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Comment by the_lonely_road | Hacker News Reader

I think you are right. The closest I can come to a modern example would be Darkest Dungeon (made by 2 people) and Slay the Spire/Stardew Valley (both made by single devs) however owing to your point I don’t remember their names despite reading about them at least a few times. I would recognize John Carmacks face in a crowded room not to mention obviously unlikely to ever forget his name.

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Now that you mention it, I know the names of a few of the roguelikes I play. I think part of this stems from it being the work of very small teams that ALSO do all their own game marketing, so your “representative” for the game is the creator themselves.

Dwarf Fortress comes to mind, and I know it’s made by Tarn and his brother, but I don’t know their last name…but I guess it’s not exactly modern.

Similarly, Kyzrati/Josh Ge, of Cogmind & REXpaint fame, and pender/Brian Walker.

To the point above about “who does the representing,” even though I happen to know their names, I think of them by their monikers, pender and Kyzrati, not their real-world names.

Toby Fox and Undertale also comes to mind

I believe Megacrit, which built Slay the Spire, is two people, Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti. But to the broader point I knew the name of the studio off the top of my head while I needed to look up the names of the individuals.

Dwarf Fortress?

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