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Examples of games developed by a single developer?

29 points by wayne_skylar ↗ HN
I dabbled in gamedev in college and have been working as an engineer for the past 15 years. I am interested in building a game as a hobby / side project. I was wondering if anyone here could give me examples of simple yet fun games that would help with inspiration.

One example I can think of off the top of my head would be A Dark Room[1] But I'm not looking to copy it.

Anyone have any examples?

1. https://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/

38 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 84.4 ms ] thread
vimy
Prince of Persia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_g...
bananicorn
Infiniminer is something that comes to mind - which was the base used for Minecraft, I think.

While we're in the Realm of voxel-based games, there's Minetest, which is open Source and written in C++ and extendable by Lua.

Iirc, braid was also developed solely by one person, although he did commision the art.

But in general, the "big game made by a single person" is a bit of a myth. Sure, it does exist, but many of those people have either had help from others, or were actually working in a small team.

A lot of it is just marketing talk.

softwhale
Rollercoaster Tycoon - By Chris Sawyer. 99% written in x86 assembly. Imho, the most impressive example of a game of its magnitude, by a single dev.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_(video_ga...

http://www.chrissawyergames.com/faq1.htm

mraza007
I definitely remember playing this game when I was little. Definitely loved
boneskull
Chronicon: http://www.subworldgames.com/chronicon/

For fans of Diablo/Grim Dawn/ARPGs. Really impressive effort by a solo dev.

tudelo
Seconding this. Great game. My favorite part is the xp modifier you get from really long kill streaks, something that exists in many games (like diablo) but really adds a fun twist to the grindy combat.
willemlaurentz
Few years ago my brother threw a beer on my iPhone in an Amsterdam bar. The poor thing didn't like the Dutch brew as much as I do: it died. While waiting for a new phone to arrive, I used an old one that couldn't do anything but texting, calling and... Snake! I decided to try and develop an accurate remake myself - it changed my live! I wrote a post detailing much of the experience, 30M downloads and counting: https://willem.com/blog/2018-02-21_updating-snake-97/

TLDR: try and build your own game - it’s fun, you’ll learn a lot and it can change your life!

juanuys
Thanks for the link! Goes to show that even the simplest apps are never done.
gamblor956
Just the individual-developer games that I've actually played:

Minecraft. Stardew Valley. Braid. Fez. Cave Story. Roller Coaster Tycoon. Axiom Verge. Streets of Rogue. Space Empires.

hertzrat
Well, I have been working on a game for a few months. I posted an extremely early build for feedback here and have gotten some really helpful feedback. It’s a third person adventure game and if you play it, please fill out the survey linked at the end:

https://hertzrat.itch.io/a-few-nights-room-and-board

Admittedly, it’s only 95% solo developed: my talented wife has begun doing some level design.

hertzrat
Battle royale tycoon was a solo project by a youtuber who goes by the name Code Monkey. He has some videos and gamasutra articles talking about the revenue and development process. Iirc, 105k revenue and 95k lines of code?
karmakaze
Any number of casual indie mobile games would fit the bill. Pick a platform and come up with some simple game mechanic and backstory that seems like it would be fun. Just don't expect to make a lot of money or get only positive support, doing it for fun/learning and anything else is bonus is a good mindset.

I think the good thing about a mobile game is you can tell your friends (or anyone you meet) to find the game in the store and try it, right then and there. People often have bits of free time on their phone (when bored with the usual). On a computer, they'll be somewhere with many more obligations or distractions.

offtop5
Cave Story comes to mind.

One dude did all the programming and art.

I wouldn't put too much weight on doing it alone though. I've hired various artists and contractors to assist in my game development. I'm also very liberal with buying Unity assets.

The Last Tree was made by one guy and is full of Unity Asset store art.

The only people who will even notice are other developers.

Honestly using Unity assets as a foundation has made me a much better developer. I'm always finding tricks I didn't know