This is a response to the Indie vs. AAA question.
Growing up, my idol Game Designer / Developer was Chris Sawyer, because he designed and programmed fantastic games such as Roller Coaster tycoon by himself with a hired artist and a hired musician. He also did the vast majority of his programming work in Assembly language.
Chris Sawyer first got a degree in Computer Science and Microprocessor Systems. He then started his professional career in the games industry in 1983 working on ancient games for Memotech MTX home computers and Amstrad CPC computers the such as Quogo and Quogo 2.
He then worked on some Amiga conversion projects such as Virus (1989), Campaign (1992), Birds of Prey (1992), Dino Dini’s Goal (1993), and Frontier Elite 2 (1993).
He then started making well known independent games. He started with Transport Tycoon, which he then published through microprose. He then worked on Roller coaster tycoon. For Roller coaster tycoon he talked with many rollercoaster professionals and did quite a bit of research to make sure the game was as correct as possible.
Chris formed strong collaborations with Simon Foster who made the majority of the images for his independent games and Allister Brimble who composed music and created sound effects. Chris Sawyer managed to convince Hasbro Interactive to publish his game under in a manner unusual in the game industry.
He then published Chris Sawyer’s locomotion in 2004, before becoming a recluse for many years. He has now recently started creating mobile versions of his games through a mobile development company that he started.
