In 2024, the Palestian larp organisation Bait Byout ran its Larp Factory training programme in social impact larp design and game design for 43 young adults aged 18-30 from the West Bank and Jerusalem. In this conversation, Tamara Nassar discusses the outcomes of programme, Bait Byout’s other activities, and why playing games – and playing pretend –still matters for both adults and children in the midst of war and occupation.
The conversation also touches on Tiny Steps in Heaven, a larp created in remebrance of child casualties, as well as the work in support of traumatised children Bait Byout is preparing and seeking partners for.
Tamara Nassar is an experienced larper and the lead game designer at Bait Byout, as well as its Projects Coordinator, responsible for projects like Drosos (the Larp Factory). She contributed to the 2015 book Birth of Larp in the Arab World. In 2025, her larp about the children of Gaza, Tiny Steps in Heaven, was on the programme for Knutepunkt Week in Oslo, Norway, and the Immersion larp festival in Turku, Finland.