High Score is a Netflix documentary series created by France Costrel. It includes stories and interviews with people who made early video games. The series first aired on August 19, 2020.

Episodes

High Score is a show that includes interviews and segments about how video games from the 1980s and 1990s were created and developed. These interviews are mixed with animated scenes that look like they were drawn using a style called pixel art, which was common in video games from that time. The show’s opening sequence is also animated in the pixel art style and includes many references to old video games. The theme song for the series is performed by the Australian band Power Glove. The series is narrated by Charles Martinet, who was the voice actor for Mario from 1994 to 2023.

Production

France Costrel, the creator of the documentary, said she was inspired by the idea that video games are a universal language. She grew up in France but had many American friends, which helped her see how video games connect people worldwide. She previously worked as the lead creator for "8-Bit Legacy," a video game documentary for Great Big Story, but noticed it only covered part of the history of the video game industry. To create a new project, she developed a plan for Netflix with help from her colleagues from the show "Dark Net" and Melissa Wood.

Costrel wanted her documentary to focus on the people who make and play video games, rather than the games themselves, which is common in many other documentaries. She decided not to tell the full history of video games but instead to highlight key and connected stories from different time periods in the industry. She and Melissa Wood chose to begin the documentary with the start of arcade and console games, as this marked the beginning of their story. They ended with the shift to 3D computer graphics, which they said was a natural ending because it represented a major step forward in gaming history.

During their research, Costrel found that most video game companies were willing to share their stories. Some creators had left the industry but were also happy to talk about their experiences. While they had enough material for about 20 hours of content, they had to narrow it down to six episodes. They focused on stories that would interest all types of gamers, not just those who play games very intensely.

One of the games featured in the series was "GayBlade," created by Ryan Best in the 1990s. As explained in the documentary, Best lost all his copies of the game when he moved from Hawaii to California. He told the producers during filming that he could not find any other copies. The producers searched online for the game but were unable to find it. Near the end of production, the Schwules Museum in Berlin contacted them and provided a copy of the game. The museum then returned the copy to Best. The game was later added to the Internet Archive, where it is now playable through special software that allows old games to run on modern computers.

France Costrel is the director of the documentary, along with William Acks, Sam LaCroix, and Melissa Wood. All four, along with Courtney Coupe, are the show's executive producers.

Reception

The series was praised by journalists for being a well-organized overview of the early days of video games. GameSpot described the series as "a crash course on the golden age of gaming filled with insightful interviews, brilliant writing, and most importantly, an inspiring and inclusive message." Slash Film called the series "one of the most sleek and satisfying historical accounts of the early decades of video games, even if it's not a definitive, comprehensive account of the ups and downs of the industry as a whole." The Hollywood Reporter noted, "It's far from Netflix's best or most substantive documentary — it's often rather superficial and full of missing details — but in terms of ease for viewers to watch, with six episodes, none longer than 47 minutes, High Score is hard to beat. It's light and fun, filled with interesting facts, and includes some unique stories that may be new even to fans of video games."

Ars Technica compared the series favorably to its own "War Stories" documentaries, calling it a solid look at this era of video games, but pointed out that High Score left out important details, such as the game Tetris.

The A.V. Club criticized the series for having a narrative that was not well connected, though it praised the inclusion of interviews with lesser-known figures from the industry's history, saying, "These personal and often unexpected stories are easily the highlight of High Score, and they're occasionally the only thing that saves it from turning into a basic or oversimplified version of a video game history lesson."

Slate criticized the series for ignoring important developments, such as the Wizardry series alongside Ultima, and for not discussing modern issues, like crunch time in the video game industry. The Verge praised the series for highlighting underrepresented figures in video games, such as Heineman, Lawson, and Best, but argued that the show portrayed them as doing "boundary-pushing work" without explaining the realistic conditions of the video game industry during that time, which remain problems today.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a 76% aggregate rating from 25 critics.