As you probably know by now, I am Jaime Fraina.  I’m a student Game Designer at Champlain College of Vermont.

I’ve always wanted to create games that people would enjoy. When I was little I’d create board games for my sibling and friends to play. These ranged from simple memory games to complex adventure games similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

In middle school I created my first video game; it was a text adventure game and was played often in class by other students to procrastinate doing work. I loved the fact that I was able to create something that brought others enjoyment.

In high school I decided that I would look further into developing this skill and downloaded a few game creating tools. During these years I created almost fifty mini-games to test out different gameplay mechanics. Friends would always be asking me when the next game was going to be done or offer me ideas on what to do next.

I now attend Champlain College of Vermont majoring in Electronic Game and Interactive Design; and love it. This course is designed to help develop team skills, game design skills, and technical skills. It is an accelerated four year Bachelor’s of Science program, enhanced with liberal arts studies. My classes range from World History to Interactive Story Telling. Over the course of the three years I attended classes at Champlain I have gained a lot more experience and was taught how to use a few tools including Maya, Torque Game Engine Advanced, Photoshop, C++, Java and others. I have created many design documents and was the lead designer for one full game on a team of six students. Last year I attended MIGS (Montreal International Game Summit). The experience was amazing and my view on games was changed. I now see that games can be more than just something for people to enjoy. I look back and see those games I created in high school and see that they lack depth and meaning. Whenever I create a new game, I take this into account and try to create games that could be considered art or have some deeper meaning to them.

I spent the Spring 2009 semester in Montreal and loved it.  It is a city that has quite a few big game companies that I was able to visit.  I was taught by designers that are currently working in the industry, which was very beneficial for me.  I was offered two summer jobs (at EA Mobile and BugTracker), but due to time constraints, I was unable to work at these studios.

Currently I am working on two games for classes and working at The Emergent Media Center as a lead designer on an educational game for college students.  I am looking for a job in the industry for when I graduate in May, so if you have a position I’d be able to fill, please contact me!

Anyways, here’s my site.  Hope you enjoy it.

You can contact me at: jaime.fraina@gmail.com