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[fenners]

Pretty much every decent game dev company that wasn't owned by a publisher has done some form of licensed contract work along with original games. DICE is a pretty big example balancing out Battlefield with zero budget license titles (Barbie Secret Agent) and full budget contracts (Rallisport Challenge, Midtown Madness 3)

Yep, it's how independent developers survived the market back in the day. Sometimes you had big projects, often you had small low budget projects to keep people busy & keep some income coming in.

 

[Tye The Czar]

Zelda VAs then...

Zelda VAs now...

 

[Eylos]

 

[Professor Lexicovermis]

This cutesy lil cooking "sim" featuring Mickey and Minnie (

Spoiler

that lil Lexicovermis totally didn't play a ton shut up

)?

Made by Atlus.

 

[SoulUnison]

From the makers of WWF No Mercy and Def Jam: Fight for New York

Hahaha! This one got me pretty good!
So much street cred!

 

[Tye The Czar]

Dragonball Z is not the first time Arc System Works made a licensed anime fighter.

And they're responsible for more than just fighting games:

 

[Lijik]

Rares history is littered with these. They made a Mickey Mouse kart racer for both the n64 and gbc

 

[Chiramii]

Naughty Dog developed Way of the Warrior for 3DO.

Spoiler

Thank you RFN for making episode 287, that shit was pure gold.

"I see you've selected Demolition Man..."

 

[zoodoo]

If we're cheating then...

made by the same studio that did GTA. known then as DMA Design.

You forgot their best game: Body Harvest

I want a sequel.

 

[nkarafo]

What the? I have the F-Zero X Guitar Arrange soundtrack but never really listened to the original OST (never played the game either) and there's no deathgrowls on it, it's all instrumental haha. I had no idea. And yeah that Carcass riff, and those deathgrowls, haha holy shit. Never knew about this.

Heh, i know, when i listened to the Arranged Soundtrack long after playing the game it felt like a more lighthearted version of the real OST.

 

[statham]

Thexder, a DOS sidescrolling action game I used to play a shit ton, was made by Game Arts. (Lunar, Grandia, etc)

Omg a robotech game! Turned out meh.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Klonoa being made by the original Ninja Gaiden guy was mindblowing to me for some reason.

 

[Syril]

The horrible Double Dragon II remake, Wander of the Dragons, was made by Ragnarok Online developer Gravity.

Melty Blood and Under Night In Birth developer French Bread also made the awesome beat-em-up Ragnarok Battle Offline.

 

[JigglesBunny]

All the same guys and gals!

 

[Cathcart]

Crazy that this thread has gone on for so long. I can count on zero fingers the number of times I’ve been surprised that a game was developed by the World Health Organization.

 

[Nirolak]

Was developed by DICE.

Kind of. EA bought a studio that had just about finished that game (it had a couple months left) and merged them with DICE.

 

[SparksterMeta0]

Loved this back when I had the Sega Channel.
Didn't know Game Freak made this before Pokemon until much later.

 

[TheAngryInternet]

Depressing but true fact: this was Bullfrog's last game.

Similarly, some of the Bitmap Brothers' final games were PC ports of various Namco titles, including Pac-Man World 2 and kill.switch.

 

[Apathy]

When I first saw rocksteady made Arkham asylum, and looked back at the only other game they had made was Urban chaos, I was shocked.

 

[Outtrigger888]

Ken Griffey Jr Slugfest

Developed by Angel studios now they go by Rockstar San Diego

 

[Timu]

Also was the first game that used deferred rendering, if I remember correctly.

Yep, this is true!

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

and

were developed by none other than

 

[Eusis]

?! What happened to them?

It kind of reminds me of how some trans girls try to be really macho while they're in denial, and when they finally accept who they are they could go girly girl, like a rubber band effect.

Some of these are fairly mundane to me if not outright "well, duh" though I understand part of that is simply time passing so something everyone here would know in, say, 2004 or 2009 wouldn't be as widely known in 2017 (Obsidian being ex-Black Isle and their first game being KotOR2 was a big deal, and one of the big Demon's Souls selling points before being brought over were that it was modern King's Field) but a lot of these Atlus ones are a big surprise to me. And in addition to OoT Link sharing a voice with a Kill la Kill character: he also voiced Viral in Gurren Lagann, who kind of looks like a fanged Link anyway.

