Indie Game: The Movie

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Indie Game: The Movie
Country of production Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2012
length 94 minutes
Rod
Director James Swirsky, Lisanne Pajot.
occupation

Jonathan Blow , Phil Fish, Edmund McMillen , Tommy Refenes

Indie Game: The Movie is a 2012 Canadian documentary directed by James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot. The film focuses on the development of the independent games Super Meat Boy by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and Fez by Phil Fish. He also documents the success of the game Braid developed by Jonathan Blow .

action

Based on the story of three games, the film shows how personal expression and personal feelings flow to a high degree in the development of independent games. The film follows Braid, which was released back in 2008 and achieved great success, Super Meat Boy , which is being prepared for release in 2011, and finally the difficult development of Fez over the years.

Jonathan Blow, developer of Braid, reflected his train of thought during the development of the game: He wished that his “deepest flaws and vulnerabilities” could flow into the game. His first attempts at designing the game quickly turned from experiment to discovery, according to Blow. He also talks about the aftermath of its publication: when Braid was published, it received widespread critical acclaim. Nevertheless, Blow is disaffected because a large part of the players seem to not “get” the deeper message of the game and its actual topic.

Super Meat Boy's development team, Team Meat, made up of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, aims to create a platform game that draws on the developers' childhood experiences with video games. McMillen talks about his life goal of communicating with other people through game development. He tells about the game Aether he developed in 2008, which records his childhood feelings, namely loneliness, nervousness and fear of abandonment. McMillen also highlights some of the techniques he uses in level design to introduce players to the game without extensive tutorials.

After about a year of development, Microsoft Team Meat is offering to participate in an Xbox Live arcade promotion called Game Feast ; However, this is only possible on condition that Super Meat Boy is completed within one month. Because of her extremely poor financial situation, Team Meat reluctantly accepts. The development then moves into the so-called crunch time , i.e. the decisive phase. The film documents how the great effort and time expended on McMillen's marriage and Refene's health, because he bears the brunt of the development. Refenes complains that he is sacrificing his social life to complete the game, but is very grateful to his family who support him. The team manages to finish the game on time. However, the game is nowhere to be found on Xbox Live Marketplace on launch day. Refenes, who fears bad sales, is very upset about this. In the end, the game appears on the marketplace, and Super Meat Boy, with 20,000 games sold within 24 hours, can double the Braid that was previously considered the front runner. McMillen is on the one hand surprised by the sales, on the other hand touched by the reaction of the fans. Refenes, on the other hand, exhausted and cynical, is less enthusiastic. However, Refenes gives up this attitude when he sees the first people enjoying the game on YouTube . Super Meat Boy ends up selling a million copies, which gives both developers financial security.

FEZ's development team , Polytron (Phil Fish and Renaud Bédard) are in their fourth year of game development. When FEZ was first announced at the 2008 Independent Games Festival , Fish received a lot of attention as a prominent independent developer. Since then, however, little has been heard of the game. It's difficult to develop: the company loses its financial resources, Fish gets into family troubles, and his former business partner leaves the company to enter into a lawsuit with Fish. The future of the project is in doubt. Fish admits that his perfectionism is dragging development and that he has gradually lost perspective of how good the game really is. Like Refenes, Fish explains that he can't imagine doing anything other than developing independent games; Fez has become his identity over time.

Polytron is preparing to present FEZ at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), although there is a risk of lawsuit in the event. In the course of the preparation, Fish suffers anxiety attacks because without a signature from his business partner (who remains anonymous in the film), it may be impossible for him to present at the PAX. Nevertheless, the so-called “FEZ Kiosk” will be set up at the exhibition. The performance gets into trouble, however, when last minute changes to the code cause the game to often crash or hang, which requires Fish to restart FEZ . The players appear unimpressed and still happy. Fish gives some interviews and web comic artist Jerry Holkins also expresses his enthusiasm for the game.

The film closes with Jonathan Blow's opening monologue. Blow explains that playing independent games is different because they are flawed and vulnerable, which makes them more personal overall. Videos of other emerging independent games will be played during the credits.

background

The film was financed through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.com . After two successful rounds of funding, interviews with prominent developers within the independent scene began. After over 300 hours of material was recorded, Swirsky and Pajot decided to limit the film to the four selected developers. They wanted to show game development “in the past, now and future” through each developer's own story.

reception

The film received mostly positive reviews. The film received a lot of attention and praise, especially in the game scene itself. The English-language review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes awards 92 out of 100 possible percentages to the film. Also, the mirror writes that it was a "impressive film" which is from the beginning of successful "the game designers to come close, appearance and content." At most, a strong “personalization” and a lack of definition of what exactly “indie” is in relation to video games are noted.

Awards

Indie Game: The Movie won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Approximately: Spielefest
  2. ↑ Indie Game: The Movie by BlinkWorks. Kickstarter, July 20, 2010, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Indie Game: The Movie - The Final Push by BlinkWorks. Kickstarter, July 23, 2011, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Kevin Kelly: G4TV: Indie Game: The Movie - The Interview. g4tv.com, February 26, 2012, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Entry in Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved December 26, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Markus Böhm: Indie Game: The Movie. Programming till you drop. In: Spiegel Online . Spiegel-Verlag , June 10, 2012, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Article on the Sundance Film Festival website. Retrieved December 26, 2012 .