''Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler'' is a 2015 documentary film directed by Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy. The film premiered on September 27, 2015, at
Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Giant'' and ''Secondhand ...
Film Festival, followed by a Canadian premiere on April 17, 2016, and a worldwide release on June 24 of the same year.
The film follows players as they try to accumulate a billion points on the 1982 arcade game ''
Nibbler
A nibbler, or nibblers,Jeffery Zurschmeide Automotive Welding: A Practical Guide 2009 - Page 26 "Nibblers make a ragged cut and also leave thousands of little sheetmetal nibbles all over your shop. ... Power shears are the best tool going for cut ...
'', a feat first achieved by Tim McVey in 1984.
Synopsis
In the 1980s,
Walter Day
Walter Aldro Day (born May 14, 1949) is an American businessman and the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world records for video games and conducts a program of electronic-gaming promotions.
Biography
Day was born in Oakl ...
founds
Twin Galaxies
Twin Galaxies is an organization and social media platform for people involved in the culture and activity of playing video games. It facilitates their interaction as well as their competition and recognizes their achievements.
Twin Galaxie ...
, a video arcade in
Ottumwa, Iowa. Among the cabinets is ''
Nibbler
A nibbler, or nibblers,Jeffery Zurschmeide Automotive Welding: A Practical Guide 2009 - Page 26 "Nibblers make a ragged cut and also leave thousands of little sheetmetal nibbles all over your shop. ... Power shears are the best tool going for cut ...
,'' a relatively obscure game with two unique properties: Firstly, the score counter has nine digits and rolls over, meaning it is theoretically possible for a player to achieve a score in excess of one billion points; secondly, the game's mechanics allow skilled players to take short breaks during play, meaning that it is feasible for players to
marathon a gaming session for several hours or even days.
In the summer of 1983, Ottumwa native Tim McVey encounters ''
Ms. Pac-Man
is a 1982 maze arcade game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to '' Pac-Man'' (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's ...
'' champion Tom Asaki at Twin Galaxies as the latter attempts the first recorded billion-point ''Nibbler'' score. McVey impulsively tells a crowd of onlookers that, regardless of Asaki's score, he will beat it. Encouraged by Walter Day and friend
Billy Mitchell
William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.
Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, command ...
, McVey makes seven attempts over the next several months in the hope of achieving the billion-point record. In January 1984, Tim McVey spends two consecutive days playing ''Nibbler'' and finally achieves a billion-point score. Although he can continue playing, McVey decides to quit and go home, asking his mother to prepare him macaroni and cheese before going to sleep for thirty-six hours. Over the next several months, McVey becomes a local celebrity, he is presented the key to the city, and an official civic day—Tim McVey Day—is named in his honor. When Day expands Twin Galaxies into an organization that tracks and records video game scores, McVey becomes one of their luminaries, and his ''Nibbler'' session is regarded as legendary in the gaming community.
In the 2000s, McVey learns that an
Italian native named Enrico Zanetti claims to have beaten his score in September 1984, shortly after reading about McVey in the Italian video game magazine ''Video Giochi''. News footage from an Italian TV station demonstrates Zanetti breaking the score and the subsequent celebrity he received. While McVey acknowledges that Zanetti may have legitimately beaten him, Day claims that, because no one from Twin Galaxies witnessed the event, Zanetti's score is invalid. Zanetti himself is unfazed, content just to know that he achieved the score. Nonetheless, McVey decides to beat Zanetti's score and purchases a ''Nibbler'' machine of his own.
McVey practices on the machine in anticipation of beating the score at
MAGFest
MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival, originally the Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival) is an annual festival held in the Washington metropolitan area that celebrates video games and video game music, as well as their surrounding culture. MAGFest's pri ...
, a live video game event, where he is scheduled to compete head-to-head with another ''Nibbler'' champion, Dwayne Richard. At the event, Richard's cabinet malfunctions, disqualifying him from the event. Meanwhile, despite Mitchell and Day's support, McVey becomes physically and emotionally exhausted and decides to quit prematurely.
