What is Odysseus?
Never heard about Odysseus?
Perhaps you have come across the name but want to know more, or maybe you are interested in how the new runs will differ from previous ones? This is for you!
Our journey began with love for science fiction, the grand stories of survival, humanity, and hope. The kind of tales that make you wonder what you would do if it were you on that ship, making those impossible choices. And to not have to imagine what it sounds like, looks like and feels like to engage a warp jump on the bridge of a spaceship, but to really be there. For us larp (live action role playing) has been for decades an unique way to step inside a world that feels real, surrounded by people with real feelings, making choices that matter, and shaping the outcome together.
Odysseus is for everyone who wishes to not just watch a story unfold, but to stand inside it, surrounded by its light, its sounds, and its heartbeat, and believe, even for a moment, that it’s real.
If you’re new to larping, we’ve written a summary explaining what larp, Nordic larp, and Finnish-style larp are, and we encourage you to take a look. But most of all we encourage you to shed aside your assumptions of larp and explore what it can be.
To get us all on the same page, we want to start by sharing our vision on what Odysseus – First Light is, and what it is not. What you’ll find here is an up-to-date version of a similar blog post we wrote in 2023, as an introduction for the 2024 reruns and we aim to cover here what remains the same and what may change.
This post is divided into sections that highlight different aspects of the larp. We’ll start with the basics and accessibility, then explore themes, playstyle and player experience. Finally, we’ll wrap up with thoughts of expectation management and some additional links for those that want to dive deeper into the world of Odysseus.
Picture: Viima Strengell
Basics and accessibility
Odysseus is a larp with prewritten characters and 48 hours non-stop gameplay inside an interactive and fully immersive spaceship. This larp is primarily designed for larpers, but we warmly welcome newcomers who, after exploring our materials, feel that this is the right kind of experience for them.
The fact that this larp will be created as a crowdfunding project instead of regular sign-up might be intimidating to some and we will be tackling those concerns on our next blogpost dedicated to crowdfunding. There will also be more information about practicalities as a separate blog post, but since some aspects of these are an integral part of the design, it’s worth taking a quick look into them in this post as well.
The ingame time is 48 hours non-stop – all eating and sleeping are done ingame. Those who are part of the clockwork play have shifts dedicated to being on-duty, off-duty, and asleep. There are events (including land missions) happening throughout the larp, including during the night. However, it is always possible to step out of the game to calibrate with others or to take a breather at any time, but the larp itself will have no breaks.
For us, player safety is at the core of any larp, and for that reason we will have a full-time safety team available for players on location throughout the event, as well as a player coordination team available before and after the larp to answer any concerns you might have. We take the physical and emotional safety of our participants very seriously and keep an eye out for any safety issues throughout the production and will act immediately to solve any issues we encounter.
We haven’t made a final decision on the location yet, but we are currently in discussions with several venues that meet our requirements. All potential sites offer easy access from Helsinki-Vantaa airport and public transportation. Our venue requirements include modern amenities such as showers and single-occupancy toilets, including wheelchair-accessible facilities. If the venue has multiple floors, an accessible elevator is a must for us. All main areas will be wheelchair accessible; however, some specific spaces, such as fighter cockpits and engineer tunnels, will not be. Land missions for the marines will take place outside the main venue, primarily in forests and other challenging terrain, with players transported to these missions by van.
The default food option will be vegetarian. We will do our best to accommodate players’ dietary requirements. Meals will be served several times a day, and snacks, coffee, and tea will be available at all times.
Sleeping will take place in bunk-beds or on single beds in large shared mix-gender rooms. It will be possible to sleep off-game, but the facilities for off-game sleeping will be similar to the in-game ones. We are dedicated to improving sleeping conditions for the permanent locations including proper beds and mattresses (mostly bunk beds but also single beds). There will be no private sleeping areas on the venue, but we are looking for options to co-operate with nearby hotels to offer upgraded sleeping facilities, however this option would come with additional cost if available.
