What are your greatest influences?

[Marek]

I find that when I try to imagine the ideal game that I would strive to make, I often go back and remember how it felt to play the classics that influenced me. When I was young, playing Master of Orion had a big effect on me and I still consider it one of the best strategy games I've played. I've also always admired Sid Meier. I don't know how many hours I've spent on Civilisation I through IV and Colonisation. Also, how can I forget Transport Tycoon Deluxe. An amazingly polished game, and very inspiring considering Chris Sawyer did all the programming by himself as a one-man team.

Whenever I'm thinking about game ideas, I try to go back to those feelings of immersion and involvement that those old games invoked in me. I realize that at its core, effective game design is founded on simplicity and involves building a sense of atmosphere where the mechanics and rules are seamless and almost transparent, and where all the different parts seem like they were designed to fit together perfectly. (even though, in reality, hours and hours of refining and playtesting went into perfecting them)

What games have influenced you? I've named a few PC games, but if your influences include PBBGs as well, share them too.

[Nox]

Out of PBBGs it's rather local ones

PC games ... of those I can currently think of:
major being Disciples II, Diablo II ... both dark grim fantasy games, immersive with wonderful graphics*, D2 also interesting due to interesting and extensive mechanics
D&D adaptations probably too - Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale
(all of these I still play from time to time)
And likely Dawn of War 2 (WarHammer 40k universe) at which I..am still spending...a great deal of time

Will edit if my memory decides to cooperate for once

*) I strongly believe that a nice 2d is MUCH nicer than 3d of any other then excellent quality (except shooters and maybe a few others)

[Chris]

* Might & Magic III - V (still my the best RPG ever)
* Eye of Beholder 2 (my second best RPG ever
* Dungeon Master 2 (a very interesting and sophisticated engine, the last one from the 90 degree rotating RPGs, most new RPGs don't come even close to implemeting these effects (like during thunderstorm you can be hit by a lightning and lose plenty of HPs), it puzzles me why no one copied these features, in year 2010 I still feel this is the most fresh and innovative RPG...)
* Adom (when I compare it with other roguelikes it shows me how superior is when someone is making a whole game alone versus multiple designers/programmers)
* Another World (for obvious reasons for anyone who played it )
* Storm Master (not a very good game but... it is mesmerizing, I think of that one quite often)
* Master of Orion II (the ONLY space empire game that actually is playable)
* Colonization (perfect, I mean perfect limiters for players - natural self balancing colonist & colonies volume)
* Crystals of Arborea (I don't know why, maybe because I was young then )
* old Pirates! vs new Pirates! (basicly identical mechanics and so completely different gameplay, it shows how actual numbers in the engine can completely change gameplay)
* Champions of Krynn (you know, they had a thing called "storyline" and "mood" then (you could kiss an old hag that turned into a beautifull princess and gave you magic Helmet +1 as a reward or you could dive underwater to enter sea elves realm where you needed to learn their language - which means you had to actually take a peace of paper and write a simple dictionary to understand NPCs), not the bloated crap from Baldurs Gate, and there was Delayed Fireball spell which was killing even 20 enemies in one shot, not the pathetic spells they make nowadays )
* Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight (a mix of arcade and RPG, I even named one of my games similar way to pay my respect
* Sword of Legend (I sucked at this one, but everything there was so alive, it was a late infocom type games but with graphical interface and some images)
* Access Denied (an old free Amiga IF type game - again with gfx - the mood was excellent, otherwise a poor game)
* It Came From the Desert (terrible game, completely unplayable, but the mood... it is the only game I really regret that it is so unplayable I can  not play it )
* Elvira I (obvious reasons
* Laser Squad (if you know what it is without googling, you are an old geezer)
* Dune I (superior storyline, the best mix of adventure and strategy, I hate that the copyrighted the universe and do not licence it anymore, otherwise I would make some game in that setting)
* Dune II (the first RTS game, I recall when I went to the software trading hall and everyone was staring and talking about what kind of genre is that (C&C was not invented then yet), it is surprisigly playable for a precursor, I know plenty of modern RTS that are worse)
* Castles I (castle building, a nice mix of RPG/adventure and strategy ("My lord, the wolves attack people, and some say these are werewolves, what do we do!" To make it more interesting there was realistic and fantasy setting, so while you knew what rumours were true in realistic one, these might be otherway if you selected fantasy , they never made any similar game like that)
* Barbarian (the cutting head move was so cool!)
* The Movie (detective solving a case, some nice tricks and concepts)
* Knight Lore (I think this was the game that lured me into game dev)

[JGadrow]

I've been a game fanatic from a very early age.... I've always played games. I tend to draw inspiration from whatever seems closest to what I'm trying to do at the moment. Everything from board games, card games, children's games (rock-paper-scissors), computer games, table-top rpg, wargames....

I've been a fan of Blizzard games ever since Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Kinda strange to watch a company grow from a little-known developer into a mega-industry giant over the years. But, seriously, the games they produce are quality and they probably do the best job stomping bugs before production of any development company that I know of. Sure, their games aren't perfect but nothing ever will be.

I don't know if I should be sad or proud that I know almost all of the games that have been listed so far... lol

[dbest]

My greatest influence would be the Age of Empires series as this was one my first addictive game. I used to keep playing it for ages.

Another one on the list is Transport Tycoon. I do not understand the craze for it at this age, but it took away a lot of my time when I was young.