7 Iconic Video Games That Were Created By Accident
The console equivalent of pennecilin.
Games developers usually know exactly what they're doing. They approach a project with a specific vision, and the majority of the time, the finished article doesn't deviate too far from the sketches on the drawing board.
On other occasions, they encounter budgetary issues and creative roadblocks during the development process and are forced to make concessions, in some cases bigger than others, and this can completely reshape the game in question.
These cases are well documented, but there are rare instances where games have been created entirely by accident, in a way that's almost comparable to Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin among his mouldy petri dishes.
There are cases where studio employees have had so much fun with bespoke non-gaming software that they've slapped it with a few bells and whistles and released it for public consumption. Other games started out in a different form until a glitch saw them mutate into something better, like Bruce Banner and the gamma bomb.
Games of all shapes and sizes have bizarre origin stories like these, from indie titles, to one of the biggest franchises of all time. These are the happy accidents that have shaped the industry as we know it.
7. Geometry Wars Was Originally Tester Software
Bizarre Creations' colourful multi-directional shooter Geometry Wars was never intended to be a game at all. It began life as software the studio was using in-house to test the Xbox controller during the making of Project Gotham Racing 2.
Employees had a lot of fun with the programme, and they felt the public would too, so they sneaked a modified version of it into the racing game as an unlockable Easter egg. They had no way of knowing it would become a phenomenon in its own right.
Many Project Gotham Racing 2 fans spent as much time whittling away the hours in this hidden mini-game as they did on the in-game tracks, and this prompted Bizarre Creations to give Geometry Wars a standalone release.
At one point, the game held the record for most downloads on Xbox Live, and has gone on to spawn a series and a wave of imitators, such as the PC clone GridWars.