Looking at games on the market today, it's often clear where the devs found their inspiration. When one title soars to the top of the charts, numerous dupes and games similar in theme often follow. There was a wave of life sims released after The Sims started gathering an audience in the early 2000s, numerous fantasy RPGs followed the success of Final Fantasy, and choice-based games have been growing in popularity since hits like Telltale Games's The Walking Dead and Life Is Strange won over gamers across the world.
However, many players may not know about the smaller games that influenced other titles. These games didn't gain the amount of enduring success that the big titles earned and yet still had huge impacts on the game developers that played them. Many of these less played games often reinvented game mechanics or came up with novel approaches to gameplay, making them ahead of their time and often underappreciated.
10 The Touhou Project Helped Inspire Undertale
The Touhou Project is a game many players have heard of through its popular characters, however not many have actually played this game. A bullet hell shoot 'em up series that was created by Team Shanghai Alice, Touhou was one of the many games that gave the developer of Undertale, Toby Fox, his inspiration to make the game.
Undertale, a 2-D roleplaying game that made an impact on the indie game scene and is known for its charm, allowing the player to build connections with the environment and the various characters that the player encounters.
9 Myst Was The Inspiration Behind The Witness And Fez
Developed by Cyan, Myst is a graphic adventure puzzle game that pushed the limits on what puzzle games could be both in terms of graphical detail and in gameplay. Although Myst was successful upon its release in 1993, given its age most players today haven't played Myst, which is why Cyan has reimagined the iconic game and recently released the game for players to discover and rediscover.
Games like The Witness and Fez were directly influenced by Myst, carrying on the influences of blending the mixture of beautiful graphics with puzzles and exploration.
8 Before Spelunky There Was Spelunker
Spelunker, a lesser-known cave exploration platformer, was developed by MicroGraphic Image and released in 1983. While Spelunker sequels have been released in more recent years, many players are still unfamiliar with this game and are more familiar with its spiritual successor Spelunky.
Spelunky, a 2-D platformer in which the player explores through a cave was developed by MossMouth, gained popularity with its cute aesthetics and challenging gameplay. Spelunky's cave structure is procedurally generated, making each of the player's run-throughs unique.
7 Guardian Heroes Gave The Behemoth Inspiration For Castle Crashers
Most gamers are familiar with the Newgrounds hack-and-slash classic Castle Crashers, however many players haven't played its predecessor Guardian Heroes. Released in 1996, Guardian Heroes is a 2-D beat 'em up side scroller that was developed by Treasure. The game features the player fighting their way through various enemy obstacles as they progress through the story, allowing the player's choices in the game to lead them to different endings.
Similarly, Castle Crashers lets the player play as a knight and fight their way through the kingdom and various enemies, and is known for its Flash animation origins.
6 Bioshock Is The Spiritual Successor Of System Shock
System Shock is a widely known classic first-person action-adventure game that was developed by LookingGlass Technologies and released in 1994. Pushing the boundaries within its genre in terms of graphics and gameplay, the game made it onto various hall of fame lists. Despite this, the game is widely underplayed.
Considered a classic in its own right, Bioshock is an FPS role-playing game that was developed by Irrational Games. Heavily influenced by System Shock, Bioshock became its spiritual Successor and widely elaborated on storytelling within its genre. Bioshock is considered to be one of the best-selling game franchises of all time.
5 Ultima Underworld Influenced Bethesda And Valve
Developed by Blue Sky Productions and released in 1992, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a first-person RPG in which the player explores an underground multilevel dungeon. Though Ultima Underworld is esteemed for having been the first game to feature a 3-D environment in a first-person role-playing game, the game is still widely unknown by players.
Ultima Underworld gave inspiration to developers Bethesda and Valve and was also the inspiration for many games like Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, and Gears of War.
4 Faxanadu Inspired Team Cherry To Make Hollow Knight
Faxanadu is a role-playing game that was developed by Hudson Soft in 1987. With its medieval-themed story, players can explore the world's towns, dungeons, and fields as they progress through the game. It was this relatively unknown game that helped inspire Team Cherry in the making of Hollow Knight.
Released in 2017, Hollow Knight is an action-adventure game that is generally considered to be one of the best indie games in recent years and is regarded by many as an instant classic.
3 Infiniminer Is The Heart Of Minecraft's Voxel Graphics
Before Minecraft's inception, Infiniminer is an open-source sandbox digging and building game, that introduced the iconic voxel design. Infiniminer was developed by Zachtronics who later discontinued work on the game after experiencing a source code leak after its initial release. Likewise, Minecraft is a sandbox game created by Markus Persson and was heavily influenced by Infiniminer.
Minecraft borrowed its voxel graphics, procedural generation, and mining mechanics from Infiniminer. Today Minecraft continues to be a top-selling game and a favorite among players.
2 Dwarf Fortress Paved The Way For Construction And Management Sims
As one of the most complex games ever made, Dwarf Fortress, a construction, and management simulator, was developed by Bay 12 Games and released in 2002 and has been in development since. Although the game was widely unknown, it quickly gathered a cult following of players and inspired many games such as Gnomoria, Rimworld, and Oxygen Not Included.
Because of the complexity of Dwarf Fortress' mechanics, it has been used in academic studies including AI, game landscapes, and pedagogy.
1 Rogue Created The Rogue-like Genre
Players have heard of the roguelike genre, and many know that it was based on the 1980 game, but few have actually played it. Unlike most of today's games, Rogue's gameplay is in ASCII, making it visually harder to play.
Rogue is a dungeon crawler and is recognized as the first game to incorporate the genre's main elements in which the dungeons are procedurally generated and the player's character experiences permadeath. Some of the most popular roguelikes include The Binding Of Isaac, Dead Cells, and Hades.