Papers, Please was my favorite game from last year. It amazes me that a single person was responsible for the programming, art and music.
The game series (along with Transport Tycoon) sold an estimated $180 million worth of copies.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014630/Classic-Game-Postmortem...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project
(I still can't fathom how you can put that much storyline and create so interesting characters in what is basically an insanely hard version of 'dodge the bullet' game)
Aside from voice acting, soundtrack, and parts of the story, Dust was designed and programmed entirely by Dodrill.
EDIT: Why did someone downvote me? I read it in an interview, and it goes to show how awesome this guy is!
"Late in 2008 I read an article in OXM detailing what was possible with a new programming language, cryptically called XNA. I had never programmed before, and besides a short contract doing cutscenes for Jazz Jackrabbit 2, had never worked on a video game (I'm actually an animator/illustrator by trade).
...
A week of rudimentary tutorials later, I quickly realized you have to make EVERYTHING from scratch! No level editor existed. No animation tool. No scripting or dialogue systems. No nothing -- just a bunch of otherworldly programming words. But that's what made it exciting: learning a new language (literally), slowly making my artwork interactive, and more importantly, growing my aspirations beyond the original 8-bit design."
A truly inspiring story!
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