OCCATERRA – Iespēju zeme

…. Once on a magical island lived 5 races: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs … and aliens. Each race believed in its gods, its values, and was ready to fight for its sacred things. For vegetarians-elves it was forests and clean air, for dwarves – their factories were important, orcs demanded a lot of meat and therefore went to hunt animals on the island, people wanted comfort, but aliens would have flown away long ago, but their spaceships repairs required special crystals found only on this island.
How can so many different beings live together? How to agree on a fair distribution of resources? And what happens if some of inhabitants think others are wrong? What laws need to be passed to make things fair? Will everyone vote for these laws and what happens if they do not vote?
The islanders have only three options to agree. But if all 5 parties do not agree on a just and peaceful life, on the laws and principles of government – they will not be able to face the Dragons that will fly and destroy the whole island without leaving the winners …..

In 2021, the Alternative Reality Cultural Association implemented a project aimed at providing support to young people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Isolation, loneliness, lack of motivation, misunderstanding of what is happening and one’s future, the world in which to live – all this has serious negative consequences for the psycho-emotional health of young people.
Therefore, our goal was: to motivate, to encourage, to unite, to activate – and together to create something that will be able to help other young people as well.
As a result of the project, an interactive method of integrative and developmental work with young people was created – an integrative role play for young people, which can be used in further work with young people of different ages and social groups even after the end of the project.
Game type: integrative role-playing game Occaterra (Land of Occasion)

Game format: a socio-political simulator that gives young people the opportunity to understand the principles of society and development, to understand European values, the principles of democratic participation, the principles of elections, as well as to promote participants’ communication and public speaking skills.
The aim of the interactive game is the involvement of young people in the active life of society, raising the self-confidence and socialization of young people, active participation in various activities, learning about European values. The integrative role play developed within the project both develops communication skills and promotes mutual support between participants. The immersive elements of the game allow you to get into other roles, which have a positive effect on the participants’ psycho-emotional state and promote socialization.The game was developed for use in youth work in both face-to-face and digital form to involve participants remotely, so the project results have a lasting impact and widespread use after the project, using this informal method as an activity in other youth training and youth-related projects. .
This integrative game gives young people the opportunity to communicate, socialize, find new interests and friends, and become more acquainted with the principles of community building.
During the project, the game was created by young people aged 13 to 25. who developed the rules of the game, the design and the technical solutions for the digital environment.
Several schools in Riga have thanked us for playing this game for their students. Even after the end of the project, we plan to continue organizing this game in schools and children’s camps, as well as in the framework of Erasmus + projects.
We are currently further developing the digital platform for online play, and we expect the game to be freely available to young people on http://www.tabletopia.com as an informal method of working with young people shortly after the end of the project, as well as with other organizations involved in youth work.
Also, after the end of the project, we plan to produce a high-quality design layout for the printing of games in the printing house, and to produce several copies of the game, which can be used for a long time in various Erasmus + and other youth projects.
As we plan to use this game in international projects as well, incl. In Erasmus + projects, and to offer young people outside Latvia, the elements of the game are made in English.We will invite you to play with us very soon!

The project was implemented in the Ministry of Education and Science in the frame of National Youth Policy Program for 2021-2023.