anyway i watched the movie today. here's some of my thoughts, although i didn't get to watch the whole thing and was sort of sleepy during most of it
i loved the jon blow parts. i empathized a lot with some of the things he said; for instance, when he talked about the good reviews of his game giving it a 9/10 or 10/10 depressing him the most because they liked the game for shallow reasons and didn't why he personally thought the game was good -- i actually had the exact same reaction (sans the 3-4 month depression he mentioned) to reviews of immortal defense (which were universally positive but often very shallow). i also liked that he flat-out admitted that the idea for braid came from a friend who got the idea from prince of persia: most indie devs aren't secure enough to admit that the basic idea of their game isn't original and isn't their own. overall i was pretty impressed by his segments, he was by far the most mature guy in it
the edmund parts were also fun. of the people featured in the movie edmund is the only one i've communicated with (we used to talk on AIM a bit and i playtested a couple of his games and gave him suggestions early on, and he answered some of my questions about flash programming / sponsorship etc.), so i may be a bit biased in that sense, but he felt the most 'real' of the people in the movie, someone whose entire life wasn't just making indie games (they way it felt with the others; that just may be the editing, but he was the only one with a wife and pets, the only one where they showed his life outside of making indie games). of the people in the movie i've also enjoyed his games the most (i think i've played almost all of them). i loved all his drawings of monsters, he reminds me a bit of my brother, who also used to draw monsters all the time
regarding the phil fish parts, i didn't like that they painted his ex-business partner guy so negatively. this thread goes into detail about that:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=478250 -- it seems they only told one side of the story, though i suppose it's not a documentary in the completely factual sense of documenting something so biases are to be expected. but i came away from the phil fish segments wondering exactly what the other side of the story was, why he threatened to murder that guy (what did that guy do to him?), etc. -- as someone mentions in that thread, it felt like what happened in "king of kong" (another documentary about videogames which i enjoyed) where they paint billy mitchell as some type of evil guy, just for the sake of having a villain, when the reality was more complex. i also wish they'd show renaud more in the movie, he seemed extremely nice, even though his part in the movie was short he came off as the most lovable person in the movie
overall i felt that the movie was an enjoyable use of the short time it took to watch it, *but* i guess i was looking for some "words of wisdom" or something that i didn't know about game design that i could take away and apply to my own work, and i didn't really get that out of it. the closest was knowing that someone else feels the way i do towards good reviews of their game which were positive but say basically nothing. i'd rather have a thoughtful review that gave my game a 6/10 than an effusive review that gave it a 10/10. the movie seemed more like a way to introduce indie games and some of the games and personalities involved to "outsiders" rather than, like, a serious "documentary" or attempt at understanding indie game development. it was an expose rather than a treatise. the latter was something i hope will be made one day.
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