10 Great Video Games Made By Just One Person

6. Space Invaders

Dust An Elysian Tail Dust
Atari

From one iconic game to another, Space Invaders, like Tetris, has gone down in history as one of the most important and influential games of all time, and we have just one man to thank: Tomohiro Nishikado.

Nishikado spent a whole year designing Space Invaders and even creating the hardware needed to allow it to run properly. His original plans for the game included human enemies in tanks and planes, but he didn't like the idea of having kids shooting at people, so he switched the enemies to aliens, taking inspiration from War of the Worlds.

Funnily enough, Nishikado's design also helped to invent a key feature of almost every video game to follow: difficulty curves. While making the game, he was frustrated that the enemies weren't moving fast enough due to his underpowered hardware. However, he noticed that as enemies were defeated, the remaining aliens started to move faster, adding an exciting level of challenge to each stage.

 
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