The movie, currently rated at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, is an hour, thirty-six minute documentary film about independent game developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes (Super Meat Boy), Phil Fish (FEZ), and Jonathon Blow (Braid) and their efforts to make games. It's been highly praised by critics in and out of the games industry, and definitely worth your time. It costs $9.99.
Source: shop.indiegamethemovie.com
Kickstarter has recently proven itself as a grounds for niche game genres to find new life with their classic developers. Can it continue? Is it only a viable option for the tried and true developers who've already been successful with it?
Hilarious bearded guy Tim Schafer and his company Double Fine received large sums of money from fans after promising a revisit to the Point-and-Click Adventure game genre, a title uninhibited by the schedules of a publishing company.
Adventure games lately have been referred to as "dead" because they are less profitable to developers in today's market, therefore getting no funding from publishers like EA or Activision. Double Fine made "bite-sized" low-budget, quick-to-develop games like Stacking and Costume Quest so they could get unique game ideas out there without their publisher having to take a huge risk.
With the help of crowdfunding site Kickstarter, Double Fine has been able to ask their fans for help. Their project had an original goal of $400,000 but was quickly topped all the way to $3,336,371 in just a few weeks with 87,142 backers. Donators to the fund can reap exclusive rewards dependent on the amount they give, which range from a DRM-less copy of the game to "lunch with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, a tour of the Double Fine offices, and all previous reward tiers" at the highest level.
