Banished is an even more technically impressive example: one guy doing all the code (C++/DirectX) and 3D art, just not the music. And of course Minecraft, same thing until late beta, I think.
A user went haywire and downvoted a whole bunch of comments. We'll correct the damage.
All: when you notice substantive, civil comments that are unfairly faded out, please give them a corrective upvote. This is a longstanding community practice. It usually only takes one or two corrective votes to get a good comment back to par, so every user can make a significant difference.
"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."
