Indie Game – The Movie

Posted by in Movies

Share

I’ve mostly gotten away from reviewing movies on my blog but this one is totally worth breaking that trend.

Indie Game – The Movie is a documentary about indie game development in general via the specific stories of Braid developer Jonathan Blow (post Braid), Super Meat Boy developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes (mid release of Meat Boy), and Fez developer Phil Fish (pre-release of Fez).  By following these three developers at different stages of release you get a better idea of the overall release cycle, and the kinds of stress it has on indie developers (and developers in general).  The documentary was able to release due in part to a Kickstarter campaign that if I’d been on Kickstarter at the time, I would have hated myself for not backing.  I was amazed to read that this documentary was created by two first time film makers, it’s remarkably well polished and edited.

I have played both Braid and Super Meat Boy, but I’ve yet to try Fez because it’s an Xbox exclusive so I’ll have to wait until it comes to PS3 or Steam (I’m not about to dust off my Xbox and plug it in).  I have a full review of Braid on my blog, but I never made one for Super Meat Boy because I never finished it (or came close really).  It’s funny that games that I truly admire which also happen to be game types I played in my childhood are the games I just don’t find time for now.  I’ve had Super Meat Boy installed on my computer a number of times but just haven’t gotten into playing it, and it’s probably partly the difficulty curve.

After watching this documentary I have a greater respect for all these developers (and any other developer who decides to make the games they want to make for themselves first, not financial gain).  It makes me want to spend more time developing and less time playing games.  I have plenty of aspirations, but it’s so easy to decide to not do something rather than risk failing at it.

I hope to one day look back on this film as the reason for rededicating myself to indie development.

Share