My next game, that I hope to send to Fastaval will be “…And that’s it”. Between acts there’s a meditative pause that will last the length of a music number. The beginning of that number also signals the end of the act and is also the signal for the players to go and lie down and meditate over what has happened and what will happen now.
But I’m having a hard time finding an appropriate song or music number that fits. It needs to both the quiet and relaxing enough to be used as meditation music, but I also want it to hit the tone and feel of the game, a sort of tragic, feelgood, immersive experience.
So I’m reaching out to you for help, what music numbers would you suggest?
As a help I have included the introduction texts below here:
I might also use this as the synopsis for when I send it to Fastaval, but is that enough, or what would you add something about, and what am I using too much space on? or:
What more info is needed and what should I cut?
…And that’s it
That’s it. We’re done. Humanity is over. You are the last group of survivors and the first sign of the illness has just reached you. Now you know your fate, it won’t be painful, it won’t be violent, but over the next day or so you will one by one fall asleep and never wake up. You know that this is the end, and that you are the last. What do you do with your and humanity’s last day?
This is a larp that has its players create a goodbye. The game has the players think about how they would close the shop on humanity and by doing that have them think about what humanity is, and what we want to be remembered for both as individuals, a group and as humankind.
The players are a group of survivors of a disease called the gray plague that has swept the globe. There’s no cure, and the only sign of it is gray spots on your skin. You know that when they show up everyone around you will already have been infected. There’s no other symptoms, no pain, no choking or throwing up. All you know is that in a day or so after you get the spots, you will fall asleep and never wake up. The group knows that they are the last humans on earth. How they know that is not important, it’s just a fact everybody knows and accepts, no buts or ifs. They are the last.
They have been traveling for many months through the empty cities and landscapes. Every day waiting for the first of them to show the dreaded gray spots. Some were strangers before this journey, some knew each other, but during their travels they have become a tight knit group, a little society in its own right with their own rituals and habits.
During the long days and nights they tell each other’s stories from their former lives and remembers together parts of that long journey. Before the gray plague they all had different jobs and functions, some were artist, some had more normal occupations. But our grand society left plenty of supplies behind for the little group, meaning life is not a struggle.
So during the long travel all in the group has become creators in their own right. Telling stories, singing songs, creating art, making poems, taking pictures. They create by themselves, they create together in pairs and as the whole group. No one in the group thinks the quality of the works are important. It’s the ideas and meanings behind each creation they care about.
Now after a long journey, they have found this place, and decided to stop here and settle down. This will be their new home. No one yet dares to talk of a possible future, the gray plague still lurks in everyone’s mind. To hope is dangerous. But now stopping and setting up a home, it is very difficult not to hope. And the first whispers of time after the gray plague has begun.
This is where the game starts. The first act is the fragile hope. Slowly reluctantly starting to hope and to think and even talk of a future. They use their creative drive to speculate about hope, about the future and maybe still also the fear of hoping to soon. Act 1 ends when someone in the group suddenly develops the first gray spot. Five minutes after this discovery act 1 ends, and after a brief meditative pause act 2 begins.
Act 2 is the main part of the game, and the longest bit. In this act more and more members of the group shows the gray spots. The groups know that within a day or so they will all be dead, and humankind will be over. Our long history will end within the next 24 hours with the last of this little group falling asleep. There’s no reason to run, they already have the plague, all of them, they have just yet to develop the gray spots.
Now they turn their creative endeavor to the end. To creating the works they will close history with. Both their own, the groups and humanities. How do you say goodbye when you know the final end is near? Act 2 ends five minutes after the first member of the group falls asleep. After yet another meditative pause act 3 begins.
In act 3 they say their final personal goodbyes as they one by one fall into their last sleep. When the last person on earth falls asleep a final short meditation will be held on the now empty earth. And then the game is over.