Review of Indie Game: The Movie (2012) by Otageemeur L — 09 Dec 2012

"Indie Game: The Movie" is a documentary about current (2011) indie game. The documentary is showing three different steps in the process of 3 different indie games - an already proclaimed and finished indie game with Braid from Jonathan Blow, an indie game that is just coming out with Super Meat Boy from Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and at last an indie game that is in its early stage with Fez from Phil Fish and Renaud Bedard. I think it was a smart move to do this movie into those three different perspectives, even if I guess most of the movie is definitely about Super Meat Boy and Fez creators. Except a lot of curses :p, the documentary feels very human and I was sometimes ashamed of watching the various teams working on their games and their struggles with it. In that documentary, I definitely felt the stress, the passion, the effort and the need to express itself through the media that is video game.

Now, it is very hard to perceive those 3 games without thinking of the efforts behind it - this movie is showing the canvas of what I knew as finalized products and it makes you wonder: why didn't you see all the crafting of those games when you played them? Am I dumb and doesn't care about the vision of the game? Is it fair to not care about the details?

A very smart movie that I hope would allow some indie developers to continue their passions despites the struggle and the stress to not being understand... There is always a hope, just go ahead and try your best!