Inspirational Game Developers

I think all of us game developers have received inspiration and even motivation from fellow developers who have displayed remarkable prowess in their fields of expertise. This subject was brought to my attention when we were talking about our favorite indie devs on the GMC IRC, so I figured I would list some of my favorites right here on my blog. As far as most of my favorite developers go, I couldn't put any single one of them higher than another... as each one has their own specific talents and traits that I admire.
I think something that happens to us as we play games is that we take these certain bits and elements of games that we like best to form an idea in our brain of what we think is a good game. I know for sure that this has happened to me.

Some of the first computer games I've played have been GM games. Assassin Blue(platform game released 6 years ago), in particular was a very memorable experience to my 10 year old brain. I think part of what made me so hep on making platform view games was that I played a lot of them when I was younger and I grew to like them a whole lot. In general, game ideas in my brain often tend to form as platformers. Some of the non-GM games I've played as a kid include: Chip's Challenge, Rodent's Revenge, Rat Poker, Jezzball, Pipe Dream, Tetris.
... so, yeah... mostly just stuff from the microsoft entertainment pack...

In particular, Chip's Challenge was a big inspiration to me when I was growing up as a developer. Heck, I've even tried to clone it a couple times. You can still see a lot of the puzzle elements of Chip's Challenge in some of my latest games... and I don't think that's a bad thing.

The dumb and fat creator of Assassin Blue, Greg Lobanov(aka Banov), has also made some other fantastic games. Dubloon, Escape from the Underworld, Crazy Over Goo, to name a few. Hence, he has been very inspirational to me. I'd also like to mention that we share the same birth date; May 18. He's exactly 4 years older than I am. Did I mention I also have an older brother who was born on May 18? My older brother, on the other hand, is 5 years older than I am. What are the odds of such a phenomenon?

Many will recognize the name of Daniel Remar(aka Ultimortal). His creations vary from serious story-involved platform shooters(Iji) to silly rope swinging arcade games(Garden Gnome Carnage). Iji, which Remar calls his most ambitious project, has been very influential to me. In particular, if you look at the game closely, you'll see there is an almost mind-bogglingly large amount of details spread throughout all ten sector levels. I also found the story-changing elements in Iji to be particularly fascinating. Daniel Remar is a developer I will always look up to.

Probably a much lesser known developer that has been inspirational to me is Roy Tu(aka ThatSnail). He has made several small-scale games and some of us know him as a GMC forum member. His creations are often very wacky and interesting, although not as massive as Iji or Assassin Blue. Canvas, one of Snail's oldest projects is a game that has fascinated me ever since I first played it. Basically, you're this rectangle guy who has to get through the game by mixing colors and then painting himself to get through certain situations(E.G. Paint yourself green so you can pass by trees without a guard seeing you). If you'd like, you can try the game out on yoyogames.
One of the really nice things about ThatSnail is his helpful attitude towards other developers. I think a lot of the GMC IRC regulars know that he's a go-to guy if you ever need GML assistance or even general game design questions. I, msyelf have utilized his brain when searching for storyline ideas, game elements, and occasional GML advice. He's a very helpful guy.

There are several other game developers who have a reputation for making good games that you can depend on to be entertaining... but I would never be able to finish this post if I wrote about all of them... for now, I leave you with a list of all the devs that I can remember(starting with the aforementioned 3).

Greg Lobanov (Banov)
Daniel Remar (Ultimortal)
Roy Tu (TatSnail)
Matt Thorson
Nick Larin (scream681)
Jesse Venbrux (2Dcube)
Tom Sennet
Noel Berry
Liam Berry
Tuuka Virtanen
Alexis Andújar (Alexitron)
Alex Schacher (Bagdaddy)
Andrew Brophy
Derek Yu
Chevy Ray Johnston
Robert Geers
Nate Bradley (andor00)
John Baker (Fawful, Fawesome)
Jake Clover (Normalen Baren)
Gideon Simons (QOG)
Matthew Bowden (True Valhalla)
YellowAfterLife
Elektron