Game Production
In addition to moderating and performing on Twitch for over 10 years, appearing on a variety of channels including Zelda Universe TV, HyperRPG, Geek & Sundry, and Nerdist, Ailea has modified and created several games. Two of Ailea’s games are available to play for free and she is currently working on a long-form rethinking of one of these games, Persephone.
A musty Victorian home. A meadow of lilac. The statue of liberty. You can hold a seance in more places than you might think. You have traveled to this place today to right a wrong. One of your beloved has been murdered and it is up to you to find out who. You must call the deceased back from the great beyond to bring their killer to justice. But, be careful, the murderer could be the person you least expect. It could even be you.
Seance is a murder mystery tabletop LARP created for 4 or more players as part of the Golden Cobra Anthology.
Persephone was the goddess of the spring. It is said flowers would bloom in her step and she was renowned for her beauty. Hades, lord of the Underworld, coveted her for himself. Hades kidnapped Persephone and brought her to the Underworld where he forced her to be his Queen. Though she was eventually rescued, she had already eaten from the fruit of the Underworld-6 Pomegranate seeds. Due to this, Persephone was doomed to return and rule the Underworld for 6 months each year. When she is in the Underworld, plants wither and die. When she is free, they bloom and prosper. This is the origin myth of the seasons.
This is the most famous myth of Persephone- the only one in which she takes center stage- and yet she is relegated to the role of victim. She is kidnapped and she is rescued, but she never has a voice. This was the inspiration for our game Persephone.
Persephone is a short Bitsy game in which the player must explore and solve puzzles, as Persephone, in order to escape the Underworld. Created by Ailea Merriam-Pigg, Brianna Luettgen, Diana Peña-Morena, Hannah Beers, and Mikey Tarczynski this Bitsy game is a small-scale proof of concept for a larger game, coming to you in the future. Enjoy meeting characters from Greek mythology and history, from Hercules to Hecate, Sappho to Socrates. Just remember to avoid those pesky pomegranate seeds!
Persephone: An Odyssey
While the previous version of Persephone has acted as a proof-of-concept, created in the free online engine, Bitsy, this is not the final, or even the first, edition of the game. Beginning as a modular board game paper test by Ailea Merriam-Pigg, the story of Persephone was always intended to be adapted for a larger puzzle platformer than Bitsy allowed. As such, Ailea is now designing the final version of this game, using RPG Maker and her own created assets, to explore the possibilities of a feminist revisionist telling of the Persephone myth.
The two sprites below are assets created of Persephone and Orpheus by Ailea. While the initial game focuses on Persephone’s journey, Orpheus does feature heavily as an NPC. Once Persephone is released, Ailea intends to create a sister version of the game in which Orpheus is the main character.
