What are the most succesful commercial games made with GameMaker?

I was curious to know which commercial games made with GM have been the most successful. Are many of the big-time, production games I see on websites like MiniClip, or similar game websites, made with GM? Can anyone point me to a list of the most successful games? Has anyone made much money with their GM game? Just curious.

 

The only one I know that isn't in showcase is Undertale.

 

Nuclear Throne, Undertale, Hyper Light Drifter, the original Luftrausers, Super Crate Box, Gunpoint, Hotline Miami, and Spelunky.


Just to name a few.

 

People have had success and made money making games with GameMaker, there is a list somewhere if you search Google, I've looked into this a few times myself. Hotline Miami did really well, they have a small documentary on YouTube, check it out.

 

Using HLM as a "Gamemaker game that made it" is somewhat counterintuitive, because they stopped using Gamemaker and rewrote it as soon as they became popular

 

One of my closest ties with a somewhat famous person is with Cactus (AKA: The guy who made HLM).
By close, I mean he might recognize my username.

 

alright

 

The original HLM (and 2 initially) were released using GM7. They fact they may have recompiled and re-released later is irrelevant. We knew the PS versions were all using Sony engine code, but the raw game was written and released in GM.

 

Undertale is in the Showcase.

 

Undertale is a really good one.

 

Whoops! Excuse me, apparently I'm having eyesight failure.

 

Are you sure about a release version of hlm 2 being done? If they ported to a C++ engine in 2013 for 1, why would they release with GM in 2015... also I don't think its irrelevant, I just wouldn't want to tout them as an advocate for a product because they stopped using it as soon as they had the resources to

 

If their success was achieved while using GM, then that's a huge positive for GM and all that matters. They were under market pressure to get their game onto a lot of platforms fast and wanted to focus on their next game so they paid Abstraction to do all their ports and take over development. They had the resources to do this. This isn't an option for any of us and it's not a problem any of us are solving for. Our problem is creating a great game with limited resources and HLM/HLM2 validate GM as a choice.

This is how the development went.

Hotline Miami 1:

- GameMaker version of Hotline Miami 1
- Converted version of Hotline Miami 1 including 'GameMaker simulation' as one big thing
- PhyreEngine

and for Hotline Miami 2 it's:

- GameMaker version of Hotline Miami 2
- Converted version of Hotline Miami 2
- GameBaker (Conversion tools and GameMaker simulation)
- SilverWare

And why Gamemaker for HLM2:

Does make me curious though, why was it built in GameMaker again in the first place if it would be ported to Gamebaker and Silverware?

"Jonatan (from Dennaton games) has years and years of experience working with GameMaker so it made sense for him to keep working in that environment. Also our tools don't offer much in the way of authoring the game itself, they're merely designed to create a runtime environment for the converted GameMaker game to run in."

It's important to note that they never stopped using GameMaker.

 

I'll add two games nobody has mentioned yet to the list:

• Rivals of Aether
• Hyper Light Drifter

 

I'm concerned about the prevalence of these "What's the most successful" questions around here, and even more about the motivations behind them.

So what if people tell you about what they think is the most successful GM project? Does that have any binding on what you could do? Furthermore, if the people behind these "successful projects" all insisted on waiting to see where others could take it before they do, would they have gotten there?

Success doesn't come from cowards who palm off the first step onto other people. It comes from the people to whom they've palmed off the first step.

 

Pretty sure talking about success with Game Maker is usually just an interesting and exciting topic. It's interesting to see successful games and the people behind them. Also, personally I find it pretty motivating to see other people's success with Game Maker. But, I agree. It doesn't have any binding on what you can do.

 

I think it's more a question as to whether or not GM have proven successful for developers (hopefully).
I understand that sentiment. I was hesitant to take GM seriously during it's 8.0-8.1 days.

Needless to say, a lot has changed.

 

As Rivo said, I ask just out of interest in the subject, mostly wanting to know if any of the games I have seen on sites like Miniclip were made with GM. As Cpaz said, I was interested to know how seriously GM can be taken as a design tool. I don't think that makes anyone a coward.

 

Don't worry, Frostycat takes an attitude of smug superiority and critical condescension towards almost everyone here; part of being on the GMC is becoming accustomed to the few well-established sourpuss personalities.

