This is a good time to be an indie developer. There are multiple ways to sell your game to the public, getting the attention of the press is at least a little easier, and there are a few games that have broken out to become massive hits. Look at Minecraft or Super Meat Boy for examples of what is possible from small teams with big ideas.

But people tend to overlook how much work it takes to create a game. There's a lot more to it than simply having a good idea, sticking it to the man, and then collecting an award at the Game Developers Conference. Which is why the time-lapse video that shows 48 hours of game development of an indie title called Retro/Grade has been making the rounds on the blogs: it shows the dim, monotonous reality of indie development.

"I turned the camera off overnight, so it's not 48 hours of continuous work. I think I worked about 14 hours each day," Matt Gilgenbach of 24 Caret Games told Ars. "My record for crunching is about 36 hours straight, but unfortunately, I didn't film it."

Last year the game was included in Indiecade, so the three-person team had to create a video. Since all their time was spent making the danged game, the decision was made to just film that process. "I think people take for granted just how much work it is creating an indie game. It's very easy to compare them to games developed by large teams with funding, but creating a game with a small team doing everything is a herculean effort, which is often taken for granted," he explained. The video is a good reminder of what happens before people like me talk about the game, or gamers play it.

I asked about eating, something I strained to see in the video. "Meals are one of the few times I'm away from my desk, but I try to keep them short because I put in a lot of hours..."

The game explains the actions of a fighter pilot whose war against an alien invading force has damaged both space and time, and now he has to reverse his actions. "To play the game, you must un-fire your lasers, which are all timed to the rhythm of our original soundtrack. As well, you must avoid enemy lasers that are returning to the ships that fired them. If you stop them before they are fired, it creates a paradox that damages the space/time continuum," Gigenbach explained. "If you make mistakes, you can use the Retro/Rocket, which reverses the flow of time (making time go forward), and repeat sections to improve your score. If that doesn't sound interesting enough, the game is playable with a guitar controller as well as the standard gamepad."

The team has been working on the game for around three years, and it is coming to the PlayStation Network this year. At that point we'll get to see if all the hard work paid off.