m4rina's archives

digital art gallery

This is my digital art showcase.All images and videos on this page were created by me using various free art editing programs on Android and PC.I’ve been experimenting with digital art since around 2015. Most works are based on photos I either took myself or images found online, with varying results.There's also a few silly compositions, pixel art experiments and music cover art. Not every piece I've ever made is in this archive; a considerable part is stored in my Drive archives, thus, not immediately accessible.Click each preview to expand the pictures; alt text is available.

No generative AI tools are used

about me / this site

Welcome to m4rina's archives and thank you for your interest.My preferred name is marina, and here’s what I can tell you about myself in a few paragraphs:


🎓 Academically/Professionally:I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with a focus on Education, and teaching degrees in Languages (Portuguese and English), with emphasis on Linguistics. My professional work is centered in Education as an EFL teacher.


💾 Interests and hobbies:My common handle, “m4rina” (or m⁴), refers both to my name and to my four main hobbies/projects, as presented in the main page. That is: game archiving and curation, chiptune composing, worldbuilding and digital art.From time to time, I enjoy drawing some symmetric graphisms and trying out some plastic art and prop-making experiments. Other hobbies include numismatics (and related collections), speedcubing, writing (albeit very rarely), collecting old tech and game merch.In general, I just like to study and learn about different stuff and am a pretty praxis-oriented person.


Thank you for reading,

mariNSF chiptunes

Featured Track: Omega Star

The mariNSF chiptunes project is a showcase of my FamiTracker original compositions and covers, most of which are video game tunes. Though my music is available for free on Youtube, you can purchase my original track albums and support my work through Bandcamp.Click the banners below to watch and listen to the tracker playlist videos on Youtube and read some insight about each piece.

Originals are also available as .nes roms!▸ Tracks 1 to 10 ---- Download▹ Tracks 11 to 20 ---- WIP

See mariNSF extras for experiments, memes, and fixes.

FAQ (not really)What exactly is a Tracker?To simplify it, a music tracker is a kind of software where you can compose by placing notes and effects in a grid. FamiTracker (and its maintained fork Dn-FamiTracker) is designed for NES/Famicom chiptunes, and gives precise control over the console’s five native sound channels. My work uses only the 2A03 chip for real hardware compatibility. Though compatible, tracker composition is quite different from how NES music was originally made in the ’80s, which involved writing low-level code directly to the APU with proprietary tools. A FamiTracker module can be exported into .nsf files, playable in compatible players. Through other tools, these files can be further converted into .nes files, full NES programs that run on hardware or emulators, containing both the music data and playback code.How did I get into this?Despite always having enjoyed chipmusic, tracker composing was a creative endeavor from which I shied away for nearly two decades, fearing the process would be too daunting and I wouldn’t have what it took to learn it. However, on June 2024, I decided it was time to try and take my first steps into this world, mostly thanks to a helpful friend who patiently taught me the ropes of it. Though I have come a long way, I know there’s still a lot more to learn. Either way, I’m glad to share my music with everyone who cares enough to listen.

*To play the .nsf files, you'll need chipmusic playback software such as these for PC/Android. To play the compilations, you'll need a recent NES emulator.

videogame diaries

Having played video games for as long as I can remember, they’re deeply tied to my sense of self, and constitute my perception of time, space, memory, and affection.The videogame diaries project began back in 2017, on Twitter and Evernote, when I started writing reviews (graded or not) and simple gaming log threads to preserve my experiences and revisit the games I’ve enjoyed.The texts vary in length, depth and quality; I write them mainly to practice my writing and document what I play, not for professional or promotional purposes.The project also serves as a catalog of my collections and archive of played games. That being said, the project pages can be found below, as standalone pages and spreadsheets.

📚 VGD Reviews and Listing
Google Spreadsheet with reviews and gameplay diaries.


📄 VGD Collection Master List
Google Spreadsheet with current collection catalogue.


🗓️ VGD Legacy Archive
Google Docs page with past played games and info links.


🖼️ VGD Art Gallery
Google Drive page with icons and headers made for the project.

minecraft diaries

I’ve always had an appreciation for science fiction/fantasy literature and their realms in particular. Since I've always liked coming up with my own worlds and stories, I eventually turned to Minecraft to materialize those worlds through creative mode building and writing.The minecraft diaries is my personal world-building project through which I bring my universes and narratives to life via writing and mostly creative mode building in Java Minecraft. I try to keep up with version updates, but some builds are for older versions.

Click the pictures below to read the series' documentation (descriptions, lore, build update pictures) and download the maps.External Notion websites: