Gameloading: Rise of the Indies (Film) Review
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“The game has changed.” Indie gaming means different things to different people. Whether you consider them to be a hodgepodge of clever ideas and poor graphics, or the source of innovation in gaming, it’s easy to see that indie games drive the gaming industry to newer and better innovations in many different ways. Gameloading: […]
“The game has changed.”
Indie gaming means different things to different people. Whether you consider them to be a hodgepodge of clever ideas and poor graphics, or the source of innovation in gaming, it’s easy to see that indie games drive the gaming industry to newer and better innovations in many different ways. Gameloading: Rise of the Indies is a film that both honors the independent and innovative spirit of indie games, while highlighting many of the difficulties still faced by indie developers. It’s a fascinating film that really gets right at the heart of what the indie gaming community is.
Gameloading is a series of interviews with a variety of faces from the gaming world. Many of them will be familiar to most gamers, while others might be entirely new. All of them, together, offer a pretty well rounded view of indie gaming. The film follows a few developers who are currently working towards the launch of the games, which is a pretty interesting look inside what the development process looks like from their perspective. There are so many different aspects that go into creating a workable game, many of which the layperson never even notices – but all of which are imperative to the overall experience. From coding to sound to the perfect story, building a game is no simple task.
While the developers in that portion have worked on their games for years, the film also looks at developers who use a different approach – the game jam. A game jam is kind of like a big development party, where developers gather together for a set amount of time to work on a quick game in a set theme. They can work in groups or alone, but the game must be playable by the end of the jam. The game jam in Gameloading takes place on a train as the developers head to a conference. In just forty-eight hours, the many different groups come up with a vast array of ideas. Their progress is followed as they hunt down glitches, work on art, and even recruit a train employee for a little help with sound. Their reward at the end is a demo party where they can try out all the games.
Development is only one piece of the indie gaming community, and Gameloading gives equal time to other aspects as well. The history of game developing gets a bit of an overview. At the beginning, indie developing was the norm. When the large studios took over, that independent spirit was lost for a while. With the advent of platforms such as Playstation Network, XboxLive, and Steam, independent developers and gamers alike found a place where their games could easily reach the public, reviving the art. The film also covers things like sexism in the games industry, how much work it is to properly market even indie games, and the frustration of someone else making loads of money after cloning your game. Overall, it does a nice job of covering indie gaming as a whole.
Gameloading: Rise of the Indies is the rare documentary that is as entertaining as it is educational. Featuring interviews from a variety of faces from the gaming community and a well rounded look at indie gaming as a whole, it really gets to the heart of what independent gaming is all about.