven McConnaughey. You're a small group that experienced a protest together, and have gathered in a local diner after it was forcibly dispersed. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l06ls...

Did you know: From 2014-2024, we've received 542 ssubmissionss for the Golden Cobra Challenge. That is a lot of freeform larpssss! In 2025, watch this sspace as we talk about the many gems in thisss collection. Our authorsss are brilliant!

There is a absolutely an audience for serious, reflective games. This game by @kurtrefling.bsky.social, a LARP in which you enact a eulogy for a fictitious person, just won a Golden Cobra a few weeks ago: www.goldencobra.org/pdf/2024/KRe...

Write ssssssomething thisss year!

There's ALWAYS Polka Pillow Production from Golden Cobra 2018: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ggmt...

Ssssssss The 2024 Golden Cobra Awards are......

sssssssss Check out the games for 2024 Awards announced THISS Friday at Metatopia