Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:03:00 GMT
Photo by Rebekah Thompson Saltsman, Official TIGS Photographer
Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy and Phil Fish of Polytron gave an excellent presentation at this year’s IGS on marketing and PR for indie developers called The Art of Independent Game Promotion—a top ten list of ways to gain publicity without losing your soul. At least, I heard it was excellent. I had to miss it.
12:02 – I finally got into this session, which was supposed to start at 11:45ish. It’s PACKED, mostly because nobody from the previous session left. The basic idea, which was conceived by Phil Fish (Fez), is that various game developers get up and rant about something, anything, for 5 minutes. Phil was the MC for the session, and also participated.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:56:00 GMT
Hurrah, the Polytron site is live! And I’ll be darned if it ain’t the slickest thing ever. More good news! Fez is planned for a 2009 release. Here’s the press release, direct from Polyplex One:
Montreal, Thursday the 22nd of January , 4:29pm, Montreal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Polytron Corporation is proudly excited to announce its friendly takeover of Fez!
The venerable multimedia multinational giant today announces it has taken control of the production of highly anticipated indie darling sensation Fez. The rights to the game were transferred from indie darling sensation collective Kokoromi, who demanded nothing in return but a dream, and a wish.
Winner of the 2008 IGF Excellence In Visual Arts Award, Fez also features 2008 IGF nominated design innovation.
Polytron is vibrating with glee at the prospect of bringing it’s much needed decades of experience in the field of computer entertainment to Fez, and its team.
Confident in its dedication to the project, Polytron projects a release in 2009.
More screenshots here. (Check out the new and also improved art style!)
More press after the jump.
Alright! Gamma 3d, the highly-anticipated sequel to Gamma 256, has been announced! Gamma 256 was an extremely successful indie game party hosted by Phil Fish and Kokoromi. Users were asked to submit low resolution games, and some awesome stuff came out of it, as well as one of our most beloved memes (hint: “pidgeon-hunter-killer”). You can see photos of the event here, courtesy of Mr. Ivan “toastie” Safrin.
The call this time is going out for games that use stereoscopy. In other words, games you need red-and-blue 3d peepers for. Submissions are due by October 15th, and the actual event is taking place on November 19th, in beautiful Montreal. As usual, TIGSource is proudly hosting the official Gamma thread, for all your Gamma discussion.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:24:00 GMT
Here is an indie-centric episode of The 1UP Show, featuring an interview with the ever awesome Phil Fish—now an IGF winner at long last.
I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with a few of the 1UP folks since I’ve been here and, I gotta say, it feels good knowing there are people who “get” indie games within the mainstream press. (Also, they’re pretty cool to hang out with.)
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:01:00 GMT
At long last, the great Phil Fish has unveiled in-game footage of his IGF contender Fez.
Early on he had mentioned a big, secret element to the gameplay… but people say that kind of thing all the time, yeah? Usually it’s some gimmick, or something not as great as they imagined. Not so with Fez. Once you experience it, you realize it’s not only no gimmick—it’s an entirely new and compelling experience.
I cannot wait to play the finished game!
It’s fun looking back now and noticing the little hints Phil dropped along the way… If you had a keen enough eye, you probably could’ve figured him out. Awesome job, Phil and Renaud!
Watch the video. DISCUSS.
UPDATE: Fish just released a new shot of the game showing off their 3D 2D rendering tech, which they call “Trixels.” (Not voxels, I swear!) Check it out here.
Notice how every “pixel” (trixel) is rendered in 3D. Very cool.
UPDATE II: Fez programmer Renaud explains Trixels vs. voxels, and a bit of Fez’s gameplay, on the Kokoromi blog. (Thanks Petri!)
On the topic of Phil Fish, Montreal-based experimental indie game development collective Kokoromi (profiled here in This Magazine) just launched their new site. It’s nice—you should check it out!
As for Fez, Phil linked me to a corrected version of the infamous “somethig” screenshot. (Which, I agree, deserves to be a meme.) Fix your lookin’ balls on it here.
Just as Shih Tzu is indie gaming’s ambassador to the East, Phil Fish is indie gaming’s ambassador to hipsters across the galaxy. And also French-Canadians, I guess. Yeah.
Anyway! Phil has revealed, on these very forums, his latest project. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “It’s got to be some impenetrably abstract piece of art-game nonsense, right?” Not at all! Why would you think that?
The game is (tentatively) called Fez and it features a wee dude with a fez all done up in pixely, low-res beautifulness like everyone secretly adores (Phil included). While very little has been revealed of the gameplay itself, we do know it’s a “puzzle/platformer/explorer” with some super-secret twist. Also, provided this screenshot isn’t a red herring, you will be able to pick thigs up.
Fez is being developed by Phil Fish and Renaud Bedard, with 6955 on music. There’s a possibility it might be freeware! Check out the ongoing thread right here.
Be sure to complain about the use of gradients.
Update: Phil has blessed us with a high-res, corrected version of the screenshot, which can be witnessed here. Praise be to Fish!
Check out this great video
(source: Tim W.) where Nikki Inderlied talks to Phil Fish and some other guy about Everyday Shooter. Dammit, it is no coincidence that (ES developer) Jon Mak was absent during the video… these guys are totally working for him as PR!
I love the part where Nikki asks Phil whether he thinks Everyday Shooter should have won the grand prize, and he gets a little bit nervous. You know why that is? It’s because I was standing right behind the camera with my shirt off, holding a baseball bat with a rusty nail through it… all like sweating profusely with my eyes bugging out… blood all dripping down my mouth because I just chewed off the head of John Romero… my nipples all pierced with CliffyB’s earrings… CliffyB’s actual ears on a necklace around my neck…
Wait, what, where was I? Oh yeah! Jon Mak is a P-I-M-P, and Everyday Shooter is a rad game. Totally deserving of its wins… which were very many!
True life adventure: some drunk guy at a party at GDC talked to me for an hour before I realized that he thought I was Jon Mak. I politely corrected him:
Photo by Rebekah Thompson Saltsman, Official TIGS Photographer