A soundscape will be present throughout the larp, and some events will cause a significant rise in volume (e.g. jumps, red alerts). While we try to ensure that the sleeping quarters will be kept quieter, some of these sounds will be heard there as well. If you are a very light sleeper, this is something you should take into account.
When it comes to military scifi, some might have worries and expectations regarding gender roles and character competence. We want Odysseus to be as inclusive as possible, so almost all our characters are written gender neutral. In the world of Odysseus, anyone can be anything. Discrimination and inequality based on ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation does not exist in the game world, and any discriminatory behavior based on them is forbidden both in- and off-game.
Some tasks in the larp will include simple skill checks (for example the spaceship simulator Empty Epsilon, engineering puzzles, science puzzles and land missions). The game will utilize various game mechanics to help players play out the full competence of their characters. These skill checks are only present as part of the clockwork mechanic of the larp, so most civilian characters can opt-out of these skill checks, while they are an integral part of the game play for most other character groups.
For those that have an issue with body-horror and medical procedures, it’s good to note that there will be a lot of fake blood present, as well as very graphic and realistic looking prop injuries and simulated medical conditions (e.g. nausea, fainting). For the players of medics, these will be impossible to avoid. Other characters might also unexpectedly encounter glimpses of them, but it is mostly possible to opt out from this content.
All in all, our aim is to create an event that is as accessible as possible. However, due to the complexity of the game environment, it may be impossible to accommodate every individual requirement. It is also good to keep in mind that, depending on the kind of accessibility needs you have, some character groups might be less accessible than others. Our team is happy to give advice to any accessibility concerns you might have.
Picture: Viima Strengell
Themes
The genre of Odysseus can be described as social drama meets space adventure, with central themes of war, survival, difficult choices, and the mystery of what it means to be human. It is a dark and mature story. We have written about the larp’s themes and player experience in depth for the 2024 runs and it all remains highly relevant and we encourage you to check it out.
In its narrative, Odysseus explores dark themes of war and survival at any cost. The story examines how people justify the actions they believe are necessary, and how the glorification of heroes can serve to ease guilty consciences. These themes, and their context within the larp, have been featured in a separate blog post for previous runs, and remain highly relevant for future ones as well and extremely recommended reading to everyone participating.
Picture: Viima Strengell
Playstyle – the Finnish larp culture
Originally we described Odysseus as a “Finnish style” larp, and going forward that is still very much what it will be. Odysseus can also be described as a Nordic larp as it is also close enough in style to give our players a general idea on what to expect.
Compared to many Nordic larps, Finnish style larps are more heavily story driven with fully pre-written characters that include a backstory, an agenda, and meaningful connections to other characters. Because of this, players are expected to respect the material given them by playing out the objectives set in their character as well as playing with their pre-written connections. To completely ignore the pre-written connections in favor of making new ones is considered impolite as it will leave other players without planned game content. Of course, players are encouraged to make their character their own by emphasizing the aspects they most enjoy playing and calibrating connections with other players. It is also very much expected for everyone to play inclusively by including others in your plots.
Our pre-written characters have about 5-15 pages of backstory, and they include several fleshed out connections with varied significance. In addition to character material, there is world material and various group briefings. Some of these materials will provide instructions on performing the tasks of the character groups, while others are there to make the world come alive around you. The more familiar you are with the world and the setting of the game, the more you will get out of the experience.
Picture: Luka Pajukanta
Player experience – running the clockwork
The overall story of Odysseus has a somewhat pre-determined ending towards which the game runs like a train on rails. While we are putting quite a bit of effort into hiding those rails under plausible in-game reasons, it is very important to understand that this larp is not a sandbox.
While the path is set, it shouldn’t feel forced or out of character to follow along the trail of breadcrumbs that has been set out. If we have done our work right, every step of the way should feel like it is ultimately in the best interest of the characters (most of them, anyway) to go that way. Though the broader narrative of Odysseus is pre-planned, the larp as a whole is still a sum of the individual stories of 104 characters and the ways players choose to play them. Inside Odysseus, there is plenty of player agency and clashing personal goals to be explored.
