Nina Freeman

Nina Marie Freeman (born March 15, 1990) is an American video game designer known for her games with themes of sexuality and self-reflection. she developed and published numerous video games and is a co-founder of the Code Liberation Foundation, a non-for-profit organization that makes an effort to diversify employment within STEAM fields.

Academic career and personal life While a student at Pace University in Lower Manhattan, New York, Freeman was drawn to the work of Frank O’Hara and other poets of the New York School. She admired how they documented their lives through verses that were witty, conversational, and confessional all at once.

Freeman regularly streams on Twitch.

Freeman resides in Maine with her husband, Jake Jefferies. The couple had a child in 2025.

Works, awards, and accomplishments Freeman developed her first game in 2012 based on a science fiction poem she wrote, though it remains unreleased.

In 2013, Freeman co-founded the Code Liberation Foundation on International Women's Day, a program offering free development workshops in order to facilitate more women to create video games.

Her game Bum Rush (2016) debuted at NYU Game Center 2015 No Quarter event and was released for free on July 6, 2016, for OS X and Windows.

She was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 2016 list of influential video game industry figures.

Her autobiographical game How Do You Do It? deals with the discovery of sexuality through toy dolls after viewing the movie Titanic. It was developed during the 2014 Global Game Jam and was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival and Indiecade.

In 2015, Freeman released Cibele. The game tells the story of a teenage girl, engaged in a whirlwind online romance with a fellow gamer, and is based on a personal experience she had during her college years. The game gained praise for its characters and intimate stories and received the Nuovo Award at the 2016 Independent Games Festival.

At Fullbright, she worked as a game and level designer for their second release, Tacoma. The game sold fewer copies than the studio's previous game Gone Home, but made enough sales to allow them to continue developing games.

In January 2020, Freeman resigned from Fullbright to focus on her own projects,

Ludography + Video Game Credits Year Game Note Ref(s) 2014 How Do You Do It? 2015 Cibele 2017 Kimmy 2017 Lost Memories Dot Net 2017 Tacoma Level design 2019 We Met in May 2021 Last Call 2022 Nonno’s Legend Part of the Triennale Game Collection. 2023 Holy moly Houseplant 2024 Open Roads Level design 2025 Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Writer