I hope this doesn't come out wrong.
Why would it be comparable to 1970's era.
What would make it so impossible that it would be comparable to a 1970's game and not 0.5% of an AAA/modern game?

When it comes to features, the cost of a feature is all-or-nothing. What does it mean to have 0.5% of an AAA game? Either you have a large, continuous world, or you do not. Either you have a powerful rendering system or you do not. Either you have a high performance engine or you do not.

Many game demos must wait until the game is nearly ready for release because it takes that long for the technology to be developed. You might be able to have 0.5% of the world's assets, but you would still need the features to be fully developed.




One developer in a few months or years CAN create a game like Cubistry. They CAN create side scrollers. They CAN create falling blocks. They CAN create a simple space shooter, or a simple platformer. You can have games like Zork and Rogue and Akalabeth (precursor to Ultima), . The end of the 1970's was the golden age of arcade games. You got not just Space Invaders and Asteroids, but also Galaxian, Flight Simulator (the basis for so many games), Adventure, Pac-Man, Missile Command, Defender, Centipede, Rally-X, Donkey Kong (Yay, Mario!), Wizardry, Galaga, Frogger, and so many more.

That level of games are fun and full featured. A single developer CAN create that type of game in a reasonably short time frame.

There is an enormous difference in features between that era and today. In games like Adventure, Wizardry, and Akalabeth, you certainly get the role playing aspect and can do quite a lot, but the games are laughable in comparison to the feature set of a modern RPG. In Rally-X you can race around a maze that somehow represents a city, where your blue car is chased by red cars; I suppose you could equate it to Need For Speed today, but the feature sets are radically different.



It is important, especially in For Beginners forum, to set realistic expectations for what an individual beginner can do. It is realistic for a beginner to make a simple RPG. The games mentioned above are such targets. It is not realistic for a beginner to make a game similar to those with a five minute forty eight second credit movie found on YouTube, even though that is what they have played and want to emulate.

One developer in a few months or years CAN create a game like Cubistry. They CAN create side scrollers. They CAN create falling blocks. They CAN create a simple space shooter, or a simple platformer. You can have games like Zork and Rogue and Akalabeth (precursor to Ultima), . The end of the 1970's was the golden age of arcade games. You got not just Space Invaders and Asteroids, but also Galaxian, Flight Simulator (the basis for so many games), Adventure, Pac-Man, Missile Command, Defender, Centipede, Rally-X, Donkey Kong (Yay, Mario!), Wizardry, Galaga, Frogger, and so many more.

That level of games are fun and full featured. A single developer CAN create that type of game in a reasonably short time frame.
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It is important, especially in For Beginners forum, to set realistic expectations for what an individual beginner can do. It is realistic for a beginner to make a simple RPG. The games mentioned above are such targets. It is not realistic for a beginner to make a game similar to those with a five minute forty eight second credit movie found on YouTube, even though that is what they have played and want to emulate.

Certainly anyone in gamedev CAN create those games.
Take GTA V for example . . .
Wait, before i ask my other question. Are you referring to 1 beginner or 1 person (with >= 2 years of experience) when you say their game will be comparable to 1970's graphics?

A slight but potentially important misquote.

Be aware that one programmer working alone is more likely to produce a game similar to the 1970's era with simple gameplay, simple graphics, and simple logic, such as Cubistry, rather than something like a modern era RPG.

I am not talking about 1970's style graphics as in the 8-bit style. People write extremely complex games that use an older graphics style.

I am talking about 1970's complexity. Something with simple rules, straightforward logic, and small data sets.

A beginner working alone with today's tool absolutely can re-create many of the games from the late 1970's era. It will be a lot of work, it will take them some time, they will probably need to rely on modern tools and engines, but yes, an individual beginner game developer could pretty much clone any game on that list.

Thank you for fast feed back, since I use JAVA as main language in my CS studies I believe it would be rational to keep it that way, later on of course I'll go for other languages. Now, about those fancy looking 2D games, I've been drawing manga for a while now and I want to use those skills for something more than just pretty pictures. I'm fully aware how long it takes to make full game, don't get me wrong I'm not overestimating my capabilities to make hand-draw graphics or produce script for whole game, but I'm pretty sure that with some effort I can produce 1 level or 1 min of gameplay to contain some graphics, physics, AI, etc... anyway my main interest is mechanics behind screen.

Java is fine.

As for the features, ... maybe. Keep it simple, and only write what you actually need to get the job done. That's the best way for a single person to write great code.