View Full Version : Games developed by a single person
Ricochet
11-23-2009, 09:19 AM
Many atari-era games were developed by a single programmer, but when was the cut-off point exactly? How many games for NES/Sega could make this claim? I do mean literally one person, not "apart from the music", etc.
jb143
11-23-2009, 10:46 AM
Since your not including art and music then I would say very very few. Most lone developers I know of outsource most of thier art assets. Even less if you don't count reusing code that someone else wrote, whether it be a graphics engine or what have you. In the Atari-era it was much more common because art and music were simple enough that programmers could handle it.LOL
Rendering Ranger/ Targa SFC was made by Manfred Trenz alone.
Legend SFC was made by two guys.
j_factor
11-23-2009, 01:23 PM
The NES version of Super Turrican was also made by Trenz alone.
Llamatron 2112 was developed by Jeff Minter alone. Many of his games are developed by him alone (sometimes not including the soundtrack), or him and one other guy.
Wasn't Cave Story developed by one guy?
kupomogli
11-23-2009, 01:26 PM
Wasn't Cave Story developed by one guy?
You beat me to it :(. But yeah. One guy did all the music, graphics, everything.
Archer McLean always worked alone, even in the early 90s.
Ed Oscuro
11-23-2009, 03:26 PM
Wasn't Cave Story developed by one guy?
The guy known as "Pixel." He also made the little-known (but more recent) super-retro shooter Guxt.
Man, folks jumped on Manfred Trenz quick. I guess we've all been thinking about Super Turrican NES lately :)
Rendering Ranger wasn't actually made by just one guy - there was an early version with 2D hand-drawn graphics that he did, but Rendering Ranger itself has prerendered 3D models made by other people. The amount of extra work done may not have amounted to much, but there's still other people listed in the credits.
PresidentLeever
11-23-2009, 03:32 PM
Tetris?
Sosage
11-23-2009, 04:00 PM
Eric Chahi hasn't been mentioned yet? wth?
Ed Oscuro
11-23-2009, 04:03 PM
Eric Chahi hasn't been mentioned yet? wth?
I had to look him up. Cool choice, AW really did point to the future - namely that nobody likes to pay full price for flat shaded flash games ^^; Great achievement though.
LaughingMAN.S9
11-23-2009, 05:30 PM
E.T. for the atari was made by one guy i think....and it shows :(
Game Freak
11-23-2009, 06:25 PM
Alexey Pajitnov and Tetris. :)
oh, and Mr. Incredible works alone.
Lord_Magus
11-23-2009, 07:21 PM
Hey, don't forget about the Touhou project, which includes some of the finest shooters ever made: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project
vivaeljason
11-23-2009, 07:43 PM
Didn't Warren Robinett create Adventure all by his lonesome, or did the Easter Egg lie to me?
kedawa
11-23-2009, 08:00 PM
I seem to remember The Faery Tale Adventure being made by one guy.
Eric Dude
11-24-2009, 12:24 AM
I seem to remember The Faery Tale Adventure being made by one guy.
I checked my Genesis booklet, as well as wikipedia, and looks like it wasn't.
Cool topic for discussion, though! Keep it up!
kedawa
11-24-2009, 12:30 AM
The Amiga version came out first, so it's possible that the genesis port was handled by someone else.
Eric Dude
11-24-2009, 12:53 AM
The Amiga version came out first, so it's possible that the genesis port was handled by someone else.
Right, that's what I was thinking too, but wikipedia didn't seem to indicate that. Although it is vague about who Microillusions was comprised of.
j_factor
11-24-2009, 09:02 PM
2 guys - Howard Scott Warshaw and Jerome Domurat.
How come Warshaw gets all the credit?
bombman
11-25-2009, 06:31 PM
Eric Chahi hasn't been mentioned yet? wth?
He didn't do the intro/end music.
Jorpho
11-26-2009, 01:21 AM
Chris Sawyer? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Sawyer)
Gapporin
11-26-2009, 02:31 AM
Matthew Smith, who is best known for creating Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. It only took him about six weeks to program Manic Miner from start to finish.
kedawa
11-26-2009, 04:04 AM
I'm not clear as to whether the topic includes later consoles or computers, but Kenneth Morse's Tank Wars, and many similar games, were made by solo devs. Obviously there are many shareware games over the years, and even today, that are solo projects.
I doubt there would be many (or any, for that matter) console games after the VCS that had one-man development teams, simply because of how expensive development kits and licensing had become. Anyone who could afford a devkit would likely be able to hire at least a couple of other people, and those that couldn't afford the one on their own would likely have to team up with others to buy one.
Flack
11-26-2009, 08:51 AM
I assume we are excluding computer games from this conversation as you could list literally thousands.
A couple of early favorites of mine were Jumpman (Randy Glover) and Lode Runner (Doug Smith). Many early games were written by one person and then submitted to companies for publishing/distribution.
I thought a lot of the early 2600 games were written by a single person but I could be wrong. Like, didn't David Crane single-handedly write some of the early Activision releases (Drag Racer)?
I seem to remember The Faery Tale Adventure being made by one guy.
Maybe the Amiga version. (http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/faery-tale-adventure-book-i/credits)
SegaAges
11-26-2009, 09:25 PM
hehehe, nice topic.
You can add me to the list.
The game I am working on for X-Box 360 and PC I am doing by myself. I am still writing the game engine, so I have a ways to go, but I am single-handedly (if that is a word) making this game by myself.
Jorpho
11-27-2009, 12:48 AM
The game I am working on for X-Box 360 and PC I am doing by myself. I am still writing the game engine, so I have a ways to go, but I am single-handedly (if that is a word) making this game by myself.I advise you to never, ever speak of it again until it is well and truly finished.