As I mentioned in my last post, every week in March I will celebrate a great woman in gaming. This week’s wonder woman is Brenda Brathwaite.

Brenda Brathwaite was born in 1966 (yeah, count it! And y’all thought women in gaming was recent!) and is a game designer and developer. She was born in New York and graduated from Clarkson University. Her resume is QUITE impressive, as she has worked on a ton of games and has won a ton of awards as well! She is also a regular speaker at universities and conferences.

Check below for more interesting factoids!

Currently:

• Advisory Group – Smithsonian Museum, Art of Video Games Exhibition
• Board of Advisors – Game Developer Magazine
• Board of Advisors – International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play
• Board of Advisors – Fantastic Fest Film Festival Arcade
• Creative Director – LOLapps, Inc.

Games she worked on:

• Def Jam: Icon
• Playboy: The Mansion
• Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes
• Wizardry series
• The Mechanic is the Message (non-digital games…very cool!)
• Jagged Alliance series
• Realms of Arkania

Train

Specialties:

• Game design
• Level design
• System design
• Writing
• Scripting
• Manual and Documentation (sometimes)

Trivia

• Started as a tester…ended up as a lead designer.
• Research for Playboy game ended up getting published in the book Sex in Video Games.
• Known as the woman with the longest continuous service in video game development.
• Named one of 100 Most Influential Women in the Gaming Industry by Next Generation Magazine.
• Listed as a “New Radical,” one of the fifty artists, actors, authors etc. who are making the world a more stimulating place by Nerve Magazine.
• Has served as a Chair of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Interactive Design and Game Development department.
• She and her boo worked together on Ravenwood Fair.
• She is a mommy. 🙂

For more great women in gamer history, check out this great blog post from a couple years ago!