Nasir Gebelli

Nasir Gebelli (, also Nasser Gebelli, born 1957) is an Iranian-American programmer and video game designer usually credited in his games as simply Nasir.

Gebelli wrote Apple II games for Sirius Software, created his own company Gebelli Software, and worked for Squaresoft (now Square Enix).

Gebelli was born in Iran in 1957.

He then began programming video games in either 1978 or 1979.

As a college student, he demonstrated a slide show program he wrote at a computer store to the stores' owner Jerry Jewell.

Because of his family relationship with the Iranian royal family of the Pahlavi dynasty, he migrated to the United States to avoid the 1979 Iranian Revolution and study computer science.

He was inspired by Golden age arcade games, such as Space Invaders.

Gebelli's first project for the Apple II was EasyDraw, a logo and character creation program he used for his later games.

He became known in the early 1980s for producing fast action games for the Apple II, including 3D shooters.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, he developed home console games for Squaresoft.

He was part of Square, programming the first three Final Fantasy games, the Famicom 3D System titles 3-D WorldRunner and Rad Racer, and Secret of Mana.

In 1980, he joined a new company founded by Jewell and Terry Bradley, Sirius Software.

Gebelli's first game was Both Barrels.

Within a year, Gebelli programmed twelve games.

He wrote the code in his head, then quickly entered it before forgetting the details.

His action games were well-received, and three of his games, Phantoms Five, Cyber Strike, and Star Cruiser, appeared on Softalk's Top Thirty software list in March 1981.

Six of his games later appeared on Softalk's Top Thirty list in August 1981, with the highest at number three.

His best-selling titles were Space Eggs and Gorgon, which were clones of Moon Cresta and Defender, respectively.

Electronic Games referred to Gebelli as "ace designer Nasir" and gave Gorgon a positive review.

BYTE assured readers that Gorgon would not disappoint "Nasir Gabelli fans".

Gorgon sold at least 23,000 copies in a year, making it one of the best-selling computer games through June 1982.

Gebelli's games used page flipping, which eliminated the flickering that early Apple II games experienced.

He left Sirius in 1982 to establish his own software company, Gebelli Software, which released its first game that same year.

Entitled Horizon V, the game was a first-person shooter with a radar mechanic.

Sirius released the Apple II game Zenith later in 1982, which added the ability for players to rotate their ships.

In October 1982, Arcade Express reviewed Zenith and scored it 9 out of 10, stating "celebrated Nasir proves his reputation" with "this visually striking first-person space piloting and shooting" game.

Horizon V sold 5,000 copies during its first few months on sale in 1982.

In March 1983, however, Andromeda (fourth place for Atari 8-bit), Russki Duck (tied for sixth for Apple) and Horizon V (tenth place for Apple) received Softline's Dog of the Year awards "for badness in computer games" based on reader submissions.

IBM arranged for Gebelli to produce launch titles for the IBM PCjr, announced in late 1983.

Gebelli's company was not successful, and the video game crash of 1983 caused Gebelli Software to close.

Afterward, Gebelli went on an extended vacation traveling the world.

When he retired from Apple II development, Gebelli had eight games on Softalk's Apple II best-seller lists, more than any other game designer.

In 1986, Gebelli became interested in developing games again and met with Doug Carlston, his friend and owner of video game developer Broderbund.

Carlston told him about the rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System and how he should start creating games for the console.

Gebelli was interested, and so Doug offered to fly to Japan with Nasir and introduce him to his contacts at Square.

Nasir had the opportunity to meet with Masafumi Miyamoto, founder and president of Square, who decided to hire him.

The programmers, especially Hironobu Sakaguchi (a long-time fan of Gebelli's work), were aware of Nasir's reputation and were excited to have him join.

While at Square, Nasir programmed the game Tobidase Daisakusen for the Famicom Disk System, released in the United States in early 1987 as 3-D WorldRunner on the NES.

3-D WorldRunner was a pseudo-3D third-person platform game where players move in any forward-scrolling direction and leap over obstacles and chasms.

It was also notable for being one of the first stereoscopic video games.