Review of Indie Game: The Movie (2012) by Mitch W — 05 Jun 2012

An intimate look at the trials and success of independent game developers, who often try to market their games on places like XBox Live Arcade, WiiWare, or Steam. The film followed the small groups of programmers and developers in different stages of the process, from still coding, to advertising and launch, to the ultimate success or failure of their product.

Having grown up with video games all my life, it was easy to connect with these people, understanding their goals and aspirations. Like any form of art, it is a labor of love. By going against mainstream companies like EA, these people engender an underdog-type story, so it makes you want to root for them.

Except for the "Braid" guy. I never came to like him. But he's rich now.

Following a pretty standard documentary format, the film focuses on two main arcs, "Super Meat Boy" and "Fez." Apparently Fez has just reached 100,000 downloads on XBLA, so it's been deemed a success. Of course, for every success story, there are countless others who dream of such appeal. In that sense, the film did a great job of trying to emphasize that there are other people in this same situation, and by showing various demo clips during the credits, and individually thanking its proprietors (the movie was made by Kickstarter), it articulated that this wasn't some 1,000-person, over-budgeted job. It was two people making a computer game.

The pacing was good, and the film kept the viewer engaged. I wish they had managed to incorporate more of the "Braid" guy towards the end of the film just so that it didn't feel so back and forth.

I think I might go buy Super Meat Boy now.