With the twenty-first century comes a new breed of struggling independent artist: the indie game designer. Refusing to toil for major developers, these innovators independently conceive, design, and program their distinctly personal games in the hope that they, too, may find success.
After two years of painstaking work, designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes await the release of their first major game for Xbox, Super Meat Boy—the adventures of a skinless boy in search of his girlfriend, who is made of bandages. At PAX, a major video-game expo, developer Phil Fish unveils his highly anticipated, four-years-in-the-making FEZ. Jonathan Blow considers beginning a new game after creating Braid, one of the highest-rated games of all time.
First-time filmmaking duo Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky capture the emotional journey of these meticulously obsessive artists who devote their lives to their interactive art. Four developers, three games, and one ultimate goal— to express oneself through a video game.
-Sundance Film Festival
Feature Documentary, 96 mins
Indie Game: The Movie was created by two people, James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. They have been working on the project for over a year, gathering stories from indie game developers all over North America. They have done all the producing, directing, cinematography, editing, and writing for the feature film and all the web videos made during the process.
The music for Indie Game: The Movie is by Jim Guthrie, the Canadian musician behind this year's iOs hit, Superbrothers: Sword and Swocery EP. You can check his soundtrack ('The Ballad of the Space Babies') and more of his great work on Bandcamp.
Indie Game: The Movie has been signfitcantly supported by the online community through two successful Kickstarter campaigns.
The project launched in May 2010 on Kickstarter. The film raised its initial goal of in 48 hours. In June 2011, the filmmakers reached out to the community again through Kickstarter with another pre-order campaign to help with finishing costs of the film. The response was overwhelming. This time, the community helped the production reach its goal in just over 24 hours. The campaign closed with over 200% of its goal.
Indie Game: The Movie will show at festivals, game conferences and special screenings. The film is projected to release on DVD and digital download in 2012.