Konterr
Brilliant and touching
SpunkySelfTwitter
It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Brennan Camacho
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
1-0
It's not that I can't imagine how making new video games for major platforms would be stressful, but what seems life-threatening and intensely personal to the subjects of this documentary can often come off as a bit myopic/borderline-narcissistic. Ultimately, this movie illustrates not so much the sometimes-heroic, often frustrating creative process (and life in general), but good old-fashioned growing pains.And that's just it. Essentially, these guys are still kids; they obsess about reviews, social media interaction, their futures in an industry they've only begun to participate in. I can understand that. But I could also tell they hadn't yet seen the other side -- that we can fail utterly, and yet come back in one piece to do something even better.Still, there are certainly moments I rooted for the developers (except for that dude from Braid -- never complain publicly that people don't appreciate your work for the same reasons you do, *sheesh* NAGL). In particular, the bearded guy from Super Meat Boy comes off as humble, quirky, genuinely happy and surprised that people liked his game. Even the Fez developer, who at the beginning seemed practically a poster- boy for First World Problems, learns a lesson about life and perspective by the end. And maybe that's how best to enjoy this movie: as a snapshot of super-creative, ambitious young people dealing with adult problems, while wielding the emotional skill-sets of adolescence.
bob the moo
The first thing to say on this film is that you really will enjoy it more if you play indie games or know the couple of games that are mentioned here. This is not to suggest that the film will exclude you if you don't, but it is about these games and this culture but it will not hold your interest if you already have no involvement or interest in them. The film looks at the makers of indie games – ie not the 2000 people working on the next Grand Theft Auto, but the 2 or 3 people working on the game you'll pick up on Xbox Arcade or your phone for a few dollars and play to death over the following week or so. Early on it quotes many examples but mainly it focuses on Braid, Fez and Super Meat Boy in terms of experience development challenges, the feeling of success and the challenges of success.In this way the film does it pretty well because we do get all these things. I'm not sure if the makers followed many people and then edited down to be these specific guys, but their choices are good either way because the film gets a lot from these guys throughout. It wisely doesn't go into the real detail of writing games but keeps it accessible to those of us who just play them and have no understanding beyond that, but it does enough to help the viewer understand the effort and obsessive nature of the work, even if it could have done with an example of a total failure (the closest the film has is Fez, which doesn't succeed when the film closes but we know does in the end). The people are mostly engaging despite some of them (unsurprisingly) not being the most socially confident people you'll ever meet, the regular clips of games and the gentle soundtrack does add to the feel of a quirkumentary – which I guess it sort of is, but it felt like less of one to me since I'm sort of part of that quirk I suppose.It would have been good to have explored some bigger picture stuff above the characters here as well as following them, but the film still works well for what it does. It is limited a bit in its audience because the tight focus does need you to at least like gaming and to play indie games – but saying it like this makes me think it is not doing itself too much harm by "limiting" its audience to gamers, since there is a few of them around. So, if the film sounds interesting then it probably will be, as it captures the passion, frustration and success of the people making indie games in their bedrooms for years – and it mostly has engaging and likable characters to focus on while doing it.
Nick Schale
Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky knocked this out of the park. It is a film that follows three indie games at different parts of their development that have a story worth telling.Indie Game: The Movie so well crafted that my wife (non-gamer, non-geek, but appreciates movies) enjoyed and was interested. The pacing and storytelling invokes a wide range of emotions. The artistic choices of cinematic style are spot on and consistent throughout the film.The fact that it was mainly done by two people... puts me further in awe.
stephanie Grey
Indie (ĭn'dē) Developer (dĭ-vĕl'ə-pər) Meaning: An artistic work produced by an independent company or group.Synopsis: Documentary about three indie development team. Who produce Fez, SuperMeatBoy and Braid. Together its products symbolize breakthroughs in game development with concepts as time-bending, cube- ish levels and quick 2d plattformer.Points about Indie Game: Disappointing. Yet refreshing with in-depth interviews, a better understanding of programming, and never-before shown beta version of the most successful indie games this year. We follow Jonathan Blow, Phil Fish and the Meatbrothers Edmund & Tommy in a years-long development of their game. Indie Game is cake but it's not a chocolate cake. We learn about the years it took to produce Indie Games but mostly centered on the Developers hence the Game itself. Warning! - this movie will make you depressed that's a fact. As this Documentary focus to much on frustrated moments in development and its biggest torn. Its "We make a Game then We Die" motto. Which is NOT the part of Indie Development...Learning from mistakes is. At start you question their decision to pre-announce their game years before being close to release date of their death books. Yes.. the developer of Fez says he kill himself if he fails with releasing his game. That statement killed all mood I'd left for this Documentary . . But overlooking Indie Game flaws and its hyper-stressed and emotional freaks to creators the Programming part is very solid.. it's a very solid window for regular folks to learn about indie development and how developers create games. How SuperMeatBoy's first-levels is learning curves to its game mechanics. How Jonathan really made Braid in three weeks... and next two years was just polishing work. Deficiencies: More Programming, More Evolvement, More Game Ideas.. Indie Game is produced for a certain audience.. give that audience more of what they desires. It's also sadly produced with 3 games in-mind and not Indie Community. Most Indie Developers creates MANY games not ONE and LEARN from predecessors. Indies publish game, after game, after game... Indies can do that adverse distributors (Infinity Ward, SCE, Naughty Dog) who has time schedules Indie Developers publish games whenever they wants. Aside when you tell the World we're making THIS cool GAME watch US and haven't finished the majority parts yet. Then you get stressed as weeks and weeks passes .. like Phil Fish felt. I wonder if Phil ever wanna work with games again.. seeing this. ^^
