[LAB] The aim of this paper is to analyze two examples of Polish fantastic novels for children and young adults with respect to the literary motifs of cyberspace and computer/video games. The following issues will be discussed: 1) Play as a process of exploring the (cyber)world: how does a virtual space shape the plot of the selected novels?; 2) Play as a process of shaping a player’s identity: how does a cyberworld influence the protagonist’s personality and attitude toward life? I will focus on the award-winning novels: Omega (2009) by Marcin Szczygielski and 5 sekund do Io (5 Seconds to Io) by Małgorzata Warda (2015, 2018). As Krystyna Miłobędzka has pointed out, many classic works of children’s literature are stagings for the cognitive process of getting to know the world. In Szczygielski’s novel, the heroine’s knowledge about the world is formed by a variety of pop-cultural stimuli. This knowledge is then reflected in the shape of the game. At the same time, the protagonist reproduces and modifies these elements of pop culture, using them to populate her postmodern initiation scenario that is carried out in cyberspace. In a way, she shapes her own identity, and ‘invents herself ’ (as Sherry Turkle would put it) by taking a stance on various postmodern and pop-cultural phenomena. Moreover, this is in a cyberspace where the protagonist of Warda’s novel really does have causative power, and thus becomes an active participant in her surroundings, rather than a passive spectator of events. Significantly, while playing, she creates – to use Antoni Porczak’s words – a shifting identity for herself.