The Sleepover takes place on the night of a mixed-gender sleepover party at an academic summer camp for teens. In a pre-game workshop, each character receives “the talk” – an awkward conversation about sex from an adult that reflects the adult’s perspective on sexuality.
During the game, the characters explore their own understanding of sexuality, challenge what they were told during “the talk,” share knowledge, and apply that knowledge through a series of party games and organic conversations.
Long Description
The Sleepover examines how adolescents learn and share knowledge about sex, sexuality, and gender identity; how they take what they’ve heard from others and figure out what is true for them. The Sleepover provides space for a variety of discussions about sexuality: through character development and workshopping, through the adult and teen interactions that happen during “the sex talk,” and finally, during the sleepover itself in the conversations the teenage characters have with each other and in intimacy-encouraging party games such as “Spin the Bottle” and “7 Minutes in Heaven.”
The Sleepover invites players to explore the following questions: how does a parent’s experience with sex, relationships, and sexuality affect the “sex talk” they have with their child? How does a family’s culture, ethnicity, and faith inform the “sex talk”? What do pre-teens and adolescents learn and share with each other as they swap notes with their peers? And more broadly, what is sex, what is intimacy, where do they intersect, and how do they inform each other?
The Sleepover is also about how we apply what we know about sex and gender in real situations. In the game, characters will navigate their comfort with intimacy and sex through various mini-games that are sometimes played at teen parties. This gives the characters a chance to experiment with how to communicate sexual interest, negotiate consent, and understand what sexuality means for them.
This game affirms, explores, and celebrates queer sexuality and queerness. In playtests, players developed characters that explored asexuality, pansexuality, homosexuality, and polyamory, as well as non-binary gender identities. Because the game focuses on sex-positive explorations and queer sexuality, the game also provides a space where adult players who may not have had positive experiences with their peers or parents around sexuality can try to experience the vulnerability, excitement, and awkwardness of teenage sexual exploration, through aspects of their character that may be very similar to or radically different from themselves