Indie Game: The Movie is a triumph in independent filmmaking. Funded by Kickstarter donations from hundreds of people, the film has won several film festival awards since its premiere at last year’s Sundance. After filming hundreds of hours of raw material from around the world of independent game design, co-directors James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot focus their story on four indie developers working on three projects in different stages of development.
The first reflects on the success of one of the most downloaded independent games of all time, Braid. Despite its success, designer Jonathan Blow is dissatisfied with why people are enjoying his game so much and he becomes infamous as somebody who reacts to comments on fan message boards.
In the second story, two other developers co-create another incredibly successful indie game, Super Meat Boy. Edward and Tommy try to balance their family lives with their game design and work tirelessly to meet their release deadline.
In the final part, designer Phil Fish struggles through what he hopes will be the last stages of developing his eagerly anticipated game, Fez. The game has been pushed back and delayed almost to the point of disinterest from gamers. Phil also battles legal issues with an ex-collaborator whilst becoming almost obsessive over perfecting the final product.
All three stories are effective in showing the lonely and borderline depressive livelihood independent game designers sometimes have to go through. As Jonathan Blow says: “If you don’t see a vulnerability in somebody, you’re probably not relating to them on a very personal level.” He is speaking about the level of intimacy independent game developers can feel when they have so much control over the final product and the way they can directly communicate with gamers without the intrusion of large games development companies.
This aim is something all four developers have in common and it is clear from each of them the passion they have for their art. They are obviously skilled in what they do but they do not feel the need to be associated with major games companies in order to be noticed; they let their work speak for itself even if it takes three or four times as long to create.
The choice of these three projects is an interesting one. We get the retrospective look at a success story, the personal account of a collaborative design that approaches its release and another account of a game which is feared might never be ready for release: past, present and future. It makes us care about each story and each person too which is vital. The film strips back to an intimate story of the truth behind these incredible games which many people will be astonished are created by, at most, a handful of very talented people.
Indie Game: The Movie is intriguing, intelligent and sometimes emotional. I, for one, am pleased to see this Kickstarter trend has recently picked up the pace because this indie film is well worth a watch.
RATING: SEE IT
[Rating system: See it / See it cheap / Skip it]