Indie Game: The Movie

Indie Game: The Movie is a documentary made in 2012 which explains the lives of people working in the video game industry, their struggles in relation to funding and social life and the pressure to meet specific deadlines.

This video talks about three games which include:

Super Meat Boy (2010)

Super Meat boy was designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes. It was then developed by Team Meat which currently consists of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes.

It is about a boy with no skin that travels to find his girlfriend who has been kidnapped by a character named Dr Fetus. The aim of the game is that the player plays as Super Meat Boy and has to travel through harsh conditions and difficult obstacles to reach his girlfriend who is made of bandages.

I would describe this game as a platformer that is made to be difficult which compensates for that by giving you unlimited lives and automatically restarts the level. Like other games for example 'Cut the Rope' you are able to select the level you wish to replay to gain a perfect score however the levels have to be completed in order and finished to progress to the next level the first time played. Achieving a perfect score is based on time. Therefore the faster the level is completed the more likely you are to achieve a perfect score.


Braid (2008)

Braid was designed by Johnathan Blow and developed by Jonathan Blow, Hothead Games, Number None. Inc.

It is about a man in a suit that goes to rescue a princess from a monster. At the end of the game, it is realised that instead of the main character being a 'hero', he in fact has been chasing the princess all along as the game is thought to be in reverse.

I would describe Braid as a platformer with puzzle elements and story text. It enables you to play the game and has a mechanic which allows the player to  reverse time. In the game you collect puzzle pieces, which allows you to complete the game by placing them correctly in a puzzle board. Each level has a slightly different mechanic in addition to the reverse time mechanic.The game is level-based and you are able to return to the 'hub' after a level has been completed/when you quit a level.


Fez (2012)

Fez was designed by Phil Fish and developed by Phil Fish, Polytron Corporation, Blitworks.

It is about a pixeled man who lives in a 2D world. He is given a fez by a hexahedron which gives him the power to rotate the dimension of the world (3D view). After he is given this power, the hexahedron explodes into many pieces which the player has to find as well as find cubes and anti-cubes  during the game to stablise the world.

I would describe Fez as a platformer with an open world feel. The world enables you to walk/warp to different levels without completing the previous levels. The map shows that you have completed a level by turning gold. By solving different puzzles allows you access to cubes and additional background story information to give the world context.

Bibliography & References

[1] https://www.gametdb.com/WiiU/AENE

[2] https://games.gamepressure.com/game.asp?ID=124

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez_(video_game)