Fez

By: Derek Yu

On: April 13th, 2012

After nearly five years of development, Polytron’s Fez has been released on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MSP. The winner of this year’s IGF Grand Prize Award, Fez is a non-linear puzzle platformer where you can rotate the camera to reveal the world’s third dimension. The game features a soundtrack by Rich “Disasterpeace” Vreeland, which will be released on April 20th but is available for pre-order.

TIGdb: Entry for Fez

Screenshot taken from playXBLA.

Posted in Platformers, Puzzle, Xbox 360 | Tags: Polytron

ADude

looks rad, makes me wish i had an xbox (or that it was going to be released on pc anytime soon)
http://profiles.google.com/fucrate Michael Boxleiter

minecraft clone
http://laserbrainstudios.com Christian Knudsen

Is that an old screenshot? Did you have limited lives at some point in development? (The three hearts in the upper right corner.)
http://twitter.com/phubans Paul Hubans

Argh, fingers crossed for a PC release! I’ve wanted to play this game since I first heard about it in 2007. I’m so hard and ready.
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

Oh, I think you’re right. Sorry, it’s hard to find screens for this game that are free to take. I’ll look for another one.
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

Alright, may as well make use of our wide layout!
http://laserbrainstudios.com Christian Knudsen

Get an Xbox. Used if you have to. This game is worth it. I’m not kidding.
Dialock

Bah! I have an old xbox, but are you saying I should really be motivated to setup an xbox account and buy points? Of which, I probably have to buy 999 points so now I have all those imaginary monies…. Is this game really worth that toil!?
Anonymous

I’m excited, but getting an XBox is a bit too much for me. I’ll just have to wait for a PC or PS3 version.
Jake Dlugolecki

Why is this featured on the INDEPENDENT Gaming Source, if it’s published and backed by Microsoft?
http://twitter.com/phubans Paul Hubans

I have $80 to my name right now. Buying an XBox to play one game is a privilege I don’t have.
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

Microsoft owns XBLA like Valve owns Steam, and just as Valve is not the publisher of every game on Steam, neither is Microsoft the publisher of every game on XBLA.
Maxwell Anselm

I can’t wait until 2015 when this is released for PC!
Jake Dlugolecki

Sorry Derek, but the Microsoft Studios logo is in the game. Why else would it be starting as a 360 exclusive? For that matter, Nintendo publishes their own games on their own systems with no support from any other company…how come they aren’t classified as “independent?”

I played the demo of Fez, and deleted it immediately afterwards. It had nice Boards of Canada-like music and pleasant graphics, but I think games should actually have things like story, challenge, complexity and consequences for mistakes like death, or they can’t be considered games. By the end I desperately wanted to see an enemy. If there were any puzzles that couldn’t be immediately solved by rotating the camera once or twice, the demo didn’t show them off. Five years in the oven for this? Really? I’ll buy the soundtrack if Polytron sells it, though!
http://twitter.com/celluloseman Evan Balster

Nintendo is “independent”. This whole “indie” thing, by contrast, is pretty hard to term, so we tend to apply the label to people who make personal sacrifices (generally living like paupers) in working toward the creation of their personal dream games. Not very technical, but as good a definition as any. Given every external asset one makes use of carries an element of compromise, I think it’s easy to see the inverse correlation between purity of concept and aid taken.

Most of us end up needing to make some compromises, as Phil did with Trapdoor and Microsoft, but both of those were done, presumably, in the name of carrying his vision forward. It seems to have worked.
As for the “no enemies / no death” deal, I dig it quite a lot. There need to be more games made for patient mindsets. I favor games that try to be more than amusement. Is Fez one of these? I won’t know until I play it. But I try to keep an open mind. :
http://www.facebook.com/people/Francis-Coulombe/906110494 Francis Coulombe

If it ever comes out on PC, ill totally buy this. Too many great indie games come out only on Xbox! (Im lookin at you, Derek…)
http://s.hryx.net/ hryx

I can’t believe it finally happened.
Nikica

Derek actually said that there’s a big possibility of a PC version of the XBOX Spelunky. Fish on the other side didn’t say anything about a PC version of Fez.
Nikica

There’s a link to the soundtrack up there in the post. You can pre-order it for $5.
Guest

As much as I usually agree with Derek, the dude above actually has a point here. I’m not criticising Fez here – i’m sure it will live up to my expectations – but after thinking about it, it really isn’t an Independent game.