 

[Kevtones]

Rallisport Challenge 2 is such a good game.

 

[chaobreaker]

Its kind of amazing how many second and third party developers had since humble (if not embarassing) beginnings.

 

[blummer102]

Had an old Windows 3.1 adventure game that I used to play called Dare to Dream. Hooked it back up a few years ago and started playing only to see it was made by Cliffy B.

WOW. I definitely played this as a kid on some old Shareware disc or something. Recognize the menu screen. Haven't seen in years!!!

 

[SMD]

It kind of reminds me of how some trans girls try to be really macho while they're in denial, and when they finally accept who they are they could go girly girl, like a rubber band effect.

Some of these are fairly mundane to me if not outright "well, duh" though I understand part of that is simply time passing so something everyone here would know in, say, 2004 or 2009 wouldn't be as widely known in 2017 (Obsidian being ex-Black Isle and their first game being KotOR2 was a big deal, and one of the big Demon's Souls selling points before being brought over were that it was modern King's Field) but a lot of these Atlus ones are a big surprise to me. And in addition to OoT Link sharing a voice with a Kill la Kill character: he also voiced Viral in Gurren Lagann, who kind of looks like a fanged Link anyway.

Dude wtf

 

[_Rob_]

I was just trying to figure out the name of a game I used to have back in early 2000's on PS2, it turned out to be Ghosthunter. I had no idea it was actually developed by the same guys behind the Medievil franchise, SCE Cambridge Studio.

Funnily enough, the two are actually tied together with a chararacter:

Colonel Freddie Fortesque is likely a descendant of Sir Daniel (and it seems losing an eye runs in the family)!

 

[daTRUballin]

All the same guys and gals!

It’s kinda funny how Double Helix made a bunch of (supposedly) shitty games and then went on to make Killer Instinct, and then went back to making shitty games after Amazon bought them. Seems like they were a one hit wonder lol.

 

[element]

Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis was always a weird one for me and continues to be weird in retrospect. Just a solid table tennis sim.... From rockstar games.

Table Tennis was honestly brilliant, as it was used as the test bed for RAGE the new shared technology for Rockstar.
People pretty much paid for their technology test.

Some of these listed aren't that shocking because many are work for hire studios.

Sumo Digital has worked on everything from Outrun 2 on Xbox to Broken Sword: The Angel of Death to Little Big Planet 3.
Climax Studios has worked on Theme Park World to The Italian Job to Sudeki to ATV Offroad Fury 4.

These studios typically just would take any work they could to stay open.

 

[Llyrwenne]

Jazz Jackrabbit was created by Cliff Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee and developed / published by Epic MegaGames. The game was such a success that it earned Bleszinski enough money to get his first apartment and car.
Arjan Brussee went on to co-found Guerrilla Games, serving as development director for the Killzone series.
Epic MegaGames became Epic Games and developed the Unreal series and engine and the Gears of War franchise.
Cliff Bleszinski left Epic in 2012, right as Arjan Brussee left Guerilla to join Visceral Games as an executive producer for Battlefield Hardline.

In 2014, Brussee left EA and he and Bleszinski founded Boss Key, the studio behind the smash hit LawBreakers.

 

[Eusis]

Dude wtf

The first part? It's, uhh, something I'd seen anecdotes of online when looking around. Not like it's some guaranteed thing (and likely isn't the story here being a game developer rather than a single individual) but I can't help but think of that.

 

[Het_Nkik]

This post made me feel old, because I remember going ‘why are the Spider-Man people making Call of Duty now?’

Well then I feel really old because I was like, man, those guys who used to port the Tony Hawk games to Dreamcast sure are in a different genre now. There was also another Dreamcast game they made that I'd play the demo of here and there that I can't remember the name of. It was kind of crappy but had great graphics. Might have been based on a CG cartoon.

 

[mclem]

One that's always struck me as odd is a collection of games for the (very Euro-centric) ZX Spectrum...

...developed by the very Japanese Hudson Soft. It's the selfsame one, too; Eric and the Floaters is very clearly one of the first English releases of Bomberman.

 

[retroman]

One that's always struck me as odd is a collection of games for the (very Euro-centric) ZX Spectrum...

...developed by the very Japanese Hudson Soft. It's the selfsame one, too; Eric and the Floaters is very clearly one of the first English releases of Bomberman.

