Lisanne Pajot

Yup, it took them two years to send today’s e-mail but James and Lisanne finally did it! Indie Game: The Movie has been 2 years in the making, about two years since the first Kickstarter founding campaign and 12 months since they got the extra $71K from their their second KS campaign…

An awful lot of game developers, gamers, bloggers and fans have been waiting the doc which follows the creation of some of the flagship games of the so-called indie game movement… Fez, Braid, Super Meat Boy…

Tommy Refenes - Edmund Mcmillen from Indie Game the Movie — Tommy Refenes and Edmund Mcmillen still from Indie Game the Movie

It all started in September 2009 when James & Lisanne were commissioned to produce a short documentary on Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo and Aquaria fame. The short introduced then to a universe they weren’t familiar with… independent gaming, they took it seriously and started thinking about a videogame documentary. After a 6-month research period they both attended the 2010 GDConference and filmed a ‘test piece’ with Edmund Mcmillen & Tommy Refenes of Super Meat Boy, the beginning of everything.

The rest is known by all of you, 2 highly successful crowdfunding campaigns, a lot of media coverage (and hype) and today IGTM sees the daylight via iTunes, their own website store and the gaming platform Steam for $9.99.

Phil Fish (still from Indie Game The Movie)

A documentary which includes the collaboration not only of the game developers themselves but many other people like Jim Guthrie (from Sword & Sworcery) adding the soundtrack and that has proven already successful (Sundance last year, an HBO deal to develop a series…). Highly recommended.

It obviously had to arrive to our local cinema sooner or later. With the explosion of the Indie Game industry and pretty much every gaming platform network (Live, PSNetwork…) killing for the next best “Indie Game” to add to their catalog, it surprises me no-one has made a film out of the IG movement before (well… there’s been a few attempts before to be honest).

Well BlinkWorks(James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot) decided last year to dive, review and film some of the hottest titles that have transformed the gaming industry and brought it back to the 80s style. For the past year, they’ve been traveling North America filming indie game developers and editing their stories for Indie Game: The Movie, the feature film and the website….

A documentary about video games, their creators, the conception process, their stress (aren’t they supposed to enjoy themselves everyday?) .

The film tells the emotional story of a two-man team, Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, as they craft and release their first major game for XBOX, “Super Meat Boy”. It follows Phil Fish, the creator of the highly- anticipated game, “Fez”, as he shows it for the first time in 4 years at the giant gaming expo, PAX EAST. And, the film tells behind-the-scenes story an independent designer, Jonathan Blow, who made one of highest-rated video games of all-time, “Braid”.

The won’t only be telling us a future classic, but James & Lisanne have worked with some great talents within the industry itself picking some great artists like Jim Guthrie who’s composed the soundtrack for the film (remember S&S EP?…)

Four developers, three games, and one ultimate goal – to express one’s self through a video game.

The list of filmed game creators is quite complete……. even scary, so expect appearances from the creators behind Super Meat Boy, The Witness, World of Goo…. and many more. And even if they’ve done filming they still need to… polish it you know, so that’s why they’ve created this KickStarter page; so we highly encourage you to give them a hand… and await for the late-summer / early fall release.

Indie Game The movie finally released

Indie Game Movie