About tinizi
tinizi is an independent game and design studio built around play, culture, and meaningful creation.\n\nWe see games as more than things to be played. They can carry stories, reflect cultures, create connections, and leave traces that remain long after play ends.\n\nOur name brings together tin as “spirit” and iz as “trace”. Two ideas that shape what we hope to create: works with a spirit of their own, and a meaningful trace to leave behind.\n\nA spirit within. A trace beyond.
What tinizi Does
We take play seriously.\n\ntinizi works across game design, research, culture, and creative practice. We develop our own games while collaborating with people and organisations to explore what play can become - from an early idea to a meaningful experience.\n\nWhether we are designing, researching, consulting, or facilitating, we look beyond mechanics alone. We care about how an experience feels, what it communicates, whom it brings together, and what it leaves behind.
Who’s Behind tinizi?
tinizi is an independent studio founded by Mehmed Nihad Özkaya, a game designer, researcher, and academic working at the intersection of games, design, education, and culture.\n\nWith a background spanning psychology, game design, product development, and design research, his work moves between thinking about games and actually making them. tinizi grew from the same intersection: a place where research can become play, culture can become design, and ideas can become things worth playing.\n\ntinizi is also shaped by the people it meets along the way - designers, researchers, artists, institutions, and, most importantly, players.
Let’s Make Something That Matters
Games matter. So do the people, ideas, and stories behind them.\n\nIf you have an idea worth exploring, a game waiting to take shape, a cultural story looking for a new form, or simply something you think we should talk about - we’d love to hear from you.\n\nLet’s make something that matters.
Start a conversation → tiniziby@gmail.com OR
Play is a matter of Intimacy