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Yeah, if you're looking specifically for 1-person developers, it's hard to find them. But I think that's because most people aren't comfortable making the art o

Yeah, if you're looking specifically for 1-person developers, it's hard to find them. But I think that's because most people aren't comfortable making the art or music for their own games. (Or choose not to out of time pressure.) If Derek Yu had chosen to sell the original Spelunky, I think it would have done well. I think Towerfall might count, since I know Matt Thorson has done the art and music for most of his games. Nidhogg has been pretty successful lately, as well as Samurai Gunn. For the record, I don't think pixel art has to be particularly high quality for the game to be successful. Right now I'm playing an alpha of Vagante and having a ton of fun. It's looking like it's gonna be a hit. The graphics are muddy and kind of NES-looking with lots of cheap rotations — and that's OK. > Try making something equivalent yourself this year. I'm actually planning to do just that. So I guess we'll have to see!

sago 12y ago
> I think that's because most people aren't comfortable making the art or music for their own games. Right, them's the 'production values'. They aren't comfortable because the quality bar is pretty high, even on pixel art, high enough that you really need an artist to do it, not a lone coder. I think the situation isn't quite as bleak as he says in the OP anyway. The age of the lone coder is gone, I think. The few exceptions are exceptions. But the age of the prototype-in-a-game-jam-get-crowd-funded-and-build-a-product-with-a-small-team isn't over, though the bubble has definitely burst from when every kickstartered game seemed to reach its goal. So while I think he's right that the market has eliminated the lone-coder approach to game development, the ability to bring a good small game to market is as good as it has ever been. As you said further up, it is PC that is the heartbeat of that. Good luck on your game.
Coding_Cat 12y ago
Another great one-man-team is Lucas Pope, creator of Papers Please and (currently in development, but the demo has already seen great reception) The Curse of The Obra dinn, as well as a few Ludum Dare games.
- sago 12y ago
  Yup. The first person that came to mind for me was Terry Cavanagh. Also a one-man phenomenon.
  - archagon 12y ago
    I don't think he does the music for most of his games, though.

sago 12y ago

> I think that's because most people aren't comfortable making the art or music for their own games. Right, them's the 'production values'. They aren't comfortable because the quality bar is pretty high, even on pixel art, high enough that you really need an artist to do it, not a lone coder. I think the situation isn't quite as bleak as he says in the OP anyway. The age of the lone coder is gone, I think. The few exceptions are exceptions. But the age of the prototype-in-a-game-jam-get-crowd-funded-and-build-a-product-with-a-small-team isn't over, though the bubble has definitely burst from when every kickstartered game seemed to reach its goal. So while I think he's right that the market has eliminated the lone-coder approach to game development, the ability to bring a good small game to market is as good as it has ever been. As you said further up, it is PC that is the heartbeat of that. Good luck on your game.

Coding_Cat 12y ago

Another great one-man-team is Lucas Pope, creator of Papers Please and (currently in development, but the demo has already seen great reception) The Curse of The Obra dinn, as well as a few Ludum Dare games.

sago 12y ago
Yup. The first person that came to mind for me was Terry Cavanagh. Also a one-man phenomenon.
- archagon 12y ago
  I don't think he does the music for most of his games, though.