We are alright

Let me be upfront: this is not a game. We Are Alright (Polish title: Wszystko z nami w porządku) is a feature-length documentary film - clocking in at around 64 minutes - that you stream directly through Steam. Directed by Borys Nieśpielak, it follows Rafal Zaremba and Bartek Pieczonka, two developers split between Berlin and Warsaw, through the final pressure-cooked months before their indie game Lichtspeer launched on Steam and PlayStation 4. The soundtrack is by Maciej Zakrzewski, and it carries the quiet, slightly melancholy weight the subject deserves. What the film does well is resist spectacle. There is no triumphant Silicon Valley arc here. The cameras follow two ordinary people balancing financial anxiety, a composer pushing for payment before release, families quietly asking when they plan to return to real jobs, and the unglamorous reality of chasing coverage from YouTubers and press outlets. The documentary leans into its rough, handheld aesthetic rather than apologising for it. The opening stretch is slow and observational - some will bounce off it - but that deliberate pace earns the emotional weight of the ending, which lands with a humility that most documentaries about creative work never quite reach. The honest criticism is that viewers hoping for a deep look at game design and development craft will find it thin on that front. The focus sits squarely on the human and business pressures of releasing something into an indifferent market, not on the mechanics of how Lichtspeer was actually built. The cinematography is raw, sometimes shaky, and the production sits firmly in the territory of a passion project rather than polished filmmaking. But for anyone who has ever poured themselves into something small and wondered whether it would matter - that roughness is part of the truth it tells. The film is in Polish with English subtitles, and it requires your full attention rather than background viewing. It is the kind of document that exists because someone cared enough to point a camera at something most of the industry ignores: the quiet, grinding reality of two people who decided that the safe path was not the right one. Whether or not you have ever touched Lichtspeer, this film has something to say to anyone who makes things.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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