The film focuses on six game designers from around the world. The countries they hail from run the gamut from game design hotspots like Japan and the United States, to the lesser known burgeoning industries of Chile and Ghana. Industry heavyweights like Mark Healey, Robin Hunicke and Tetsuya Mizuguchi will sit down and talk about the process of ideas generation and how they go about refining these initial seeds into the games that reach our screens.

This ambitious project stretches beyond just the documentary, however. Each of the interviewed creators will supply an idea – be it a character sketch, music, or abstract concept – to be taken in hand by one of six game design teams in France. Each team will then create a unique game within 48 hours with this idea at its heart. Anyone with game design can apply to be part of this game jam on the Pixel Heart website.

The final stretch goal of the project is a travelling exhibit to accompany the documentary and game releases. Six additional games will be developed exclusively for the exhibit. These games will be of a more experimental nature and are intended to showcase games’ abilities to push boundaries through creative application using hardware like the Oculus Rift.

The project is being crowd-funded through Ulele, similar to Kickstarter. Check out the promotional trailer below, then head on over to the project’s official website to read more and see the stretch goals and rewards.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The Hit Squad introduces a Spinal Tap-esque washed up old rock band, vividly brought to life in luxuriant 8-bit-style animation. While Blundell’s pitch name-checks classics of the decade including Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop as influences, the film’s fundraising page at IndieGoGo.com references Family Guy, and based on the available clips The Hit Squad’s tone is closer to Seth MacFarlane’s  modern acerbic animation than the heyday of Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray. It might hark back to days of yore, but perhaps it can’t entirely shake itself free of its own time.

Whatever its final content will be, there is certainly plenty for the ‘80s connoisseur here. Anyone who has played the likes of Maniac Mansion should feel at home with the clunky blocks used to depict The Hit Squad, and the soundtrack manages to reference the excessively stirring movie scores of yesteryear while simultaneously feeling as though it would be right at home in the background of one of Mega Man’s stages.

In exchange for donation to their project, Blundell’s team offers rewards ranging from DVDs of the finished product (which, depending on your level of donation, could be the most expensive DVDs you’ve ever bought!) to a sort of blocky immortality by means of putting a pixelised likeness of you in a background cameo.

It’s too early to tell how the finished product will turn out; as with all movies, much of it will depend on the quality of the script. It does, however, nail the 1980s gaming aesthetic effortlessly. If The Hit Squad has whetted your retro appetite, you can learn more at its IndieGoGo page.

© 2012, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.