“Independent Game” is short for “Independently PUBLISHED Game”, in the same way that Independent Books and Independent Music mean independantly published.

Or at least “published independently of mainstream publishers”. Which is what Steam and XBLA are.

They are mainstream publishers:
Publish
1. To prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale.
2. To bring to the public attention; announce.

This is actually pretty problematic as it would mean that about half of the (awesome) “indie” section of Steam isn’t actually indie!

Lets get some kind of scale going here:
1: You’ve got the AAA games – big publishers, big companies etc etc
2: Games backed (or taken on board) by a major publisher, but originally made by a small studio. Eg Alien Hominid, possibly Patapon and so on.
3: Developed by a single person or small group. Has funding/support or publicity from some institution (Digipen, IGF and so on). Often get taken on by bigger publishers later.
4: Games that get made by a single person or small group – often published on a personal site. Publicity is usually small scale and often sold directly from the maker. I’d say games like Frayed Knights fit here.
5: Games (often freeware) made by a single person or small group of people – get published on something like a personal website or in a forum post. Eg Cave Story (hard to belive these days right!) and even the Johnny series by Sparlatacus – which is pretty much the bottom of the indie barrel.

I’d say the Steam indie section is 2 – 3 and occasionally a 4 manages to get published. Which is fine by me – they do an excellent job publishing these smaller games.

I’m not criticising Steam, XBLA or “independent games that aren’t actually independent” in any way here, but I think TIGsource should change its name to something like “The Games that aren’t AAA Game Source”.

TGAG source.
Guest

Comment fail – meant to reply to Derek Yu’s comment.
http://www.facebook.com/jamesmonkman James Monkman

I concur with this guy :)
Lol@Troll

Troll anders wo…
Anon

Look it’s that one game that won an award before even being released maybe by a developer who criticized japanese developers after obviously having ripping off the aesthetic of cave story.
Btw, the whole 2D/3D gimmick was already done 5 years before in Super Paper Mario and Sega’s Crush.
Alaor Campaneli Jr.

Recipe to win indie game awards before your game is even released:
1 Knock down Japanese devs for not being original
2 Rip off Super Paper Mario and Cave Story
3 Brag on twitter and tell your critics to choke on your dick

Fez Creator Talks Smack About Japanese Games, Takes to Twitter:
http://thewiredfish.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/fez-creator-talks-smack-about-japanese-games-major-downplay-on-twitter/
Oh, and btw, make it XBLA only.
http://laserbrainstudios.com Christian Knudsen

Start a Kickstarter or a donation run or something. :D Really, I’d contribute to that.
PhilFishFan123129312391238

stfu trol ur jus jelouos of fil pish cuz he is popular and has sucsess in life unlike u

iff u dnot liek real gmaes go back 2 ur bald space marnines and stop hateing
http://www.dpadstudio.com Jo-Remi Madsen

Finally FEZ! We’ve redecorated the D-Pad Studio office, brought in TV’s and Xboxes and dropped work on Owlboy for a day just to play the heck out of this game

With all the delays and dev-problems this game has had, I feel priviliged to be able to play it at last. We’ve had alot of the same problems during development, and it’s almost a comfort to see that FEZ actually got finished in the end, and got out.

One of the effects i’d like this game to have on the gaming-community is to open peoples eyes to both pixel-art and scenery that feels like it lives and breathes on it’s own. I’ve played it for roughly an hour now, most of the time just standing still, gazing at things around the charatcer.

A huge tip of the hat to the whole Polytron team from fellow pixel enthusiasts!
schoq

You’re now on my mental list of people who are probably in guerrilla marketing.
Jamagic

What’s this? Another FEZ ripoff?
http://www.cocadaboa.com/mrmanson/ ACJr

Not sure if reverse trolling or if you’re just sarcastic.

