Dylan Stretchbery plays the lead role of Michael Rodina. Due to limited actors, he also stood in to be Guardian when Adam visits Suriv's Domain and played Lideri when he interrogates Suriv on Michael's whereabouts.
This indie feature film took over 10 years to make and was primarily shot on green screen in Jeff Loehrke's garage. All of the hand-to-hand fight scenes was also performed by Jeff individually dressed in character and was matched in post.
When the connection to Pixel is broken, Michael's game color changes to yellow. At the end of the film, Michael is wearing a yellow T-shirt.
Michael asks Guardian if he "still knows that bow and arrow trick" when they become allies. In the game, you need Level 10 access but Michael is stuck at Level 4. In the next few scenes, you see a Level 10 cheat code displayed backwards in Michael's HUD.
When Michael faces Neyta for the first time in the Gauntlet arena, his HUD performs a scan. In the stats that are listed on the bottom left screen, the meaning of "Neyta" can be seen, which is Icelandic meaning "consume".