' Golden Cobra Challenge

FAQ

What are the contest dates again?

Golden Cobra Challenge begins 26 August 2024 and runs through 7 October 2024. Awards will be announced on Friday 8 October 2024 at Metatopia.

How do I submit a game entry?

Fill out the Golden Cobra Entry Submission Form and email your game to submissions@goldencobra.org.

What do you mean by "Be a new, unpublished freeform larp"?

Original and unpublished. If you are recycling old ideas that's fine, but don't submit anything you've previously submitted to another contest, and don't submit anything you wrote previously and stuffed in a drawer, and don't submit anything you've already published in any form. Let your conscience guide you when it comes to what "new" means, but "unpublished" means you have never released it in any form, for free or for profit, in print or electronically, until now. If you have never published your game, but have been running it on the convention circuit for awhile, please consider submitting something else. Our goal is to inspire people with our constraints, ingredients and awards to rapidly generate a new thing!

What do you mean by "Games should be playable with zero to minimal prep"?

The players of the game should be able to grab the print-out and play, with no preparation beforehand required (or very little at least). And above and beyond that, we're looking for set-up that is simple and easy, and few additional props or tools needed beyond paper and pencil.

What do you mean by “The game must be safely playable in pandemic conditions...."

We are unsurprised in 2024 to find ourselves still in a COVID-19 pandemic situation. Just to be clear, COVID spreads through respiratory fluids, which means the densely packed, closed-room larps of 2019 and earlier are not accessible to the full community. Larp creators this year need to actively design the game to be playable under pandemic conditions, not just asking players to wear masks if they wish. The game must either be safely playable while players are masked and in a well-ventilated or outdoor space, or the game can be optimized for Web chat, streaming, Discord or Slack, or be epistolary, solo, or in some weirder format. If your entry can be either virtual or in-person, that's just icing on the cake.

Is there a prize for winning?

You mean like an electroplated Ferrari or a dice bag made out of unicorn leather? No. But even entering the contest means you have a cool game under your belt, and the impressive and honorable accomplishment of submitting grants you entry into the mysterious Circle of Power. We will try to run some of the games at venues like Metatopia or IndieCade.

Can you define "Freeform"?

Not really, we're trying to be inclusive in our definition. We're asking for freeform larp again this year since this has become a looked-to venue for writing such games. The games may include elements of other styles of play (tabletop rpg, online, pervasive, etc.), but must have live play in them.


Freeform is used to describe many kinds of games from indie tabletop, to larp in the UK, to scenarios in Denmark, a wide variety of games in the Americas, Sweden and beyond. Freeform has been used to describe tabletop, full live action play and more.

Here's some further discussion that gets at what we're looking for:

Noah Sara Williamson: " I wrote a game called Shelter that I think fits into the freeform category; it involves touching the other person you're playing with and things like keeping your eyes closed, so to me this feels a bit larpy even though it can be played entirely while seated (or while cuddling or while making out). But it has some tabletop elements, too: you might say things like "And then my character picks up the stone tablet, and a look of horror crosses their face" instead of in a larp where you might pick up a prop and convey the look of horror yourself."

Mikael Andersson: "I kind of feel like nailing down what freeform is and isn't is needlessly narrowing its potential scope. It's a form that's free, after all. I think the rules presented on Oct 1st [the year this was written] will give some submission criteria, which might help a bit. At its core, I think of freeform as just "the absence of [traditional] structure". There's a structure, of course, and there may even be mechanics... but it's often not based on using tokens of randomization and currency to determine and manipulate outcomes. The player's goals are frequently not aligned with their character's goals. There may not be a 1:1 player:character map, nor character ownership. There may or may not be a game master, and that person may or may not take on a traditional game master role. There are rarely any numbers or number crunching involved in play. But the more I talk the more I realize I'm assigning shape to something elusive by design, so I'll stop now."

How do I contact you?

Back to the contest page please!

OK!