Anyway if you want me to recommend a real game I suggest you buy Crush 3D on the Nintendo 3DS. It’s the exact same concept except done properly.
And if you have a hard on for voxels so much — this game doesn’t uses pixels, btw, they’re just voxels that happen to look 2D in style, then try Voxatron.

I have nothing against Phish but people really need to stop feeding his ego a little bit when he’s done absolutely nothing special but acts as if he’s better than most industry veterans just because some obscure gaming site awarded him for a game that wasn’t even finished..
http://laserbrainstudios.com Christian Knudsen

Right, I’ve been a member of the TIGForums since 2007 and made games long before that just so I could engage in guerrilla marketing for Fez. Here’s a simpler explanation: I fucking love the game and want Paul to be able to play it.
Theman

the game sucks ass and its not indie. LMFAO at all the hype around such a POS. continue sucking your own dicks lil faggots the masses dont give a fuck about fez or spelunky or any of the shit stains that get all the praise here. Fucking wanksters
fuk

Retro graphics and chiptunes with a twist! No, thank you, I will stay away from this masterpiece of shit.
dum

hard to judge a game you havent played
Quazi

time to dust off the Xbox
Kasran

I am so excited. 8D
innanet

Ahh, I don’t usually buy games on xbla or psstore but so many good games are coming out… I just wish I could easily connect my xbox to the internet to get my Fez Fix.
Frogg

YOU WERE PAID BY MICROSOFT TO SAY THAT
ThePortalGuru

This game uses trixels. There’s a big difference there. Trixel is basically just a fance word for “3-D Tiles”. The 3-D in Fez is very much polygon-based, but it’s done in a way where each 90 degree view of the level looks completely 2-Dimensional. It’s not as complicated as a voxel-based engine.
ThePortalGuru

I’m just going to keep enjoy it, but thank you for the constructive criticism and ad hominems.
http://laserbrainstudios.com Christian Knudsen

I was indeed. They pay me in Bill Gateses. I have two now. One is massaging my scalp as I type this. The other is dancing sensually in the corner to Dean Martin’s rendition of Sway. It’s gonna be a great Saturday night.
The Indiestry

Dear “Indie Scene”

Everybody wants to and is trying to be a “Rockstar” and have all that it brings. The only difference is that you pretend your not. Or basically you outright say you don’t want to.
Jake Dlugolecki

If definitions aren’t technical, they’re worthless. Standards for language need to be set for words to have any meaning, and to prevent them from being warped and abused. See Orwell’s famous essay on language.

Fez isn’t trying in the slightest to be anything “more than amusement.” There’s no symbolism or even any explanation for the collectables strewn throughout the world. There’s no mystery to the environments, nothing that indicates they ever served a purpose in the game’s world besides as obstacle courses placed in front of us by the developers. There’s nothing ambiguous like Cave Story’s Egg Corridor that leaves you scratching your head for answers, anticipating a reveal. The official site proclaims “FEZ aims to create a non-threatening world rich with ambiance, a pleasant place to spend time in.” Sounds like gentle, facile amusement to me.

I think games like Metal Slug and Dodonpachi are far better suited to patient mindsets. You need a huge amount of patience and dedication to beat those games without continuing and figure out how to reap the biggest rewards from their scoring systems. They’re not something everyone has the discipline or inclination to play in the “correct” way. But anyone with two hands and a brain can plow through Fez or Limbo without much risk of frustration.
Anonymous

Too late, I already sold my Xbox. And besides, Phil Fish is a dick. I’m still not sure if I want to get Skyrim because their parent company started legal action against Notch, that turned out alright in the end and they certainly aren’t missing my £40. For a guy like Fish I’m not going to go out my way to support him.
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

I’ve heard that Fez’s puzzles are very difficult to solve, so I don’t think it’s comparable to Limbo in that sense.

As far as “indie” goes, the site covers games by very small independent studios, so that excludes Nintendo and Valve. I think that definition is sufficiently technical without being pedantic (e.g. “No one can be TRULY independent!”). Doesn’t Orwell warn against that kind of extreme literalism as well?

