"Either way, by far the biggest mistake we made during SMB's development was killing ourselves to get into a promotion we would gain basically nothing from."
After suffering through something similar, I will never work for a marketing deadline again. Deadlines are useful, but I have yet to see a marketing deadline live up to the promise.
"... Tommy and I went out that day in search of the most ridiculous sweater vests we could find, broke into Sears Photos and used their setup to take what would become our team headshots. I believe we also submitted some totally ridiculous dev bio to Nintendo that was printed in their press release alongside our photo. ..."
Love this.
The Meatboy team even managed to enrage 'Peta' (ultra right wing Vegans) by gaming their message boards (link below). Enraged Peta put out their own version of Meat Boy, "Tofu Boy" ~ http://features.peta.org/super-meat-boy-parody/meet.aspx So meatboy team put out unlockable 'Tofu boy' character ~ http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/12/02/super-meat-boy-hon... The playfulness in this game is addictive and you can see this in the creators.
One-page version: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134717/postmortem_team...
Great little game. Excruciatingly difficult but feels like a work of joy.
Interesting. I was just watching a documentary on Netflix about them. It was a bit depressing. I really felt for them :/
You can follow their development story in Indie Game: The Movie. Very interesting, especially if you're new to the indie game scene.