Beforehand I knew that was the thing Braid and J. Blow are sometimes mocked for, his pretentions that his game was high art and his disappointment that no one else picked up on what he was throwing down, what the game meant to him personally, all of which is well presented in the movie. However I was surprised to find elements of the other two games on display, Super Meat Boy and Fez, also having personal meaning for their creators. As Phil Fish put it Fez is a game where, after the world crashes and a cube shatters, your goal is to collect them all to restore stability to an unstable video game world, which was for him significant because he always felt like the world was falling apart around him. He goes on to list his father contracting a deadly disease, his father's subsequent divorce, his girlfriend left him, later his partner walked out on him forcing Fez into murky legal waters, examples like that were really heartfelt. The Team Meat guys' subtexts were a little more basic, stuff like how Meatboy had no skin and was thus open to the elements and, indeed, needed his love interest Bandage Girl who physically completes him, but it was definitely there. Perhaps that has something to do with their childhood insecurities, which the documentary detailed in great detail. Not really sure honestly.
It's interesting to me because it says to me that subtexts do exist in games made by individuals, but perhaps the best thing for them would be to stay subtexts. Perhaps a subtext presented in the manner of "What do you mean you didn't get it?" is considered condescending, and should be avoided and a better subtext is one you never notice or perhaps, rather, one that you can never satisfactorily describe. Fascinating food for thought, really insightful.
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