I'm Bjarke

I make games and write, both about games and not.

Here's a sample of what I do

Hi! I'm Bjarke A. Larsen.
pronunciation: Bjar-ge, like [Bj] in Björk, [arr] like a sad pirate, and [-ge] like a soft [ke]rn.
It's old Norse and means bear, which is the opposite of what I look like.

I do several things, here's an overview:

Game Development

I've made games since 2015 as a designer, writer, and programmer.
I have experience in Unity, C#, Python, Twine, Ink, as well as in ARGs and escape rooms.
See all my games.

Telegrams from the Choir Train

Creator, Director


An experimental narrative game running via a Discord Bot players invite into their own server.

Players will manage buying and selling wares to fulfill orders at specific stations during this journey. As they do this a story will unfold through letters and articles and diary entries. As they do they realize someone else is watching them.

It was made as part of my PhD, studying storytelling in ongoing "perennial" live-service games. I created the world, wrote much of its narrative, and programmed the game in Python, and managed a team of 5 people who helped make this game possible.

The Lux

Narrative Designer, Writer


An Alternate Reality game made at UCSC in collaboration between the ID and GUII Lab, to be played in the Redwood forest of UC Santa Cruz Campus.

I was the Narrative Designer on the project, wrote the storylines and organized the puzzles into the narrative flow. I was part of running the live game and played several fictional characters through Discord channels.
I was also part of the collaborative design process for many of the puzzles, helped implement the Discord Bot the game ran through, and conducted playtests.

Trailer.
School newspaper article.

Pointvoucher Games

Programmer

In 2017-2019, I worked as a programmer for Pointvoucher, being part of the teams developing live branded mobile games like Mr Bean Solitaire Adventure, Suppedas, or Emoji Blast, as well as maintaining steady updates for Play London and Far Til 14, among others. I worked in Unity (C#).


Eravola

Creator, Writer

An interactive fiction game about a cursed medieval village seen through a CRT-monitor. It was made solo for the WAG (Write-a-Game) Challenge, and was awarded a runner-up position in the Amateur category and loved for its subtlety.

Flux

Technical Director

Flux is an interactive documentary for tablets that encourages you to reflect upon the construct of gender and ultimately also re-imagine the social structures we are part of. I helped on this project as a technical director, helping to implement early prototypes and find technical solutions.

Selected Game Jam Games

  • "Voice of God". A voice-controlled game about shaking the earth. Made in a team of 7 for Global Game Jam 2017.
    Won awards for Best Game, Most Hilarious Game, and Most Out of the Box Game at GGJ@ITU in Copenhagen.
  • "Cthulhu Writer" A Horror Typing Game. Made solo for Ludum Dare 40. Awarded 22nd in Audio and 20th in Mood.
  • "I'm a Wizard And...". A silly physics playground about being a dubstep wizard. Made in a team of 2 for the Giant Bomb ROM#1.


Academia

I am a PhD candidate in Computational Media at UC Santa Cruz. I am expecting to graduate in summer 2025.

My research focuses on interactive storytelling in video games, and how storytelling cultivates online communities in live-service games, inspired by anthropological methods and creative practice, supported by game studies and humanities.
I'm study storytelling in on-going live-service "perennial" games like Destiny, FFXIV, and Blaseball. I have done a survey and interviews, and a long-running ethnography with Destiny 2 players. I have done theoretical comparisons with mythology and professional wrestling and analyses of design as a part of my PhD.

I also make games as part of my academic practice, as seen in Telegrams from the Choir Train and The Lux.

As of October 2024 I have published 11 peer-reviewed papers, with more planned for 2025, as well as an upcoming book chapter.
See this page for all my publications.

Before my PhD, I did a Masters in Medialogy (media technology), researching how mechanics in games create narrative meaning, culminating in a Master's Thesis titled "The Narrative Quality of Games and Play", wherein I dissect (among other things) the narrative elements of Chess.


Writing

I have written fiction since 2012. I write about fantasy, computers, magic, and identity.
I have written a book and a half, a multitude of short stories, poems, and flash fiction. Here's a taste:

  • "The Last Summer". A short story about two friends sharing their last summer because climate change is forcing them apart.
  • "Our Little Utopia". A short story about a post-apocalypse utopia and the fringes of happiness.
  • "The Silence and the Noise". A 25-episode Christmas Calendar about oppression, friends, and, inevitably, Christmas.
  • "The Hut." A Second-person, humorous short story about the nature of video games.

Shorter writing includes humorous speeches, surreal poems, double-poems and personal musings.

I write non-fiction essays on my blog, often about games, sometimes not. Here's a taste of those:


Besides games, writing, and academia, I have practical knowledge about a range of other fields within media technology, such as film (I was part of this short film), editing, and electronic music production. I love music and occasionally write about it, like these many words on on the greatest song ever made.


If you have any other comments, ideas, questions, I'm right over here:
Bluesky
Twitter
Mail
Linkedin

Here's my Resume
Some More Work