PLAYER 1 · YEREVAN, ARMENIA
Ali Shirzad
Game Designer
I'm a game designer who came from web development. I design worlds worth exploring, quests that tell a story, and progression that keeps rewarding the player.
- Level Design
- Systems Design
- Economy & Balance
- Quest Design
- Narrative
Space / ↑ / tap to jump · an homage to the offline dino
STAGE SELECT
Pick a level
LoosyWheels
Your car has a mind of its own. Your job is to not die.
- Level Design
- Systems Design
- Economy
- Tools
Read the case study
Trashland Survivors
Hold your camp against the horde, one scavenging run at a time.
- Quest Design
- Level Design
- Economy & Balance
- Narrative
Read the case study
ABILITIES
What I bring to the party
Design
- Level design
- Systems design
- Economy and balance
- Progression and XP curves
- Quest and tutorial design
- Narrative and dialogue
- Game feel and juice
- Monetization design
Production
- Rapid prototyping
- Solo scope management
- Playtest-driven iteration
- Design documentation
- Analytics and live-ops basics
- Shipping to itch.io and Telegram
Tools and tech
- Unity 6
- C#
- URP
- ScriptableObject data design
- Custom Unity Editor tools
- WebGL builds
- AI-assisted development
Background
- TypeScript and JavaScript
- React and Next.js
- Node.js and Go
- PostgreSQL and Payload CMS
QUEST LOG
How I got here
ALI
I'm a game designer who thinks in loops: what the player does every ten seconds, what they chase every ten minutes, and why they come back tomorrow. I care most about level design, progression and economy balance, and about building the small tools that make iteration fast.
I came to games from web development, where I built products at Pragma and Snapp for millions of users. That background means I prototype my own ideas, wire my own data, and ship. In 2026 I moved into games full time: LoosyWheels went from empty project to a published itch.io release in a week, and Trashland Survivors is my current month-long systems project.
Both games were built solo with AI-assisted development. I drive the design, the tuning and the decisions, and I use AI to move the implementation faster.
CURRENT QUEST · JUN 2026 - PRESENT
Game Designer (independent) · Solo projects
Designing and shipping games solo: LoosyWheels (published) and Trashland Survivors (in development).
COMPLETED · JUN 2023 - JUN 2026
Full-Stack Developer · Pragma
Built full-stack products across frontend, backend and infrastructure.
COMPLETED · UNTIL JUN 2023
Front-End Developer · Snapp!
Built user interfaces for Iran's leading ride-hailing and super-app platform, used by millions.
COMPLETED · EARLIER
Front-End and Full-Stack Developer · Miz (Ariana Holding), Marcoweb, freelance
Web applications for enterprise and agency clients.