10 Great Video Games Made By Just One Person

Some individuals have so much talent.

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Humble Hearts

One of the amazing things about the gaming industry is how it’s possible for one person to make an incredible game on their own. This simply wouldn’t be possible elsewhere; can you imagine Steven Spielberg trying to put together Jurassic Park all by himself?

The creation of a video game often requires a lot of talented and trained people working together on different parts of the project, with some games requiring teams of several hundred people, but history has shown that it’s perfectly possible for one person to take on all of those tasks and make critically-acclaimed, award-winning games.

These multi-talented mavericks not only possess the development skills needed to make a brilliant video game, they often also have talents in writing, music, art, direction, and so much more. All by themselves, they're able to craft games that even big development studios could be proud of.

Of course, these indie developers don’t have the budgets or the means to make games that can compete graphically or technically with the likes God Of War, but you might be surprised to learn that some of the most iconic titles of the modern and classic gaming eras were made by just one person.

10. VVVVVV

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Terry Cavanagh

VVVVVV was a clever little puzzle game released in 2010 and created from the ground up by Irish developer Terry Cavanagh. Cavanagh made the whole thing in Adobe Flash, taking inspiration from the classic 8-bit Commodore 64 games of his youth.

The game follows the cute Captain Viridian as he attempts to rescue his crew mates from a mysterious open world, cut up into individual screens and puzzles, not dissimilar to Metroidvania-style games. VVVVVV plays around with the rules of physics in some clever ways, resulting in a highly enjoyable puzzle platformer.

Cavanagh admitted he didn't have the technical skills to make realistic-looking graphics, so decided to keep the aesthetics of his game as simple as possible, preferring to focus on the gameplay. It worked pretty well as VVVVVV received critical acclaim and was regarded as one of the best indie releases of 2010. The game later went on to be rewritten to work on Linux and even got a re-release on Nintendo's 3DS.

 
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