Yuji Horii
While designing the popular Japanese role-playing game "Dragon Quest", Yuji Horii drew inspiration from the "Wizardry" series, 1986's "Mugen no Shinzou" ("Heart of Phantasm"), and the "Ultima" series of games. Horii's obsession with "Wizardry" was manifested as an easter egg in one of his earlier games, "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" in 1983. In a dungeon-crawling portion of that adventure game, a note on the wall reads "MONSTER SURPRISED YOU." The English fan translation added a sidenote explaining "This is Yuji Horii wishing he could have made this game an RPG like "Wizardry"!"