Love is a splendid argument for minimal design. The entire playfield is only a handful of pixels. You walk, you jump, you set your respawn point (a nice compromise between quicksaves and lives). White objects probably hurt you; other colors probably don’t. That’s it. Yet the jazzy music, the crunchy mechanics, the feisty interface, the droll explanatory text, and the memorable level design paint the game as a classic.
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Though I’m not sure if he concerned himself with the broader community, Matt Bell’s Paper Airplane is perhaps the most widely-distributed Game-Maker game, and Yuphex is one of the most sophisticated. Matt’s games are defined by a meticulously clean visual style and a talent for both subverting and capitalizing on Game-Maker’s design quirks. It’s not that his games are purely experimental; that same sense of cleanliness and discipline extends to his design concepts, lending his games a strong feel of professionalism.
Matt began his Game-Maker work in high school, as was common to most of the designers I encountered. Most of my our communication was through the post, and carefully packaged 3-1/2″ floppies. From what I remember of Matt he was fairly reserved and didn’t mince words, which shows itself in his art. Offhand I am only aware of three of his games, which I will discuss below. If anyone can fill the gaps, please consider this an interactive discussion. All the better to unearth some indie game history.