The showcase is generally a great list of successful GameMaker games, and also you'll find quite a few in Steam Greenlight, GameJolt, and itch.io. As a triple-A title maker, I only hear of it being used to prototype with stand-in assets and on mobile, Unity still appears to be at the top of the pack. Nontheless, GameMaker does do enough to give you pretty extensive 2D game creating, and the name is well-known enough to be understood as a competent tool. If you're hoping to put it on a resume as your sole programmming experience for a game programming company, though, it's probably not quite big enough for that...

 

Thanks, Tsa05. That's good info. Appreciate it.

 

Risk of Rain is a top 5 game for me and was made in GM.

 

Totally Agree, I couldn't stop playing it for like 2 weeks straight.

 

@FrostyCat I just wanna watch a series on youtube about you just being real on these forums. lol like every time you post you got me thinking outside the box about my own game...and it's not even my topic

 

1 – Sean Chan lands a job at Bungie
2 – Tom Francis from PC Gamer magazine launches Gunpoint
3 – Matthew Bowden earns up to $22,000 a month online
4 – Elias Viglione releases multiple hits for Android

Ethan Stark

 

Undertale has blown up in 2015 and it usually has multiple endings which made some users play it again and again, I don't know how much money it made as a final game it raised over $50,000 though kickstarter.

 

You mean sometimes it only has one?

 

The most successful kickstarter I've seen for a GM game is Hyper Light Drifter. As for sales, I couldn't tell you. There's a bunch of them now! I'm pretty sure the age-old argument of whether or not GM is a toy has passed.

 

Because this thread seems to keep resurfacing he is a useful list for everyone. Clearly GMS is a perfectly viable commercial tool.

Undertale: 2.5 million steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/391540

Hotline Miami: 2.2 million steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/219150

Risk of Rain: 1.5 million steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/248820

Gunpoint: 800k steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/206190

Nidhogg: 670K steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/94400

Nuclear Throne: 500K steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/242680

Hyper Light Drifter: 400K steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/257850

VA-11 Hall-A: 150K steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/447530

Rivals of Aether: 100K steam owners
http://steamspy.com/app/383980

N.B: steamspy's figures are not official and have a pretty large margin for error.

 

GM is a great tool for mapping out ideas and getting a game to a workable level, even if it is then ported. It's so much easier than diving into C++ or similar.

 

I know they're in the showcase but some games that I feel are worth mentioning noone is talking about:
Cook, Server, Delicious! (You can even read what publishing that was like on gamasutra but I can't post links yet so you'll have do some googling)
Downwell
Momodora
Crashlands

 

A game I personally enjoyed was Hero Seige (I'm reasonably sure it was created with GM).

 

Very confident myself that it was made in GM also.

 

Undertale and Hyper Light Drifter are two I know

 

My favorite most popular game made with Game Maker is Hotline Miami, I'd recommend it to anyone.

 

Deadbolt is my favourite GM game, great blend of action and puzzle in the gameplay and a nice soundtrack. Made by Risk of Rain dev but did not have the same success. Now they're making Risk of Rain 2... in unity. oh well.

 

Let's not forget all the moderately successful games developed with gms.

 

Yes it is was totally made in gms.

 

Dunno if it's already been said but most successful is Hotline Miami 1/2 followed by Crashlands. If just going off sales, etc.

 

Skein. (Still waiting...)

 

Have you looked at any of the numbers? Because that statement is absolutely not the case.

Undertale has more total sales than either of the Hotline Miami games.

And a shed load of games have outsold Crashlands... Risk of Rain, Hyperlight Drifter, Gunpoint, Nidhogg etc.

 

FTL, everyone forgets that one

 

Faster Than Ligth? Made with GM?

 

Nope, not as far as I'm aware.

FTL is C++ using SDL, DeVIL, FreeType, RapidXML, and zlib

 

Hmm, I was sure it did

 

One game that isn't mentioned often enough in threads like this is Hero Siege - it has earned over $1,000,000 USD to my knowledge.

My own portfolio of HTML5 games has earned over $500,000 USD before partner royalties, all built with GMS, but that's spread over 50+ games.