Yeah, it reminds me of HAL Laboratory (Kirby/Smash Bros./Mother). I was quite surprised when I found out they had created games for the Commodore 64 and the Vic 20.

Star Battle was programmed by none other than Satoru Iwata.

Fun trivia: they're all rip-offs of other games. Radar Rat Race = Rally-X, Jupiter Lander = Lunar Lander, Road Race = Night Driver and Star Battle = Galaxian.

 

[MaximumSpider]

Nintendo making the Hamtaro games.




Viva Pinata on Nintendo DS was also a strange case of a Microsoft IP on a Nintendo console. Even weirder, it was still developped by Rare and published by THQ.

No wonder why I loved Ham Ham Heartbreak so much

 

[TeamLeftMatch]

Kind of. EA bought a studio that had just about finished that game (it had a couple months left) and merged them with DICE.

Oh that very interesting. Curious, what was the original studio's name before getting merged?

I guess to me it's just a funny way of saying that the battlefield devs made a Shrek game, but I didn't know that.

 

[KORNdoggy]

 

[ValfarHL]

Motor Toon Grand Prix by Polyphony Digital.

Loved these as a kid. Wasn't until wayyy later I found out Polyphony made them.

 

[leesmapman]

I loved this pinball game for MSX

 

[rudger]

You forgot their best game: Body Harvest

I want a sequel.

They also forgot Uniracers which they made for Nintendo - and which has a fascinating history.

I’ll throw in Wario World for the GameCube. I saw it in the store and wasn’t that interested, then I turned the box and saw it was made by Treasure! Instantly bought it for that reason alone...shame it sucked. Should’ve stuck with my gut.

 

[Boss Doggie]

Shu Takumi

Clearly this means we need to do Jurassic Attorney, the adventures of T. Rex Wright.

The lead artist for this game, Tony Taka, is one of the most celebrated artists in the hentai community.

Likewise, Hiroki Kikuta, most famous for Secret of Mana, composed for many erogames that Taka worked on such as this one.

Gonna chime in and say that Tony Taka accidentally drew what is essentially one of the "gods" of kemobara.

 

[mrmickfran]

Mark Cerny was Producer for Sonic 2.
Had to stop and do a double-take when I saw his name in the smartphone remaster.

NANI???

 

[Barkley's Justice]

Rad Racer (Square)

 

[ShavenWolf]

and

were developed by none other than

Along with

3 solid Amiga pinball games.

 

[CypherSignal]

Shu Takumi

I had a version of this revelation when I started a cold playthrough of Ghost Trick - iirc, I think I barely noted that it was made by Capcomm, and at the time had only played one of the Ace Attorney games. Like an hour in, found myself thinking, "This feels a lot like AA...". Looked up the credits list on Mobygames and there it was!

As a small cherry on all of the DICE stuff, this may be only relevant for old Amiga people, but Stefan Boberg, one of the central TDs for DICE's software and still on Frostbite, developed one of the core community tools for distributing Amiga games, lha.

 

[Mihos]

Naughty Dog made this crap

 

[LightningXCE]

I was obsessed with Mendel Palace when I was a kid, and I was surprised to find out a few years ago that it was Pokemon developer Game Freak's first game.

Fun fact - a few tunes for the first few Pokemon games came from here and from a few of Game Freak's other games, as well as games that Junichi Masuda did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR29Fa0wWE0&t=431s

Boss music, for example, is your rival's theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOl73d8Yhdo&list=PLD5D58AE280A9B3C9&index=11

Mario & Wario was also made by Game Freak; this is route music from the mainline Pokemon games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOZpLXrztjo&list=PL7B2E67A9AB5FCABF&index=3

This is a cross between the Rocket Game Corner music and the Pokemon Center music in RBY

There's also an unused song in R/B that is very much from Mendel Palace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO7ZDbywOus

 

[Saven]

Bethesda, the company well known for Elder Scrolls and the later Fallout games once made Home Alone on the NES was a big one for me.

 

[mrmickfran]

Was helmed by a good number of developers at Capcom who also worked on Devil May Cry, hence why it plays kinda like a DMC game.

TheGamingBrit had a good video on it: https://youtu.be/8lUntztTg5w

Wait what the fuck