Anyway, one can tell at a glance the difference between Polytron/Nintendo, Mode 7 Games/Firaxis, Bay12Games/Bethesda, or Touhou/Cave, so I don’t think that “indie” is a particularly vague term.

As for the Microsoft Studios logo at the beginning of Fez… I honestly can’t say why that’s there. Everything I’ve heard has led me to believe that Fez is self-published on XBLA. If it isn’t, I apologize for the error.
Whocares

Played it, regret paying 10bux. There are no enemies anywhere, you respawn exactly where you were standing after you die, meaning no repercussion for dying (which really makes the whole “platformer” angle , you know, a genre usually based on skill, accuracy and reflexes rather moot) and the mechanics are far too shallow to allow for any real puzzles.

It’s a platformer where you can’t lose and you can’t get stuck. I’m hesitant to even call it a game. Absolutely pointless.
Jake Dlugolecki

As do I. TIGSource needs to start enforcing some actual standards regarding the kinds of games that get featured on the site. Pixelated and/or minimalist graphics, a central gameplay gimmick, a chiptune soundtrack, a developer with a blog or forum presence, and pretensions towards “art” or “meaningfulness” do not by themselves qualify a game as “indie.” Let alone a game that’s worth our time. Cave Story is (or was) indie, Fez isn’t.
http://www.facebook.com/micheallen Micheal-Allen Kingsley Ackerma

You don’t respawn exactly where you were. Nice hyperbole. You spawn on sections that are separated from the jumping challenges. If you die in the middle of jumping from 1 block to the next, you’ll be warped back to flat ground and not the 1x tile. Meaning you start over that challenge until you get it right.

Also it’s not pointless. The game deserves to exist. It has an interesting story to tell. And if you don’t think there is a story then that means you didn’t play it. I’m sorry you are so used to cinematic experiences and narration. This game does not do that. The story is told through playing and through observing your environment. It’s exactly what games should strive to do. In fact Fez tells it’s story exactly like Dark Souls which isn’t to say it copied it or that Dark Souls is the first to do it.

As for the enemies. If there were enemies all you would do is jump on them. It would basically be a mario clone. The jumping is to get from point A to B and for solving puzzles. Enemy combat would be a chunky add on that does nothing to serve the base mechanic of manipulating a 3D world while navigating it in 2D. I’ll admit it is not like other games. It doesn’t challenge your reflexes so much as your mind. Many of the puzzles in the game have had me stumped and Phil does not give you any hints. Which makes it all the more rewarding when you actually figure it out. Honestly I’m amazed that such a game like this was made. It does not hold your hand it does not give you directions and it does not treat you like you are a moron. What it does let you do is explore. And there are many many levels to explore. My only gripe with this is that you are forced to traverse the landscape and even though there are warp points you have to make your way to them each time. You’ll often have to go through a few levels as you traverse to a warp point. On the other hand I don’t think the game would work any better if you could warp to any level you wanted at will. It’s a bold move to actually have the player play the game instead of gradually getting to a point where the game plays itself which is what warp points are.

If you actually gave the game a chance you would see there is a lot of love and and hard work put into the game. And just from a content perspective the game is full of it. Also it has a very unique touch that shows through as very charming.

Anyway even if Phil’s attitude is abrasive it doesn’t bleed through into the game.

Btw I hope you don’t ever have to bear the burden of creating something from your own hands, blood, sweat and tears. As I don’t think you would be able to take the criticism. Just based on how vile and vicious you are. Sure you can dish it but not much else I bet.

To get back on point.

It’s not pointless and yes it is a game.
FISH

FEZ was self published by polytron and trapdoor, neither of which are publishers. microsoft is technically the “publisher” of any and every CBLA game in that they out it up on yheir servers, on their service. but we never got any money from microsoft. fez was developed entirely by polytron (AKA me and renaud and friends), and then trapdoor helped out in the last year or so with tradeshows and travels and things like that. the FEZ IP is fully owned by polytron.