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No guns, dragons: Her video games capture personal moments

When Nina Freeman was a student at Pace University in Lower Manhattan, Freeman was drawn to the work of Frank O’Hara and other poets of the New York School, admiring how they documented their lives through verses that were witty, conversational and confessional all at once. She hit upon a similar tone when she started her career as a video game designer, creating lyrical games that explore memory and small, private moments.

No guns, dragons: Her video games capture personal moments
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By STEVEN KURUTZ

Growing up in Ipswich, Mass., Nina Freeman spent a lot of time playing video games with a pair of close friends, twin sisters whose basement served as an arena for marathon sessions. “My friends and I were nerds,” she recalled. “We played a lot of games. ‘Final Fantasy 11’ was like a second life to me.”

Years later, when she was a student at Pace University in Lower Manhattan, Freeman was drawn to the work of Frank O’Hara and other poets of the New York School, admiring how they documented their lives through verses that were witty, conversational and confessional all at once. She hit upon a similar tone when she started her career as a video game designer, creating lyrical games that explore memory and small, private moments.

In “how do you Do It?,” a game from 2014, Freeman puts the player in the role of an awkward tween who is desperately trying to figure out how sex works while playing with dolls. There are no levels to complete, no dragons to slay, and the player scores points by smashing dolls together. The game is about as far as you can get from the gun battles and fantasy quests that have long been the stuff of the most popular releases.

“I think games are almost little stages, or they can be,” Freeman said on a warm afternoon in the back garden of her townhouse in Frederick, Md., where she lives with her husband, Jake Jefferies, an artist and coder. “You get to step in another person’s shoes and perform as a character. I can put the player on a stage and give them a script, the script being the game.”

The game she has been working on lately, in collaboration with Jefferies, will have a touch of horror, she said. It is based on the vaguely embarrassing experience of shopping for clothes with your mother. “You’re in the dressing room, and your mom wants you to try on these clothes, but you’re, like, ‘Oh, I hate how I look in this,’” Freeman said, explaining the set up. “There are these mannequins that come after you, and you lose all your clothes, and nothing will fit. I’m trying to explore being uncomfortable in your body and the trauma of that.”

Her vignette-like games cannot be booted up on Play Station 5 or any other big gaming platform. “Nothing I’ve worked on has ever been a massive financial success,” she said. “I’m not a rich person. Never was. And I’ve never been motivated by it, either.” Her next game, “Nonno’s Legend,” comes out in August. It was inspired by the time she spent with her Italian grandfather. He kept a globe on a tabletop, and Freeman would stare at it and make it spin. In the video game, the globe is magical, and the player is able to create new versions of Earth.

Freeman made the game for this month’s Triennale Game Collection, part of the Triennale Milano International Exhibition, the show in Milan dedicated to architecture and design. The select group of game designers who were invited to participate in the collection includes others who specialize in the offbeat. Freeman creates her games in a home office filled with her collections of Japanese manga books, Disney Tsum Tsum stuffed toys, and vintage board games including “Squirt” and “Contack.” She and Jefferies live with their two mini dachshunds, Auron and Kimahri, named after characters in “Final Fantasy 10.”

Kurutz is a journalist with NYT©2022

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