GOOD RPG's made by a single guy

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Faery Tale Adventure for the Commodore Amiga, with design, programming, graphics, and sound entirely by David Joiner:

 

[Cryomancer]

Meredith

My previous nick was Meredoth.

Can't picture anyone else with such a fetish for bizarre classes.

Cryomancer, Necromancer and other mage specialization = bizarre class... Anyway, this thread is not about classes, is about single guy made RPG's.

Original Mount and Blade started as a single guy (and a single girl he was married to). Not sure when the team became larger.

I believe that M&B was made by a single Turkish couple.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Faery Tale Adventure for the Commodore Amiga, with design, programming, graphics, and sound entirely by David Joiner:

Remarkable besides its sheer size, is FA's absolutely stellar theme music by any standards. I can still remember it after 30 years. <3

 

[Contagium]

The real question for 2022, though: Good RPG's made by a single WOMAN.

 

[Butter]

The real question for 2022, though: Good RPG's made by a single WOMAN.

If you let Brenda tell the story, she's the only person who worked on Wizardry 8.

 

[buffalo bill]

Cruelty Squad? I don't see such bizzare piece of work being made by more than single person, unless they have some hivemind- like connection

But is it RPG? And more importantly, is it good? I heard this game mentioned more as a meme than anything else.

From what I've seen, its a very competently made game that's intended to be as weird and insane as humanly possible. This is a good summary of it. I can't really say if its a RPG or not, but it is an immersion sim, as nebulous as that genre is.

Good game that is definitely not an rpg by any stretch of the imagination

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Wraithmind: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/wraithmind-formerly-twin-moon-galaxy-sci-fi-turn-based-rpg.118575

e: Ops forgot that they have to be GOOD

 

[Antigoon]

 

[JarlFrank]

The real question for 2022, though: Good RPG's made by a single WOMAN.

Women are better at making adventure games

 

[Zanzoken]

You're missing Vogel's other big series, the Exile/Avernum series.

Vogel said in his GDC talk that his wife works on his games too, going all the way back to the first Exile. So even though he does the majority of the work he's never been a solo dev.

 

[OSK]

You're missing Vogel's other big series, the Exile/Avernum series.

Vogel said in his GDC talk that his wife works on his games too, going all the way back to the first Exile. So even though he does the majority of the work he's never been a solo dev.

True. I believe she did the art for his early games. I think it's common for "single guy" developers to outsource music and art, and I'm not sure if that disqualifies them from what this thread is looking for.

 

[luj1]

First, obviously KoTC1/2

Add Grimoire and Underrail

Also Legend of Grimrock was made by 4 guys in a basement

Yup, team size is inversely proportional to quality

 

[KafkaBot]

Undertale was a solo effort.

The Codex's list of best RPGs claims it gives some people here apoplexy, but hey - it is on the list.

 

[Ysaye]

Was made including graphics by one person.

 

[anvi]

I liked a game called Gods Lands of Infinity, pretty sure that was mostly 1 guy. There's also one called The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians which I think was 1 guy, that was pretty good. Never finished it though.

 

[jebsmoker]

brigand: oaxaca is great for a largely one man project. low rent mexican deus ex with ton of personality

 

[Desiderius]

 

[Trippy]

brigand: oaxaca is great for a largely one man project. low rent mexican deus ex with ton of personality

Hell yes. Deranged, Deus Ex inspired psychopathy made by a drug-fueled expat living in Mexico. It's misunderstood as a 'nostalgia' game. No, boys, this is a work of madness coded in Dark Basic by a fucking madman. It's not retro; it's just insane. And it's an actual RPG, to boot. By the end I ended up in a party with a trusty canine and a bazooka-wielding prostitute. It is literally one of the greatest games I've ever played. Not really, but also kinda really.

 

[Cryomancer]

I was playing bloodlust 2 : Nemesis and loved that game. IS VtMB + Diablo 1 in a game. My unique critique is the lack of spells in the game, I have 48 hours on it, reached extremely deep in the dungeon and was only using poison rain, summon crow and freeze. Would be cool if you had tier based progression and more spells to learn.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'm not sure how it is in regards to the Geister games, I think the games as they are are mostly done by one guy but he has help in other areas around the game, can't remember (zwanzig_zwoelf)

Each game had an artist on board (Vic on DGS, Thea on DGT/DGJ) to handle character portraits, and Greedwalker (the cofounder) helped with marketing / project management / testing / public stuff / additional game design.

 

[JarlFrank]

The real question for 2022, though: Good RPG's made by a single WOMAN.

Women are better at making adventure games

Since Harthwain rated this "citation needed", here's a one-woman adventure game I quite enjoyed. The puzzles and story are okay at best but I love the visual style she went for:

 

[Ryzer]

Similarly, the Bradley Wizardrys are almost entirely his work, however other people are credited for art/music/sound. This is more or less on par with the modern indie dev who uses asset packs and does everything else solo.

Reviews say "Mixed"...

 

[Butter]

Similarly, the Bradley Wizardrys are almost entirely his work, however other people are credited for art/music/sound. This is more or less on par with the modern indie dev who uses asset packs and does everything else solo.

Reviews say "Mixed"...

90% of negative reviews are people not bothering to read the manual and then saying they don't know what's going on. The lesson is to filter out knuckleheads before they buy the game. Pierre knows what's up.

 

[Cryomancer]

90% of negative reviews are people not bothering to read the manual and then saying they don't know what's going on. The lesson is to filter out knuckleheads before they buy the game. Pierre knows what's up.

TBH Grimoire should have a clear combat log. I mean, when my giant fails to penetrate an rat's armor, I wanna know what he rolled against what. NOt saying that the game is bad, I loved that game.

 

[buffalo bill]

NEO Scavenger