Graduate Studies

Digital Futures (MA, MDes and MFA)

Carisa Antariksa

Personal Game Sketches

Leading up to my thesis Trends Towards Piety, I created other game sketches in experimenting with a hijabi player character. The first sketch I created was Deen and Dunya, an experience that adapts religious daily principles as game mechanics. This was inspired by how certain activities we perform in the day would contribute to balancing the player character's (the "sister")'s day. The second sketch responds directly to one of the core aspects of my thesis document and is called The Hijabstagram Cleanse, where a subversive take to the shooter mechanic was used as a way to "block" hijabi influencer content. These sketches are personal games that experiments with real-world religion in games, as well as a contextual experience for players who would otherwise never play or move around a game as a hijabi character. Both of these sketches were created and playable on the platform Scratch, https://scratch.mit.edu/users/spaceydaughter/.

“Deen & Dunya represents an expression of my identity as a Muslim woman attending an art school in Toronto, while The Hijabstagram Cleanse provides criticism and expresses a personal frustration.”