Indie Game : The Movie

So I watched Indie Game: The Movie last week and let it sit in my subconscious for a while before I shared my thoughts.

This is a spoiler filled review. If you want to walk into this movie without any preconceptions; book mark this review and come back for my thoughts later.

http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/

This movie is obviously extremely interesting material for any indie game dev, or any one who thinks they might want to be one!

Firstly let me say I truly appreciated the extremely personal approach the film took.  They took just a few developers and focused in very tightly on their stories rather than trying to cover the entire scene and talk to 100 people.  The connection to the guys in this film was made very well and you cared about what was going on.

They had a portion of the film when they showed the developers feeling depressed after they had finished their games. My wife looked to me and said "really?! depressed?"

Read more after the break...




So I thought about it for a minute; I had actually just finished my first game Pirate's Treasure two weeks before and I said "You know what .. I totally get it!"

I went on to explain what its like to be 1000% dedicated to something for months on end, maybe years. Every day, every night. All your thoughts, hopes, passions and work tied to this thing.  Think of it as an extremely intense relationship in your life. 

And then one day its "over" ... I mean yeah you get this high!  WOW I'm done!!! But then a day or two later you're sitting there and realize .... its over. It's really over. This thing that is like a relationship is gone.

My recent project only lasted 4.5 months but I could feel the loss of it being over and shared that with my wife - and she understood.  But this is a funny thing - those of you who watch Indie Game who are not into development are going to find things that might sound like bull crap - but its not.  This movie is really from these guys hearts and I'm telling you know to trust most of what you see on screen - they are telling you how they feel.

Anyways .. more about this movie.

There was a point when the dev Tommy really laid into professional "big studios" and talked about how much he hated them and the games they made were shit. And how he does not want to make anything like they make because it is so horrible.

At the time I was like "YEAH" F* those guys!

And then later (like I said I let it sink in for a week before writing this) I disagreed with him.

Now don't get me wrong ; there are hundreds of big studios.  Some of them seem to shovel poop for a living.  But he was specifically talking about the BIGGEST most popular ones wasn't he?

He was talking about games like Call of Duty.   Well I like that game.  I like a lot of big studio games. I like Skyrim, I like Half Life, I like LOTS of games, big studio games, little studio games. I'm a gamer and I love games.

But what made me connect with him so much at first? 

I guess in the end what I have to say is that big studios embody the corporate machine that destroys the creative soul inside us.  Huge corporations take a 'formula' and milk the cash cow.  They don't really care about creativity. They want to make money.  If their product "has to" have creativity in it then they pay some artists to make it creative.  But they do not care about it like you and I do. Not in the way we do.
 
Indie developers have to be all about soul.  If you don't have heart and soul you really don't have a chance in the Indie market.  You have no resources, you have no money, you have nothing but your heart, your mind, and you better find more motivation than any normal human being has a right to posses or you won't be making a game!

So then I had to re-agree with him. He was right; but I don't think he was very articulate about it. 

Then again; this is my take on it right? Disagree if you wish.

There was one moment in the film when some one was threatening to kill someone. And then they milked the scene, and then milked it more. And then a bit more.

I was not sure if this scene was legitimate; if it was the guy should have been afraid of some jail time ;  you don't make death threats on camera?

Otherwise this movie was way more than I expected out of it.

There are times when they are talking you can see they are going to break up in tears ; its because these guys really care about what they are doing that much.

If you like games at all you should see this movie. If you are thinking about a career in game development you should see this movie.

These guys put their lives and careers and their health on the line to do what they love. Its a great story .. let me know what you thought of it?