Inspired by a thread in the obscure gaming section where Yu Suzuki worship is being discussed, I thought I'd start a thread here asking what programmers you think truly are the best of the best, the innovators who make incredible games or the geniuses who squeeze every inch of power out of a system with incredible coding. I think producers should be included here too if necessary. For instance GTA 4 had a massive staff but there were definitely individuals that guided its fluid controls, physics etc. Would be nice to also here some of the more obscure names that casual gamers don't hear about but the programmers know to be amazing.
Generally programmers aren't Yuji Naka, they aren't the innovators so it's hard to say, many programmers also ruin some otherwise great games because they can't better optimize the program... I think one pretty unknown game (don't know programmer from memory) deserving of mention is Shantae a girl-game late in the GBC's life, not a mind blowing premise but it went way beyond your typical GBC game in music and animation which are important in making a game stand out.
They used the euphoria engine not a proprietery one. I think the two best coders i can think of are Carmack and the treasure team. If there's anyone who knows how to squeze every inch of power out of something it's carmack
Anyone that could make the Saturn sing would be a God amongst programmers. So like... Hidetoshi "Wiz" Takeshita (Team Andromeda), Fukyru (Treasure/Radiant Silvergun), Yaiman (Treasure/Guardian Heroes), whoever did the programming for Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru, Yuji Naka (since he did program for the Saturn), whoever did the programming for AM2 at the time, etc.
Yes, Capcom. The studio who made shantae was also responcible for the recent Contra game on DS. My friend (an artist/producer over there) has bugged me a few times to go work for them.
The real uber coders are unknown by the majority. They are the ones that work on the engine games run on.
Indeed back in the day, RARE was king. Just looks at what they were able to do with Battletoads with nothing more than AOROM. I don't think it's easy to tell though what games had impressive programmers as you aren't likely to notice if it's done really well, only if it's done poorly. And from what I've heard they like wizard class programmers, but all it really takes is an average one that can get the job done. You can still have a great game then.
AM2's secret weapon back in the Saturn era was undoubtedly Keiji Okayasu, though it's already been discussed that Yu Suzuki may have been directly involved with some level of coding when it came to preliminary work on later games such as the ill-fated Virtua Fighter 3 conversion or Shenmue prototype. Yuji Naka also deserves a mention for his skills, but more as a result of his Famicom emulator for MegaDrive as opposed to later Sonic Team efforts. While still impressive, the fact he pulled off such feats in a relatively pre-homebrew age further emphasises his real value to Sega. Of course, we'll probably never get to witness such contributions for ourselves - the legal implications are enough, and that's without taking into consideration the possibility anything from this work may not exist so long after the fact. Still, he's always got the original Sonic engine as a solid-enough backup of his worth... P.S. On the subject of Saturn development, where's Lobotomy Software, Travellers' Tales (even if this one's limited to just a single notable game) or perhaps even Scavenger's programmers? Zyrinx in particular deserve more respect!
In the industry I can only think about the usual guys: carmack, naka, suzuki, etc... But the ones that surprise me all the time are demo programmers. These guys can take and old piece of hardware and push it to the very limit. The Amiga scene has managed to do stuff PC couldnt even years after they did. Indeed, too bad no launch 32X game looked like that:-(
Since Dark_Alex was mentioned, who we psp owners owe tremendously, we should also give mention to Aaron Giles. So many of those incredible roms playable on Mame are because of his talents. I remember first discovering Mame in the late 90s and noticed immediately that the man responsible for bringing us playable Paperboy and 720 roms was Aaron. Also any of the hobbyists who managed to emulate console hardware deserve some note.
While I think Yuji Naka deserves a mention (Phantasy Star on the SMS anyone) I don't think he did anything to really push the industry directly. PS was great as were the old Sonics on the MD. Unfortunately, the systems didn't have enough presence in Japan to make a huge impact on the region. Even if he did at first, he faded out early on in the 128-bit generation. I'll make my obligatory post about Tsuneki Ikeda. Not only is he an excellent programmer and games designer, but he invented the danmaku and at least popularized chaining if not invented that one as well. As for scraping the most out of the system, there are roughly 10 shooting games released on the SH3, and each one is better looking than the last. The sub par PS2 ports also showed that all of that slowdown found on the PCBs has to have some massaging to make it not completely fuck the gameplay up. Last but not least, the Treasure guys Iuchi, amongst others, have more than a few times wowed pretty much the world, even if their games aren't your cup of tea.
