RESONANCE

MARIJA by Alyssa Castañeda

Artist Statement

Marija is an RPG game, where you play as a young girl who gives birth to a monstrous stillborn at your friend, Lorelei’s sleepover. Ashamed, and scared, with the help of your friends' stuffed animals, your goal is to discard it before anyone discovers what's happened. The game is alluding to the Chrisitan themes, as well as others like adolescence, puberty, sex, family violence, and substance abuse. The game is largely based on my own preadolescents, and the relationship I had with God, my friends, my family, and especially my body.

Artist Bio

Alyssa Castaneda is a digital peasant laboring in San Jose, California. Her work focuses on practices, beliefs and iconography that embody and shape the social systems of the 21st century. Subjects include technology, culture, social doctrines, and especially Chirstinaity. Creating work that is about digital spaces existing in digital spaces is one of her main material concerns when creating work surrounding these topics. She utilizes her religious background in partnership with emerging technologies to create work that is ironic and questioning the political and social elements of the Western world. Alyssa earned her BFA in Digital Media Art from San Jose State University.



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Trulli
The UI of RPG Maker divides the map into a grid of 48x48 pixels. The dark squares are events triggered by switches when the player walks over or interacts with them.
Trulli
A zoom-in of one of two main object tilesheets. 768 x 768 px. Each object is either within a 48x48 48x96 or 192 x 192, depending how large and how I wanted to divide the object.
Trulli
Running animation spritesheet for Rex. Legs are shortened and "fleas" are misplaced to give the illusion of movement. 640x480px.
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Walking animation spritesheet for Marija. 640x480px.
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List of the rooms/worlds which make up the house in order of gameplay. Some rooms are embedded within others to show their relationship and chronology with each other.
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An event in RPG Maker is a way to create scripted actions triggered by the event command. This event has a conditional switch that can only take place after the event "0004 Bathroom Birth" takes place.
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Series of events with conditions applied over the hallway map.
preliminary render for exhibition
Preliminary render of exhibition layout.

Materials Spreadhseet

Gantt Chart






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photo of business cards to play the game
Cards to direct people to play the game online on their own time. I hope people would do so to experience the game for themselves.




A screengrab of the opening scene of the game. This is Lorelei's bedroom.
A screengrab of the opening scene of the game. This is Lorelei's bedroom.




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