A few months later, in February 2009, Richard submits a video to Twin Galaxies depicting him achieving the new high score on ''Nibbler''. For a brief time, Richard is celebrated as the new champion. Documentarians Andy Seklir And Tim Kinzy were able to compare various ''Nibbler'' performances to discover that the game play was faster. This put the legitimacy of the score in question. A third party was used to find out what was wrong with the board, and it was shown that a pin location on a processing chip was malfunctioning. The processing chip was not being governed or clocked so the program had no code to slow it down to play at the proper speed. As a result, Richard withdraws his score from consideration.
McVey makes several more attempts to reclaim the high score, each of which he live streams online; however, distractions from friends and family, McVey's physical condition, and McVey's own personal frustrations—such as the death of his father and his desire to give ''Nibbler'' the same credibility afforded to other arcade classics—sabotage his attempts. Ultimately, he decides to make one final attempt with only his wife present. After his wife feeds him a bowl of macaroni and cheese, McVey feels reinvigorated and achieves the new world record on ''Nibbler''.
In the wake of McVey's victory, Walter Day has a change of heart and declares that Twin Galaxies will begin
grandfathering in old scores, as long as there is sufficient news documentation to prove their validity. As a result, Zanetti's high score is recognized and Twin Galaxies presents him with a certificate in recognition of his achievement. As a result of the publicity surrounding McVey's multiple attempts to retake the ''Nibbler'' score, ''Nibbler'' becomes a cult success on the
retro gaming
Retrogaming, also known as classic gaming and old school gaming, is the current playing and collection of obsolete personal computers, consoles, and video games. Usually, retrogaming is based upon systems that are outmoded or discontinued, alt ...
circuit, and players around the world not only beat McVey's record but begin to achieve exponentially higher and higher scores. Richard decides to begin dedicating his time to charity work, and McVey begins pursuing his childhood dream of
stock car racing.
Production
The directors of the film, Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy, discovered ''
Nibbler
A nibbler, or nibblers,Jeffery Zurschmeide Automotive Welding: A Practical Guide 2009 - Page 26 "Nibblers make a ragged cut and also leave thousands of little sheetmetal nibbles all over your shop. ... Power shears are the best tool going for cut ...
'' and Tim McVey's billion point high score while working together editing ''
Battlestar Galactica''.
Seklir and Kinzy first visited McVey in 2008, and once the filming began, they intended for a high score competition in 2009 to serve as the film's climax, but instead found the scope of the story growing. The production undertook a
Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in September 2013, raising $61,440, this contributed to animation costs and generated publicity for the film. The film premiered on September 27, 2015, at the
Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Giant'' and ''Secondhand ...
.
Reception
Critical reception for the film has been positive. ''Man Vs Snake'' received positive reviews from
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
and
Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book pro ...
, the former of which wrote that "''Man Vs. Snake'' is a lot like ''
King of Kong
''The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters'' is a 2007 American documentary film about competitive arcade gaming directed by Seth Gordon. It follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game ''Donkey Kong ...
'', though not quite as good, lacking that film's many memorable moments and quotes. But it’s a fine documentary in its own right; an emotional rollercoaster that will make you happy and sad and pleased that a guy like Tim McVey is out there, nibbling dots and avoiding his tail, all the while striving for his dream." Patrick Scott Patterson at
G4 SyfyGames also drew comparisons to ''King of Kong'', commenting that ''Man Vs Snake'' was "not only the best retro arcade/''
Twin Galaxies
Twin Galaxies is an organization and social media platform for people involved in the culture and activity of playing video games. It facilitates their interaction as well as their competition and recognizes their achievements.
Twin Galaxie ...
'' related documentary film since the ''King of Kong'', it is far better than Kong in almost every way."
Awards
* Best Documentary at Fantastic Fest (2015, won)
* Best Documentary Feature at the
Calgary Underground Film Festival (2016, won)
* Best Editing at FilmQuest (2016, won)
See also
*
Golden age of arcade video games
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development and cultural influence of arcade video games, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The period began with the release of ''Space Invaders'' in 1978, ...
References
External links
*
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* {{rotten-tomatoes, id=man_vs_snake_the_long_and_twisted_tale_of_nibbler, title=Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler
2015 documentary films
American documentary films
Documentary films about video games
Documentary films about competitions
Esports films
Kickstarter-funded documentaries
2015 films
2010s American films