Twin-stick roguelite from BenStar tops 200 entries from over 25 countries to lift coveted ‘Best Game’ award
July 7, 2022
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]
Author: Dear Villagers
7th July 2022, Dundee, Scotland: The judges have deliberated. Over 200 games have been entered with thousands of votes cast. And we can now reveal that Revita has been crowned ‘Best Game’ and Heartbound ‘Most Anticipated’ game of the year, at the GameMaker Awards 2022.
The GameMaker Awards recognize games built in GameMaker which demonstrate excellence in design, creativity, technical ability and of course, awesome gameplay.
This year, the coveted gong for ‘Best Game’ goes to Revita, created by German developer BenStar. Revita is an exciting twin-stick roguelite platformer, where you play as an unnamed child as you ascend an ominous clocktower in pursuit of your lost memories. The game was up against a tough shortlist, which included Sucker for Love: First Date, ElecHead, Grapple Dog and Webbed. However, Revita’s fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping gameplay and incredibly satisfying combat mechanics ultimately won the judges over, which included head of GameMaker Russell Kay, and Opera GX Product Director, Maciej Kocemba.
The ‘Most Anticipated Game’ at this year's awards went to Heartbound, from US developer, Pirate Software. Heartbound’s unorthodox approach to role playing games tells the story of a boy, his dog, curious secrets, and sanity - all created in a breathtaking pixel art style. However, it was Heartbound’s amazing storytelling which really captured the judges imagination, leaving them hungry for more.
The other finalists of the Most Anticipated Game category were BROK the InvestiGator, Cattails: Wildwood Story, Exophobia and Rusted Moss.
For 2022, the GameMaker Awards introduced the new ‘Best of GX.games’ award category, shining a light on some of the awesome games shared from GameMaker to the GX.games platform. Amongst the host of truly outstanding games competing for this inaugural award, Super Raft Boat was named the winner. An upbeat roguelike set in the flooded world, Super Raft Boat challenges the players to a mad dash over precarious rafts, constantly besieged by enemies, where only the very best of rafters make it to Final Island.
You can play Super Raft Boat now on GX.games by visiting https://gxc.gg/games/qcg3e9/super-raft-boat/.
The other games shortlisted for the title of Best of GX.games were All You Can Take, Memorial Pillage, Ogre Chambers and Raven Estate.
Russell Kay, Head of GameMaker, said: “Each year, I’m completely blown away by the incredible standard of the games which enter the GameMaker Awards, from creators and studios pushing the absolute boundaries of GameMaker’s powerful functionality. In judging this year's awards, we’ve once again been lucky to experience a huge range of awesome games which combine enthralling creative ideas, vivid artistic concepts and highly engaging gameplay to create something truly memorable. But as with last year’s awards, I’m just glad the final decision was left in the hands of our loyal GameMaker and Opera GX communities.”
Ben Kiefer, Lead Developer, BenStar, added: "GameMaker has always been with me since the very start of my gamedev career. Almost everything I know about gamedev, I have learned during the development of Revita. From how much of a difference the lerp function makes to the power of json files. And of course, how important a strong community can be.
“Therefore, it's immensely humbling that the game that originally made me want to learn gamedev professionally, is the one that’s won the ‘Best Game’ category. I would also like to say a big thank you to everyone who gave Revita their vote, when all the shortlisted games would have deserved it just as much! I honestly still can't believe it."
Thor, Founder, Pirate Software, commented: “Heartbound is our first major game as an indie studio so it's awesome to receive this award. Working with GameMaker throughout this has been easy and it allowed us to do everything we wanted to. Without royalties to tie us down it's been a fantastic financial choice for our studio as well.
“If anyone out there has ever considered making a game, don't wait for that perfect moment when the planets align. Get out there and start making stuff or you never will. You don't need any special knowledge or skill to start. Just work on your side project everyday. Join game jams. Make something small and launch it. Get feedback from EVERYONE. Adapt and level up with your experience. You got this.”
Jason Gertner, developer, Super Raft Boat, added: "It's a big honor to receive a GameMaker Award for Super Raft Boat! Super Raft Boat actually came from a game I canceled in 2017. The team for SRB formed around a new jam in 2021, so we took some elements from the original, and reformatted it into a much more understandable and compact experience. Most of the team has been using GameMaker for over 10 years, so it means a lot that so many people enjoyed the game."
##ENDS##
About GameMaker
GameMaker (formerly GameMaker Studio 2) is the fastest and friendliest cross-platform game development technology out there. GameMaker has been completely redeveloped with usability and efficiency at its core, allowing artists and game creators to make games within a single code base and then publish them to run natively across multiple platforms including Android, iOS, HTML5, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Windows Desktop, OS X, Ubuntu, Windows UWP. The GameMaker family of products is offered by YoYo Games, a wholly owned Opera subsidiary. GameMaker has been downloaded more than 10 million times since 2012. The team behind it is based in Dundee, Scotland. GameMaker was acquired by Opera in January 2021.
About Opera and Opera GX
Opera is a global web innovator. Opera’s browsers, news products and fintech solutions are the trusted choice of hundreds of millions of MAU worldwide. Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange (OPRA).https://opera.com
In 2019 Opera launched Opera GX, a browser built for gamers with features that include countless customization options, sound effects, background music, a gaming-inspired design, as well as CPU, RAM and Network Bandwidth limiters that make the browser less resource-hungry and leave more of the computer’s resources for gaming. Opera GX continues to receive high ratings (4.7 out of 5.0). It also recently launched Discord server which quickly became number one in the Science & Tech community with more than almost 500K members. In June 2021, Opera GX became available on mobile devices as the world’s first mobile browser designed for gamers.
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