There are several very different experiences to be had in Odysseus, the biggest dividing factor being whether or not your character is strictly a part of the clockwork elements of running the ship or not. The character groups involved in this clockwork are the officers and bridge crew, pilots, marines, engineers, medics, and scientists.
The core clockwork element of the larp is making a jump in space every 2 hours and 47 minutes for the entire 48-hour game duration, day and night. In order to do this, the marines need to complete land missions to retrieve so called “beacons”, the scientists need to solve puzzles within these beacons to determine the next destination, the bridge crew needs to calculate the flight path and steer the ship, the engineers need to prepare the ship for the jump (and fix it when it breaks), the pilots, bridge and sometimes the marines need to fight off the enemy until it is safe to jump, and the medics need to keep the sickbay running and patch up any wounded. A significant part of the larp for these character groups will be focused around fulfilling these tasks.
While this clockwork play is the bread and butter of a military scifi larp, there are also other kinds of experiences to be had. Drawing inspiration from the civilian politics and survival stories in several sci-fi series, there will be a significant amount of characters that are not strictly tied to the clockwork.
Most civilian characters either are or will be drafted to help out with different tasks of the clockwork. However, for many civilians, the larp will be more heavily focused on the emotional experience of a world-ending catastrophe, and some will have a significant role to play in rebuilding the society and the government. Especially the politicians, religious characters and the Velians* will be very involved in steering the plot forward during the last day of the game and in making the final decisions. For other civilian characters, the experience will be more focused around the community, their personal plots, and finding your place after the world has turned upside down. Players of civilian characters are more free to steer their experience in the direction they want, and they can decide their sleep schedules to fit their own daily routines. The players of civilian characters do not need to get familiar with the various game mechanics beforehand (for example using the Empty Epsilon spaceship simulator), as they will be taught the tasks they might need to perform in-game.
* Velians are a tight group from a different cultural background who are rescued onboard Odysseus. During the larp they are integrated to different groups depending on their skills, but they will also have their own plots and themes centered around their own closed community.
Picture: Viima Strengell
Closing words – expectation management
When we say that Odysseus will be a 360° larp, the image that comes to mind will likely be that of a fancy spaceship with immersive scenography and fully integrated and working technology. And this is absolutely what we are aiming for. We have built this ship twice now, and we have a pretty good understanding of what we want to achieve in terms of scenography and technology. However what we are able to create is highly dependent on the budget we have available, so there might be some compromises we need to make.
A fully operational and immersive starship might be the main attractor for many. However, it should not be the only one. At the core of any Finnish style or Nordic larp is the character, the community, and the relationships and interpersonal plots the characters have. The characters and their relationships are the beating heart of this larp. Ignoring your character’s plots and connections will diminish the experience for everyone.
Last but not least, we ask you to please not sign up expecting a product. While we are moving in a direction of being able to pay moderate wages to our team in order to make this larp available, we are still all doing this out of love and passion for larp. We want to be very transparent about our philosophy and practice, we are not the only larp company out there paying its employees but many choose not to disclose it. We feel it is important to be transparent about this but we also want to be clear that Odysseus in its future form is still the same larp it has been for the past 6 runs. We keep improving it while we move forward but ultimately the experience will remain the same. Any larp is a collaborative project created together by organizers and players. While Odysseus is one of the most expensive larps out there and we do aim for it to be as professionally made as possible, it is not, and it never can be, a product. We do not want our players to join us as customers but as participants. So we ask you to co-create this awesome experience together with us again.
We hope that this blog post has managed to clarify what Odysseus is and what it is not – and we hope you have nodded along the text and found this to be the larp for you.
Picture: Luka Pajukanta
Want to dive deeper?
In preparations for Odysseus 2024 runs we wrote a series of blog posts and other info texts about the experience, which are still mostly relevant. We will keep polishing and updating these as we add them to our new website, but the message will remain the same.
Info pages
Blog posts
Share the news!
If you would like to see the story of Odysseus live on and expand, we invite you to follow us on social media and help us to spread the word! The best way to keep updated is to sign up in our mailing list.
Header picture: Viima Strengell
Picture: Viima Strengell