Prince of Persia (the original one) - Jordan Mechner

Easy Red 2

Made by a one man, Marco Amadei (aka Corvo Studio), Easy Red 2 is a single-player, co-op, or multiplayer squad-based WWII shooter with destructible environments and maps across many theaters of war... and more-than-a-few tips of the hat to early Battlefied games.

Amadei is consistently engaged with the community and releases patches and new content on a consistent basis. He has also released simple map and mission modding tools for Easy Red 2, and at the time of this post, player created maps and missions number almost 2000.

trailer (release): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKes4f_0hX8&t=2s

trailer (Stalingrad dlc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zZuRuSfpVU

gameplay (custom map): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntvTrFnf-tQ&t=998s

GOG wishlist: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/easy_red_2

Paper Sorcerer is a very nice game. Unique aesthetics and cool ending.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/paper_sorcerer

Conglomerate 451 is a futurisitc dungeon crawler made by two people, I think. It has its issues but it is not too bad.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/conglomerate_451

Locomalito does all of his games (Maldita Castilla, Hydorah/Super Hydorah, L'Abbaye des Mortes, etc.) on his own. His only collaborator is Gryzor87, who does the music.

Thomas Happ did Axiom Verge on his own, as I recall. [Ah, already mentioned, I see.]

If you go back to the 80s, virtually all games were made by a single person, or at least small teams. All Atari 2600 games were made by one, maybe two people. Same with 8-bit computer games. Seems like as you got into games requiring more intense graphics and storytelling elements, the need for a team of artists, writers, composers, and programmers to make it all work increased.

The making of Prince of Persia (1989) (5 minutes long)

Jordan Mechner on making Prince of Persia (21 minutes long)

Think maybe Crystal Project might qualify?

How has no one mentioned one of the best-selling games of all time, Minecraft yet?

Bright Memory was also made by one person.

When it comes to Minecraft, it is problematic. Yes, Notch started the work on Minecraft, but the game as we know it today is very different from the first Minecraft Notch developed by himself. It was worked on for many years by Mojang, which was a small team. then sold to Microsoft, who have developed it further.

You can say that the Minecraft protoype was developed by a single developer, but going further than the prototype it is not a single developer game any more.

It's also worth noting that Notch is no longer involved in the game's development.

Hello!

I wonder that no one mentioned Terry Cavanagh, so far. He made the fantastic
- "VVVVVV (V six times)" (my entry into indiegames on PC), as well as
- "Super Hexagon",
- "Dicey Dungeons",

among other free games available on his homepage and on itch.io.

Furthermore, I think that Gareth Noyce practically singlehandedly made the (pseudo) isometric platform adventure "Lumo". If I am not remembering it wrong, others helped him primarily with playtesting, localizations and after-release-support.

Kind regards,
foxgog

Downfall (2009), The Cat Lady, Downfall Redux, Lorelai, Burnhouse Lane - mostly made by Remigiusz Michalski

Ghost of a Tale by Lionel Gallat

DUSK and Iron Lung by David Szymanski

Distraint, Distraint 2 and Heal by Jesse Makkonen

Technobabylon largely made by James Dearden

Death Trash AFAIK is developed by 2 persons team.


I don't take into account voice actors, musicians or testers. But at least most of the writing, programming and graphics in above was made by one person.

Hedon: Bloodrite - Quite the sizeable FPS for a one-man project.

Pong - Allan Alcorn

If this qualifies (the music was done by his father, not Jordan Mechner himself) - then of course we also have to mention Another World.

And the guy who effectively killed E.T. created a bunch of games alone back in the days.

Gemini Rue by Joshua Nuernberger

I didn't know about the music
And yes, of course there's also Another World. I read somewhere that Eric Chahi, creator of Another World, had never heard of Prince of Persia before starting the development of Another World. I don't believe that for a second LOL.

Back on topic:

Tetris - Alexey Pajitnov