Indie Game: The Movie

Three independent game developers are followed. Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes are trying to finish Super Meat Boy while their debts grow as the release date approaches. Phil Fish has been working on Fez for years and is stuck in a legal fight with a former partner; he cannot finish it. Jonathan Blow has already released Braid and is in a strange emptiness after its success. The subject is not the games industry but the cost of putting an entire life into one piece of work. All three say the same thing: the game is a personal statement, and if it is received badly then what is rejected is not the game but them. The form is observational and close; the team kept a record inside the developers' homes and rooms across years. The tension in the trade show scenes is not staged but real time. The production was crowdfunded and won an editing award at Sundance in 2012. It is remembered as the film that introduced independent game development to a wide audience, and sales of the games in it rose noticeably after release. James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot directed. Who it is for: anyone interested in game making and creative process. Who it is not for: viewers wanting a picture of the industry as a whole; the film focuses on three white male developers, a narrowness that was criticised later.