bob the moo The first thing to say on this film is that you really will enjoy it more if you play indie games or know the couple of games that are mentioned here. This is not to suggest that the film will exclude you if you don't, but it is about these games and this culture but it will not hold your interest if you already have no involvement or interest in them. The film looks at the makers of indie games – ie not the 2000 people working on the next Grand Theft Auto, but the 2 or 3 people working on the game you'll pick up on Xbox Arcade or your phone for a few dollars and play to death over the following week or so. Early on it quotes many examples but mainly it focuses on Braid, Fez and Super Meat Boy in terms of experience development challenges, the feeling of success and the challenges of success.In this way the film does it pretty well because we do get all these things. I'm not sure if the makers followed many people and then edited down to be these specific guys, but their choices are good either way because the film gets a lot from these guys throughout. It wisely doesn't go into the real detail of writing games but keeps it accessible to those of us who just play them and have no understanding beyond that, but it does enough to help the viewer understand the effort and obsessive nature of the work, even if it could have done with an example of a total failure (the closest the film has is Fez, which doesn't succeed when the film closes but we know does in the end). The people are mostly engaging despite some of them (unsurprisingly) not being the most socially confident people you'll ever meet, the regular clips of games and the gentle soundtrack does add to the feel of a quirkumentary – which I guess it sort of is, but it felt like less of one to me since I'm sort of part of that quirk I suppose.It would have been good to have explored some bigger picture stuff above the characters here as well as following them, but the film still works well for what it does. It is limited a bit in its audience because the tight focus does need you to at least like gaming and to play indie games – but saying it like this makes me think it is not doing itself too much harm by "limiting" its audience to gamers, since there is a few of them around. So, if the film sounds interesting then it probably will be, as it captures the passion, frustration and success of the people making indie games in their bedrooms for years – and it mostly has engaging and likable characters to focus on while doing it.

Joe I don't know how to react to this intriguing and engrossing documentary. We are voyeurs into the lives of a few Indie game computer programmers who produce and distribute their products alone, as against the vast corporation produced games we are more familiar with. There are three different projects examined here in the run up to their release of their creations, and it's a rough and at times uncomfortable viewing. Their road to release is really quite hellish.Very basic low budget filming puts the onus on the conversations with these programmers. In truth, of the four programmers it's hard to believe you'd wish to have a drink with three out of the four of them and in any case the other one is so busy he'd likely pass you up. Yet you still seem to empathise with them and the key of this documentary is how you do hang out to the end wishing them to succeed. As said, at times you will feel uncomfortable watching these guys. They've all admitted to practically cutting themselves off from normality and having social lives, and it shows. One is married and that marriage seems to make him the most grounded something that becomes clearer as the film moves on when you compare him to the rest. I'll state that I don't play computer games at all and have not done so for donkeys years, bar Angry Birds. So really the twee type of games these gamers are making appeals to me as I'm not familiar with the modern gaming market. I don't fully understand their world and maybe I never will, but I did like their products and maybe that's why I wanted the best for them.However, I still admired these guys through their travails and stresses. The documentary doesn't build them as heroic but they are winners in my eyes no matter their quirks, and as viewers we are given a very broad overview of them to form our opinions. Enjoyable and engrossing. I'd say it's worth a watch.

SaranshTMF Have you ever imagined how being creative becomes a curse? Imagine yourself as amongst the 100 chosen individuals in entire human race blessed with the power of most amazing imagination and a will to show that imagination to rest of the world. The sacrifices you make while making your childhood dream come true is unimaginable to the extent that the same creativity for which you were identified from any other ordinary human being becomes a taboo. No social life, no personal life, no money, no luxuries of life just a huge burden and frustration of completing what you have started. The plight of indie game developers makes me shed a tear not just because the amount of frustration, time, effort, expectations but because of a will to express yourself through your art and in the process, loosing everything or i should say missing everything out of life. Video Games are the biggest irony that could happen with the very person making it. How can a dream cost you more than your life?This documentary perfectly portrays the life of a person on the other side of the screen. Makers of FEZ, Super meat boy, braid presenting an account of their daily life, their personalities and the amount of torture they have to face every single day of their life. Be it an army of online trolls beating the s**t out of their aspirations and creativity or getting a certification for selling their art to the world. Its all there and its truly heart breaking and eye opening for an ordinary person like me. Documentary showing how the idea of making games as the sole activity you are going to do in life, how it all started, matured adults watching the drawings they made when they were 4 and crying their heart out because they have turned those drawings into a language of communication between them and rest of the world is truly moving. Even if you are not into games, just watch this thing and you will explore an entire new world which no matter how pretty it looks from outside, is a tale of pain and suffering and the only sunshine they had is when it gets released and in just few hours thousands of reviews start pouring in, praises from all over the world, breaking records and finally an achievement they have been waiting for so long. One of the greatest documentary i've ever seen in a while. 9/10

Niklas Pivic How do game developers work? What torments them? What are the pros and cons? Well, the best part about this documentary is when the developers talk about their pains. Personally, I love when you see somebody's pains and the real grit they have to go through in order to get something done. I also liked to see the differences explained between working on a major game where 1000 people are involved and the indies, where you have 1-10 people involved. The bad bit about this is having to sift through tediousness; the filmmakers should have made the film quicker with more pep in its step. After a third into the film, I almost lost consciousness. In the end, it's only interesting to gamers due to how slow it is, which is bad. Better editing could maybe have changed that.