Indie Game: The Movie

Movie Title--  Indie Game: The Movie

Release Year--  2012

Running Time--  1 Hour and 43 Minutes

Film Type--  Documentary

A documentary that follows three different games developed by Independent Game Developers; Braid-released in 2008, Super Meat Boy-due to be released in 2010 and Fez-stuck in development hell.

An "Indie" game is a video game that is worked on by a small team of programmers and most come from a dream or a vision of how they want a certain game to be.  Indie game developers are the first generation of video game designers that have grown up with video games as a part of their lives.  For most of them, they received some kind of game console when they were young and through the years of playing these games have come up with their own visions or ideas for games that they would like to play and therefore they start creating these games on their own time.

A few facts about Indie Games--  Digital distribution has helped to boost Indie Games.  Big box stores such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and so on, were not really interested in selling these kinds of games, they are only interested in a game that is going to sell large quantities.  Because no one wanted to step on any toes no one distributed games digitally.

The company Valve changed this when they introduced Steam.  Valve had no loyalties to retail so they started to distribute games digitally and the need to compete with them introduced other digital distributors such as Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network and WiiWare.  2008 was the first year that Indie game really did well.

2008 introduced AudioSuft, Castle Crashers, World of Goo and Braid

2009 introduced Osmos

2010 introduced Limbo

2011 introduced Minecraft

These games did well, earning millions of dollars in revenue which for a small team of indie programmers/developers is a very good thing.

  

Jonathon Blow has been making games for 22 years.  "Braid" was the first game he ever finished.  It took him three years to complete Braid, however he spent a week developing  an idea for it and within a week he had a prototype for the game.  The mechanics in the finished product are almost completely mirrored from the prototype.

When Braid was released in August 2008 it was a huge commercial and critical success.  Braid is one of the top rated video games of all time.

Jonathan says that he wanted to make a connection with people through his game but not a lot of people understood what he was trying to convey.  It was a huge success but most people only saw what was on the surface and not what he thought actually makes the game special.  

                

Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes as the creators of "Super Meat Boy".  They created Super Meat Boy as a game that their younger selves would want to play and would enjoy.  It is about a boy with no skin that is trying to save his girlfriend that is made of bandages from an evil doctor that is a fetus in a glass jar wearing a top hat.  Edmund and Tommy do not have to answer to anyone since they were developing this game on their own so they had no rules of censorship and they included several parodies to other games in their finished product.

The mechanics go as such--

     Level Introduction--  The basic mechanics of the game are introduced in the form of a problem that the player has to overcome by learning how to use the controls.  The player does this by playing through scenarios instead of text to read that most players tend to bypass, the player figures out what to do by trying different things and learning how to make it work.

     Mechanics--  New mechanics are introduced once the basics are down.  Meat Boy has no power ups.  The levels change so the mechanics change instead of making Meat Boy weaker or stronger.

The game is slated to be released in 2010, while this film was being made.

                

Phil Fish is the creator of "Fez".  Fez is about a 2-D man who suddenly realizes that the world is 3-D.  The game is meant to be played slowly while the player explores the world and enjoys it.  Fez is Phil's first game and it is super over ambitious.

Phil says he knew when he was 4 and got a Nintendo gaming console that he wanted to make video games.  He and his father created games together based on the art he made and brought home from school.  

At the start of the film, the game has been in development for 3 years.  In 2008, Fez won the IGF Art award from the Independent Game Festival and the game was hardly finished.  Within a week every gaming outlet was reporting about it.  It is slated to be released in 2010 at the time the film is being made.

The process I go through for Documentary Thursday is a long one.  It takes me about a hour or more longer to watch a documentary because I take notes while I watch, so I am constantly pausing and running the film back to make sure I am getting the facts right.  I do tend to put a little bit of extra research into my documentaries because I want to make sure that I am double checking to make sure I am getting the facts right.  For this film, I threw most of my notes out.  I realized as I started writing this post that to state all the facts for this film would ruin it.  This a film that really needs to be experienced for yourself without hearing about it first.

I will say, I enjoyed watching Edmund and Tommy's experience of releasing their first game.  I was completely drawn in by their story and their reactions to how things were coming along with their game.  I did not, however, enjoy Phil Fish.  He seems to make a lot of excuses as to why it is taking so long to develop his game when in reality, he just seems like a pretentious jerk.  There is a part in his story when he goes to PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) East and he has some trouble and that does make you feel bad for him.  No matter how big of a jerk someone is, it is sad when someone's dreams and hard works looks like it may be crashing and burning.

Anyone that loves video games should see this film.  I don't just mean gamers but developers, producers and even distributors too.  For anyone that dares to dream about going into the video game industry, this film is for you!  Watch it at your computer for easy access to your games and Don't Forget the Popcorn!