Origin, Authorship and License

The LUNA Framework (Ludo-Narrative Framework) is neither a traditionally written textbook nor a linearly authored single text. It emerged as an open, multilingual conceptual system, a machine-readable knowledge graph and a practical material set through a multi-stage, hybrid process combining human theory building, academic discourse, practical testing and agentic system development.

How LUNA Was Created

1. Conceptual Starting Point

The starting point of the development was a series of discussions between Prof. Ennio Bilancini, Prof. Leonardo Boncinelli and Prof. Thomas Bremer. They gave rise to a foundational paper by Prof. Thomas Bremer (HTW Berlin) that formulated the core concepts, the design-oriented perspective and the basic architecture of the framework: the distinction between what can be laid down in a game and what emerges in enactment through the players, together with the goal of a precise terminology that remains stable across disciplines and languages.

2. Academic Discourse and Workshops

On this foundation, the model was further developed within the European Game Science Lab. In joint concept workshops between Prof. Thomas Bremer (HTW Berlin), Prof. Ennio Bilancini (Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca), Prof. Leonardo Boncinelli (Università degli Studi di Firenze) and further researchers from the partner institutions, the game studies, economic, psychological and design foundations were discussed, sharpened and brought together. The recorded and transcribed discussions from these workshops fed directly into the formation of concepts, their delimitations and the structure of the materials.

3. Structuring and Elaboration with Agentic Systems

Translating these conceptual foundations and workshop transcripts into a consistent, trilingual knowledge base (German, English, Italian) with formalized concept tuples, typed relations, JSON schemas and tool cards was carried out with the aid of agentic AI systems. The language models used were Claude Opus and Google Gemini, together with the open-source models Gemma 4 and Qwen 3.8; Claude Code, Google Antigravity and OpenCode served as agentic development environments.

Agentic development environments were not used as autonomous text generators, but as methodical tools within a tightly governed architectural process:

for systematically extracting and structuring arguments from the foundational text and workshop transcripts,
for drafting and cross-checking concept definitions, delimitations and card contents along explicit architectural and naming rules,
for simulating scholarly counter-positions (structured thinking tools for consistency and edge-case testing), and
for building a deterministic validation and publication pipeline that feeds the knowledge graph, print materials and website from a single source (Single Source of Truth).

All ontological commitments, structural changes and model decisions remained under human responsibility at all times and were approved by the architecture lead.

Under European law, there is no obligation to label texts created in this way as AI-generated. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 50) requires such disclosure only for texts published to inform the public on matters of public interest, and not even there if the content has undergone human review and a person holds editorial responsibility. For LUNA, the editors hold that responsibility. LUNA nevertheless discloses its creation process: anyone teaching, researching or designing with the framework should be able to trace how its terms and materials came about and where the human decisions lie.

4. Empirical Testing and Reviews

In parallel with the formal elaboration, both the architecture and the analogue and digital materials (card stacks, worksheets, sheets, design approaches and introductory texts) were continuously tested in real application settings: in university courses, international summer schools, game jams and specialist workshops with students, educators and designers, as well as in targeted subject-matter and language reviews with various contributors. Feedback from this practice flowed directly back into revising the terms, sharpening the cards and shaping the stacks.

Contributors

The following people contributed to the curation, editing, teaching, design and review of the LUNA Framework (in alphabetical order):

Ennio Bilancini (curation, review)
Leonardo Boncinelli (curation, review)
Susanne Brandhorst (visual design)
Thomas Bremer (lead curation, lead editing, review, lead teaching)
Alessio Magnolfi (teaching, review, editing)
Teresa Mazzarisi (review)
Jinzi Niu (teaching assistance, review)
Lorenzo Pagano (teaching, review, editing)
Jules Pommier (teaching, review)
Tony Pravemann (review)
Letizia Rodari (review)
Jennifer Seeber (teaching, review, visual design)
Vinny Smyth (teaching assistance, review)
David Witzgall (teaching)

Authorship and Attribution

LUNA emerged from the interplay of a theoretical source text, spoken academic discourse, agent-assisted elaboration and iterative practical testing. The agentic systems supplied drafts, structural proposals and checks; all texts, cards and data structures were reviewed, checked for subject-matter accuracy and revised by people. The English and Italian versions are currently still machine-translated from German and are being reviewed by human editors. With so many contributors and working steps, the traditional notion of a sole “text author” falls short. AI systems are neither legal nor scholarly authors in this process: they possess no epistemic intent of their own and bear no responsibility for the scholarly validity of the model. That responsibility lies with the editors.

Instead of a classic byline, LUNA therefore transparently states the roles in the creation process:

Editors: Prof. Thomas Bremer (HTW Berlin), Prof. Ennio Bilancini (Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca), Prof. Leonardo Boncinelli (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
Responsible Institution: Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin), coordinator of the Erasmus+ project European Game Science Lab
Foundational Concept, System Architecture and Overall Lead: Prof. Thomas Bremer (HTW Berlin)
Academic Co-Conception and Discourse: Prof. Thomas Bremer (HTW Berlin), Prof. Ennio Bilancini (Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca), Prof. Leonardo Boncinelli (Università degli Studi di Firenze) and further contributors from the partner institutions (HTW Berlin, Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi, Lithuanian Innovation Centre)
Practical Testing, Test Sessions and Reviews: Educators, researchers, language editors and the participants of the workshops, summer schools and courses in the European Game Science Lab
Agentic Development Environment: Structuring, draft elaboration, consistency checking and pipeline development using agentic AI systems (Claude Code, Antigravity, OpenCode) under human architectural specifications and human curation

License and Reuse

The LUNA Framework is conceived as an Open Educational Resource and Open Science infrastructure:

Content, Materials and Data (concept tuples, introductory texts, card stacks, sheets, design approaches, schemas and the generated knowledge graph) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), to the extent that copyright or database rights apply to the respective components. The license permits free use, sharing and adaptation for non-commercial purposes (in particular in teaching, education, academic research and non-commercial design practice) with attribution; commercial use is not permitted without prior inquiry to HTW Berlin and an explicit agreement.
Software and Tools (extraction, validation and rendering scripts, MCP server, website source code) are licensed under the MIT License.

Recommended Citation and Attribution

When using or adapting LUNA materials in teaching, practice or research, the following credit line is sufficient:

LUNA – Ludo-Narrative Framework. Edited by Thomas Bremer, Ennio Bilancini and Leonardo Boncinelli. Berlin: HTW Berlin; developed within the Erasmus+ project European Game Science Lab. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (commercial use only upon agreement; inquiries to HTW Berlin). Online at: https://luna-framework.org