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Papers, Please was my favorite game from last year. It amazes me that a single person was responsible for the programming, art and music.
by acdanger 13y ago
Papers, Please was my favorite game from last year. It amazes me that a single person was responsible for the programming, art and music.
- emerongi 13y agoAnd the story, gameplay and -flow. Papers, Please is actually a pretty "basic" game, but the way it is all put together makes it great. Achieving that is not easy at all. I think it is better than some new shooters, even though they have great graphics, action etc - Papers, Please looks like a kids game compared to them. It just shows that the idea is worth much more than anything else.
- pdq 13y agoMy favorite example of a solopreneur game development is Chris Sawyer writing RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language in 1999 [1]. The game series (along with Transport Tycoon) sold an estimated $180 million worth of copies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon
- samtho 13y agoI would sure love to get my hands on that source code...
- loup-vaillant 13y agoWell, what you have is pretty close. Comments and aliases will be missing, but the structure is there.
- TillE 13y agoBanished is an even more technically impressive example: one guy doing all the code (C++/DirectX) and 3D art, just not the music. And of course Minecraft, same thing until late beta, I think.
- lost_name 13y agoThe creator of Dust: An Elysian Tail doesn't get enough credit for a similar accomplishment. Aside from voice acting, soundtrack, and parts of the story, Dust was designed and programmed entirely by Dodrill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust:_An_Elysian_Tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust:_An_Elysian_Tail
- archagon 13y agoWhat's more, I believe he actually didn't know how to program when he got started. EDIT: Why did someone downvote me? I read it in an interview, and it goes to show how awesome this guy is!
- loup-vaillant 13y agoCould you dig up the source? That interview sounds like something worth reading.
- archagon 13y agoCheck out this postmortem: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/180520/postmortem_humble_hearts_dust_.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/180520/postmortem_humb... "Late in 2008 I read an article in OXM detailing what was possible with a new programming language, cryptically called XNA. I had never programmed before, and besides a short contract doing cutscenes for Jazz Jackrabbit 2, had never worked on a video game (I'm actually an animator/illustrator by trade). ... A week of rudimentary tutorials later, I quickly realized you have to make EVERYTHING from scratch! No level editor existed. No animation tool. No scripting or dialogue systems. No nothing -- just a bunch of otherworldly programming words. But that's what made it exciting: learning a new language (literally), slowly making my artwork interactive, and more importantly, growing my aspirations beyond the original 8-bit design." A truly inspiring story!
- dang 13y agoA user went haywire and downvoted a whole bunch of comments. We'll correct the damage. All: when you notice substantive, civil comments that are unfairly faded out, please give them a corrective upvote. This is a longstanding community practice. It usually only takes one or two corrective votes to get a good comment back to par, so every user can make a significant difference.
- yeureka 13y agoI loved Another World ( 1991 Amiga game ) and was amazed that the whole thing was done by one guy: Éric Chahi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_World_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_World_%28video_game%29
- DougHaber 13y agoI definitely agree. It was a groundbreaking game too. He gave a great postmortem talk about it: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014630/Classic-Game-Postmortem-OUT-OF http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014630/Classic-Game-Postmortem...
- chops 13y agoThanks for sharing this. I did not know about this talk, but the game itself is fantastic, and has a very unique feel. I suspect I'll learn a little something from this.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoMy personal favourite of one-man gamedev is the Touhou Project series. The guy behind it has been making the games - story, code, graphics and music - for the last 20 years, creating a huge franchise that has a pretty much cult following worldwide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project (I still can't fathom how you can put that much storyline and create so interesting characters in what is basically an insanely hard version of 'dodge the bullet' game)
- pushedx 13y agoThe best part is that the developer is called "Team Shanghai Alice" on the title screen and elsewhere. This gave me the impression that it was a ton of people working on the games. I was shocked to find out that it was one guy.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoI don't know if this was the original reason for the 'team' name, but I hold the image in my head of dolls doing most of the work ;).