Note: Odysseus is crowdfunding a new series of runs in a permanent base. Their campaign is live now and ends April 16th. I’m not affiliated with it, I just like what they do!
Last year, hundreds of players inhabited a spaceship on the run, scrambling to keep one step ahead of the enemy. The sci-fi larp Odysseus was inspired by Battlestar Galactica’s “33“, but where that episode only lasted 45 minutes, Odysseus’ players worked, fought, ate, and slept in-game for fifty non-stop hours.
Odysseus is widely recognised as one of the most accomplished larps (live action role playing games) of all time and is the subject of an exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Games. Originally mounted in 2019 for three sold out runs, Odysseus returned in 2024 for another three runs. Over two hundred volunteers worked on the larp, using €190,000 to transform an elementary school into a sprawling spaceship complete with mess hall, bar, ops room, science and medical bays, jail, and hangar.
The gameplay and story design was equally ambitious. Custom open source software was written to power Odysseus’ combat and engineering hyperdrive jumps, RFID-scanners, internal message board, and livestreaming drone videos for away missions. Every player character was unique, supported by over 300 NPCs, their activities as doctors, criminals, soldiers, fighter pilots, terrorists, and politicians meshed in intricate “clockwork” gameplay. Where the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser’s story was hopeful and life-affirming, Odysseus’ mixed grief with joy, anger with determination, and its plot raised the spectre of genocide. It was demanding and adult. Participants had to role-play specific characters with lengthy backstories and numerous relationships.
Courtesy Tuomas Puikkonen
Though Odysseus’ tickets were €550 each, they barely covered its production budget. None of the volunteer’s 30,000 hours of work was compensated – but its success has its creators wondering what it would take to become a permanent, financially sustainable larp – one of the first of its kind.
When I met with Laura Kröger, Odysseus’ lead producer and narrative designer, it was for my upcoming book on the history and future of immersive art. I’d travelled to Knutepunkt 2025, the annual conference for Nordic Larp, to learn more about the field. Our conversation ended up being much more current than I’d imagined, so I’m publishing it today, less than a week after we spoke.
This is a story about ambition. Ambition in game design, character design, emotional design, production, SFX, and narrative. But it’s not individual ambition – it’s the collective ambition of two hundred people working at the top of their game, beyond what I’ve seen in all but the most expensive commercial experiences, all as volunteers.
During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed Odysseus’ experience design, organisational structure, production tools, decision-making processes, org charts, burnout, and just how many tickets per year they’d need to make it financially sustainable while paying everyone properly.
For you, what defines a clockwork larp?
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