★ Top 10 ★
10 Games That Made Me a Game Maker
The 90s games I still think about every time I open a code editor, and the 90sGamer games they led to.
- #10
Baldur's Gate
A whole Dungeons & Dragons campaign on five CDs, with a party that argued with each other more than with the monsters. Your companions had opinions, and some of them would walk out if they didn't like what you did. Also the first game that taught me to quicksave before opening any door.
- #9
King's Quest VI
Sierra adventures could kill you for walking slightly wrong, and I loved them anyway. King's Quest VI was the high point: islands full of puzzles, a proper love story, and an ending that changed depending on how much you'd explored.
🕹️ Dhaka '88: Dhaka '88 is my attempt at that kind of adventure, with a kid's-eye view of a city I grew up in.
- #8
Civilization II
"One more turn" is the most dangerous phrase in gaming, and Civ II invented it for me. Tanks beating spearmen, spearmen somehow beating tanks, and advisers in costumes shouting at you. Every game turned into its own history, and none of it was scripted.
- #7
Final Fantasy VII
Three discs, a spiky-haired hero, and a moment halfway through that a whole generation still won't talk about. I'd spent forty hours with those characters, so that moment hit harder than any movie.
- #6
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Two whole worlds on one cartridge: finish the Light World and the game flips you into a twisted Dark World version of it. Every new item opened a door you'd walked past an hour earlier. I still think about that trick when I design levels.
- #5
EverQuest
I remember the people more than the dragons: the raid leader keeping forty players awake, the loot arguments, the friends I made over dial-up. Keeping a group of humans together was the hardest part of the game. I even wrote a track about the tree city of Kelethin, years later.
🕹️ Guild Leader Sim: This is why I'm making Guild Leader Sim.
- #4
Street Fighter II
A quarter on the cabinet ledge meant "I've got next," and that was the law. Anyone could pick it up, the good players were on another level, and it was always better with a crowd watching.
- #3
X-COM: UFO Defense
(UFO: Enemy Unknown, if you grew up in Europe.) You name your soldiers after your friends, then watch a sectoid end them on turn one. Dead soldiers stayed dead, so every move mattered, and I still don't trust a dark farmhouse door.
- #2
Dune II
The grandfather of every real-time strategy game: build a base, harvest spice, panic when a sandworm eats your harvester. Dune II invented the rules that Command & Conquer and StarCraft later made famous.
- #1
Diablo
Click, loot, descend, repeat, and suddenly it's 3 a.m. Diablo's randomised dungeons meant every run told a slightly different story. It's why I like making games where even I don't know what the next run will throw at me. "Ahh, fresh meat!" still haunts me.
🕹️ Daily Run: Daily Run takes that one-more-run feeling and gives everyone the same dungeon each day.
Box art and game titles are trademarks of their respective owners, shown small for identification alongside our commentary. Go play the originals!