About a week ago, we held a movie screening of the independent game developer documentary, Indie Game: the Movie . We kicked off the night with a couple presentations by local indie developers from the International Game Developers Association, IGDA.

Do or Die.

If you’ve never seen “Indie Game: The Movie”,  it comes highly recommended as both a Sundance and SXSW winner. Chronicling the independent endeavors of two separate projects, Fez and Super Meat Boy, and their developers who are striving against life’s mishaps to release their much-hyped passion products to the public, the movie reveals the struggle of indie developers in a corporate-dominated industry. In addition, the movie also weighs in with commentary from Jonathan Blow, developer of one of the highest-rated games of all time – Braid. By the end of the movie, whether you are a gamer or not, you can’t help but root for the human beings pouring their hearts and souls into these games.

Shoutouts!

At the end of the show, we were able to demo some working projects and discuss game design with local indie developers Matt Kelly of Autodesk, Godric Johnson of Jetstreame and Game-Hop , Rosstin Murphy, and Jeff Patrick Pellegrin of Scorch Digital and Executive Director of the Louisiana Digital Gaming Initiative.

Thanks to our local friends at The Burgundy Picture House who hosted our screening. They’ve a sweet science fiction series this summer coming up. Find out more on their website.

Game Development in South Louisiana

Want to get into game development locally? Check local gaming dev houses GameLoft, Nerjyzed, Dreamforge Games, Firebrand Games, and PixelDash Studios to see if they are hiring or looking for interns. EA (Electronic Arts for the non-gamers) has even set up shop at Louisiana State University.

Louisiana State University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of New Orleans, and Southeastern Louisiana University all offer New Media, Animation, or Digital Art concentrations in their Art and Media Departments if you want to follow a traditional career track. Considering the recent tax incentives created to attract game development companies, South Louisiana is primed to foster great opportunities for locals in the game industry.

And if you’re wanting to start up slowly or just hang out casually with other gamers or developers, check out local game centers, GameHedz, DIBBZ  (good for LAN parties), ICE Computer Cafe (a kid-friendly gaming facility), and +1 Gaming.

Want to see more movie screenings?

We’d love to host more movie screenings! Let us know what you’d like to see or if you have a cool location in mind.