The best games developed by a single person

Video games are challenging to design. Drafting the story, programming gameplay systems, creating art assets, and recording sound effects and voices are just a few of the many pieces in the game-design puzzle box. It’s an arduous process, and even game publishers with teams numbering in the hundreds and access to millions of dollars in funding have produced terrible games. So imagine how difficult it must be for one person to make a game with little to no outside help.

Without access to the same wealth of resources big-name game publishers have, solo game developers have to face all the challenges of designing a functional and fun game alone. Luckily, the best one-person game dev teams make up for their lack of resources with indomitable enthusiasm and a willingness to seek out the knowledge and support they need to make their dreams a reality.

Undertale – Toby Fox

Undertale comes from developer Toby Fox, who worked on the game alone outside of some art assets. Although Undertale was Fox’s first claim to fame, he had been working on retro-inspired RPGs for some time. Growing up, he used RPG Maker 2000 to create games with his brothers, and he produced ROM hacks for EarthBound in high school.

Following the tradition of weirdness, Fox went on to develop his own RPG, taking all of the conventions of 16-bit classics and flipping them on their head. Since then, Fox has released the start of another game, Deltarune, though most of his work is now focused on composing. He has composed credits on Little Town Hero, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Pokémon Sword and Shield.

Stardew Valley – Eric Barone

Stardew Valley was created by Eric Barone, who released the game under the alias “ConcernedApe.” Originally intended as a way to bolster his resume, Barone set out to create a “fixed” Harvest Moon, feeling that the series had “gotten progressively worse after Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.”

What started as a side project to show what Barone was capable of quickly grew into something much bigger. Although Stardew Valley is a very different game from Undertale and Boot Hill Bounties, Barone still cites the same references. Growing up, his older brother introduced him to Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and EarthBound.

Papers, Please – Lucas Pope

Like David Welch, Lucas Pope is also the developer of two successful games (technically three, though one is a small, browser-based game). After working on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2, Pope split from his position as a systems programmer at Naughty Dog to pursue his own creative aspirations, using the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” as his lighthouse.

Pope and his wife, Keiko Ishizaka, used that phrase to develop Mightier before creating a mobile game and browser game. Their first commercially successful game, though, was Papers, Please, propelling Pope into indie dev stardom.

Iconoclasts – Joakim Sandberg

Joakim Sandberg, who develops his games under the name “Konjak,” has actually released six games, though only one of them is still readily available to download. Iconoclasts debuted on Steam’s Greenlight program in 2015, though the game had been in development far before that. All the way back in 2012, Sandberg was allowing players to try out an alpha demo.

It wasn’t until 2018 that the Metroidvania platformer hit virtual shelves. Pulling on his experience developing for the Game Boy Advance, Sandberg created a game that feels ripped straight out of the handheld’s days, just with updated visuals. During his time at WayFoward, Sandberg worked on games like Contra IV and X-Men 3.

Braid – Johnathan Blow

Johnathan Blow has a long history in the video games industry, though not one directly working on games. After porting Doom to a set-top box, Blow founded a game studio in 1996, which went bust a few years later. With assets at the ready, Blow worked with IBM to turn the game he and his team created into a demo for the Cell processor, the computing unit featured in the PlayStation 3.

Although the demo was successful, the full game was not. Blow found himself in Thailand in 2004, $40,000 in debt, with a stroke of inspiration. He created a time manipulation puzzle platformer demo, which would eventually turn into Braid. Upon release, the game quickly became the starchild for indie titles on console, eventually funding Blow’s next project, The Witness.

Axiom Verge – Thomas Happ

Axiom Verge started as a side project for Petroglyph Games engineer Thomas Happ. Petroglyph Games is best known for its work on real-time strategy games like Star Wars: Empire at War and Grey Goo. Starting in 2010, however, Happ began work on Axiom Verge, hoping to release it that same year. It wouldn’t be until 2015 that the game would see the light of day, though.

Instead of just a small homage to Metroid, Axiom Verge turned into a true spiritual successor. Following its release on PC in 2015, the game has since been ported to countless other systems, including the Switch, Wii U, Vita, and PlayStation 4.

How Solo Developers Overcame Development Hurdles

Many of the games we’ve listed here were made by people willing to play the long game. They took years, even decades, to learn the skills that helped them reach their goals. Some studied programming in college, while others used self-tutoring courses like Codecademy to teach themselves how to turn strings of numbers on a computer screen into virtual experiences loved by millions of players.

Of course, gaining experience won’t make it easier to pay the bills that inevitably come in during the game design process. One way solo game developers have gotten around this hurdle is through crowd-funding. The rise of crowd-funding platforms like Patreon, Ko-fi, and Kickstarter has made it easier for developers to get the funding they need to bring their games to life.

That said, every video game begins with a good idea, and the ability to convince people that your idea is worth betting on is an essential skill in any indie developer’s toolkit. This is why many indie dev teams work to create a social media presence, building a solid rapport with their potential fanbase. Some devs do this better than others, but the gaming public generally appreciates the effort.