Nasir Gebelli is an Iranian-American programmer and video game designer usually credited in his games as simply Nasir.
25 Facts About Nasir Gebelli
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Nasir Gebelli became known in the early 1980s for programming action games for Apple II, such as Space Eggs.
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Several of the games he wrote for Nasir Gebelli Software were 3D space combat simulators for the Apple II.
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Nasir Gebelli programmed the first three Final Fantasy games, the Famicom 3D System title Rad Racer, 3-D WorldRunner, and Secret of Mana.
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Nasir Gebelli was inspired by Golden age arcade video games, such as Space Invaders.
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Nasir Gebelli then began programming video games in either 1978 or 1979.
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Nasir Gebelli wrote the code in his head, then quickly entered it before forgetting the details.
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Nasir Gebelli's best-selling titles were Space Eggs and Gorgon, which were clones of Moon Cresta and Defender, respectively.
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Nasir Gebelli's games used page flipping, which eliminated the flickering that early Apple II games experienced.
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Nasir Gebelli left Sirius in 1982 to establish his own software company, Gebelli Software, which released its first game that same year.
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In October 1982, Arcade Express reviewed Zenith and scored it 9 out of 10, stating "celebrated Nasir Gebelli proves his reputation" with "this visually striking first-person space piloting and shooting" game.
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IBM arranged for Nasir Gebelli to produce launch titles for the IBM PCjr, announced in late 1983.
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Nasir Gebelli's company was not successful, and the video game crash of 1983 caused Nasir Gebelli Software to close.
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When he retired from Apple II development, Nasir Gebelli had eight games on Softalks Apple II best-seller lists, more than any other game designer.
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In 1986, Nasir Gebelli became interested in developing games again and met with Doug Carlston, his friend and owner of video game developer Broderbund.
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Nasir Gebelli was interested, and so Doug offered to fly to Japan with Nasir Gebelli and introduce him to his contacts at Square.
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Nasir Gebelli had the opportunity to meet with Masafumi Miyamoto, founder and president of Square, who decided to hire him.
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At the time, Nasir Gebelli did not know any Japanese and had no translator, so it was initially difficult to communicate with Sakaguchi.
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Nasir Gebelli then teamed up with Sakaguchi, Nobuo Uematsu and Yoshitaka Amano as part of Square's A-Team to produce Final Fantasy, the first entry in the popular Final Fantasy series.
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Nasir Gebelli went on to program Final Fantasy II, released in 1988, introducing an "emotional storyline, morally ambiguous characters, tragic events".
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Nasir Gebelli made the story "emotionally experienced rather than concluded from gameplay and conversations".
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Nasir Gebelli went on to program Final Fantasy III in 1990, which introduced the job system, a character progression engine allowing the changing and combination of character classes.
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Midway through the development of both Final Fantasy II and III, Nasir Gebelli returned to Sacramento, California from Japan due to an expired work visa.
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Nasir Gebelli cited Gebelli as his favorite programmer and a notable inspiration, mentioning his fast action and 3D programming work on games such as Horizon V and Zenith.
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Nasir Gebelli inspired the careers of other developers, such as Mark Turmell.