No, Nolan Bushnell is still kicking and Miyamoto is still going strong. The man I'm referring to is Ray Harryhausen, the father of stop-motion special effects.
Wait a second, if Ray Harryhausen never worked on video games - what right do you have to call him "the most influential man in video games"? Because in 1958, Ray Harryhausen created this:
And this one sequence from the 7th Voyage of Sinbad (which took Harryhausen nearly three months to complete) has inspired more game creators than any other single idea. In fact, the scene was so successful, that Harryhausen topped himself by creating this sequence for Jason and the Argonauts in 1963:
Tell me that doesn't look like every fight you've ever played in an MMO.
Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, must have had Harryhausen's skeleton in mind when he added this charming fellow to the Tomb of Horrors:
To say Dungeons and Dragons inspired video game designers is possibly the understatement of the decade but when those early game creators started making games, guess who was one of the first bad guys to show up? That's right, the animated skeleton.
You can find them in JRPGs...
...hack and slashers...
...platformers...
...dungeon crawlers...
...and of course adventure games.
Animated skeletons have become so popular, they're even the main characters!
I admit, as far as cannon-fodder goes, you can't get much better than an animated skeleton. They look awesome and scary and make a great smashing noise when he thwack them with a sword (Pro-tip: real bones breaking don't sound very good. Instead, use the sound of a bowling pin getting knocked over) Lord knows I put enough of them in Maximo: Ghosts to Glory.
We had Harryhausen-inspired skeletons...
...Guard skeletons...
...Pirate Skeletons...
...Pirate Skeleton Bosses...
The animated skeleton is here to stay, but as I always say "You can never have too many skeletons" (unless you're this game:)
So let's all raise a toast to Ray Harryhausen - the king of the animated skeleton and most influential man in video games! Thanks Ray!
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