There was a delay between the release of the documentary Gamemaster in the US and coming out in the UK. That delay meant that I forgot all about the film.
As far as I’m concerned there was no fanfare or reviews pointing out that the film was finally available outside of the US. Or if there was then it didn’t surface into my consciousness through whichever media channels I follow.
It wasn’t until I heard the Secret Cabal folks talk about the documentary on this weeks podcast that I thought I’d see if it was available in the UK.
It wasn’t on Amazon digitally except as a region 1 DVD!
Google showed up a tweet from the director/publisher mentioning it was on iTunes in the UK. Otherwise if I hadn’t seen that I’d have assumed that this was still only a US film.
Luckily being an Apple fanboy I could purchase the documentary. Which is something a rarely do. The majority of my digital purchases are on Amazon. I’m assuming that like the documentary Never Surrender that eventually Gamemaster will end up on other streaming services.
Gamemaster is a documentary about the boardgame industry.
Format wise its standard fare. They follow/interview four game designers that are at various points in their game design journey. Interspersed with talking head segments with various established big name game designers dispensing nuggets of wisdom and industry insights.
The four designers that get followed are a guy who was trying to kickstart a game he designed called Thug Life. A Pakistani female designer who had designed and published a game about arranged marriages and avoiding them. The creator of the Parks board game, and the video game designer, ex-Disney Imagineer Scott Rogers and his boardgame Rayguns and Rocketships. The director of the documentary seemed to have forgotten to mention Scott’s past experience. Heck he’s written one of the best, most accessible books on video game design, Level Up!
The female game designer was an interesting inclusion. Her story and the personal experience that formed the inspiration for her game was interesting. Naturally the theme isn’t one that appealed to me. But I loved how personal it was. It was also interesting to see the blow back she got from friends and family when she returned home to Pakistan.
The Thug Life designer also had a personal story that fed into his game design. However it didn’t feel as personal or as well executed as the arranged marriage game. His story within the documentary felt more to do with his Kickstarter journey and ultimately failure.
The talking heads were your usual suspects, Lang, Knizia, Vassel, Leacock, and Cathala, to name a few that instantly come to mind.
They briefly dealt with diversity and representation within the game industry and in games.
On the whole it’s a competent put together documentary up there with Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary, and miles better than The Next Great American Game documentary.