Game Maker Games

This project started when Mark Overmars, creator of Game Maker, announced he would no longer accept games submitted by users to be showcased on his website. A band of idealistic programmers came together to create a comprehensive database of free Game Maker games that also offered reviews, competitions, and a closer-knit community apart from the official Game Maker forums.

I was recruited to help develop this website during its infancy, in 2004, and it was my first exposure to PHP and SQL. The website grew from a small CMS-powered collection of games to a vast, action-packed personality containing thousands of games and over 10,000 members. Today it contains hundreds of high-quality reviews, and its "official opinion" has merit among the general freeware community. It uses revenue from advertisements to fund large-scale contests.

Prior to my employment at TrialPay this was the largest and most labor-intensive web project I was involved with.