5 out of 5

Director: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky

Yeah, it totally benefits your viewing if you’ve played the games discussed. Still, Indie Game is a well paced little documentary that I think does a respectable job of getting across to the audience the amount of effort that goes into these projects – and how that scales down from a large game staff to a “staff” of 2 or 10 people – and the risks involved (financial, emotional) as well as the great feelings of triumph that come with success. It’s a little bias in this sense, painting a lil’ guy vs. the big man picture, even though I’m sure if you’re a cog in a large game machine you can find similar pleasures and challenges – BUT, by balancing the drama of the release cycle with some exploratory interviews with the devs, Indie Game represents the personality that these small productions bring to your computer / TV screen. Ed McMillen, Jonathan Blow, and Phil Fish probably won’t be unexpected personality types – all a little anti-social seeming, with dashes of paranoia or depression – but the intensity with which they can speak about the hows and whys of their games makes an impression. Again, I think it only really makes an impact if you’re a gamer, and it’s soothing after the fact, knowing that Fez came out, but you probably are a gamer if you added this to your queue, so you’re sold already.