Welcome to my site! I am a budding game designer currently working towards my MS in Game Design at Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). FIEA is ranked the number school for Game Design Masters and is part of University of Central Florida located in downtown Orlando.
I came from a humble beginning, beginning my life long love of game design when I was only seven. I would take my favorite games and with pen and paper, write up my own versions of these games, how they would play, and even add in the occasional image to help me explain the game.
My true passion comes from table top gaming. This passion derived from my first time playing Pathfinder on my 10th birthday with my best friend and her family. From there my interest grew like ivy, and it was not long before I took on the role of Dungeon Master. I ran and developed quests and campaigns for a wide variety of table top games including Dungeons & Dragons (3.5, 4, 5), Pathfinder, GURPs, Savage Worlds, FATE, and Shadowrun.
I continued this as a dominating hobbies all through my undergraduate. At the time I believed myself happy in the field of biology and was working towards my major in Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior with a second major in Art History. After many summers and semester of intensive research in places such as Sweden, Panama, San Francisco, and Kentucky I came to the realization that research science was not my passion.
During this confusing time in my life I saw only one thing that would truly make me happy, which was making games. I applied to FIEA, utilizing my table-top RPG quests, campaigns and worlds for my portfolio. Due to my stunning game analysis of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer I was was rewarded with an acceptance letter.
I moved to Florida from Ohio and live in Orlando as of currently. I am only a semester in with still a year left of study before I graduate. I have loved every miniute of my time at FIEA. Although it often involves late nights, giving up weekends, and a multitude of sweat, blood, and tears, I love what I do at FIEA and hope I can continue to do what I love in the gaming industry.
Erin Marek 