Gameplay Programmer & Narrative Designer

William Alonzo

Self taught game developer with 6+ years in Unity, three shipped (albeit buggy) titles, and a published novelist's instinct for story. Based in Los Angeles now, looking to bring both skills to a studio that cares about craft.

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Work

Shipped Projects

Three games released on itch.io. Each one taught me something the last one didn't.

2D Platformer · Unity TMMOPB gameplay screenshot

Poddles & Bowlber

A frankenstein of my own creation that taught me more than any clean project could. Experimented with object positioning, random item generation per platform, level progression, and unique character abilities across multiple playthroughs.

Unity C# Level Progression
Read Case Study → Play on itch.io
Platformer · Unity CyberCity Runner gameplay screenshot

Cybercity Runner

The project that rekindled everything. Built collision detection between player movement and enemy NPCs, developed enemy AI behavior, and shipped a consistent 60 FPS infinite scroller with adaptive spawn logic.

Unity C# AI Behavior
Read Case Study → Play on itch.io
Arcade · Unity Tapped Out gameplay screenshot

Tapped Out

As my first real attempt to reverse engineer the arcade classic Tapper — discovered on a date night at an arcade bar — I built a behavior state system for NPC customers across five bars, exploring tilemapping and memory optimization in 2D for the first time.

Unity C# Tile Mapping
Read Case Study → Play on itch.io
Noir · Unity Project Dunwell gameplay screenshot

Project Dunwell

As my latest shipped title, Project Dunwell is a noir detective game built from the ground up as my systems showcase. In this project I designed an in-game item inspection system allowing players to rotate and examine clues, and built a collision-based trigger system that fires Ink narrative nodes based on item tags, connecting gameplay interaction to branching dialogue at the systems level.

Unity C# Narrative Design
Read Case Study → Play on itch.io
Background

About Me

I think I've always known I wanted to make video games, but I feel like I truly knew when I first pivoted paths in college. I wanted to build big, play new games, and really tell a story that could resonate with a player, or a viewer, or whoever. I guess originally I just wanted to design narratives for games, but I think meeting with Jeff Gardiner, the former Project lead at Bethesda Game Studios kind of pointed me in the right direction.

As I said, I was originally just another writer. I had published a novella right before starting college, I was working on a novel, and pumping out short stories. I wanted to show dev studios, I could give them a story that would move people. Games like Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, the Fallout franchise, The Wolf Among Us, and Grand Theft Auto were all inspirations, I just had to keep writing. Now, as a published novelist, with experience in long and short form story telling, I work to implement those kinds of tools into my game development.

I'm drawn to gameplay programming, tools development, and narrative design. I want to create a game that feels good, tools that can make the engine and work easier. I want a story that is going to stay with people after they've played it, to create a community that shares a love for a character after the credits roll.

Skills
  • Unity / C#
  • Unreal / C++
  • Gameplay Systems
  • Editor Tooling
  • Narrative Design
  • Git / GitHub
  • HTML / CSS/ JS
  • Spanish (Fluent)
Get in Touch

Let's Chat

Open to junior gameplay programming, tools, and narrative design roles. Also happy to talk shop.

Email walonzo64@outlook.com GitHub github.com/verbatimaura64 itch.io harborviewgames.itch.io LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/walonzo
Did you find this easter egg?

My origin

I'm a bit of a sentimental person, and I didn't want to entirely delete my first index page. There's also no appropriate room for it here, but what gamer doesn't love a good easter egg.

See where it all started →