Fez (video game)

Fez (video game)

Fez is an indie puzzle-platform video game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player rotates between four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game’s puzzles. The object of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments, which accrete to restore order to the universe. The game’s New Game Plus mode adds a first-person perspective feature.

About Fez (video game) in brief

Summary Fez (video game)Fez is an indie puzzle-platform video game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player rotates between four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game’s puzzles. The object of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments, which accrete to restore order to the universe. Fez won awards including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Eurogamer’s 2012 Game of the Year. It had sold one million copies by the end of 2013, and it influenced games such as Monument Valley, Crossy Road, and Secrets of Rætikon. A planned sequel was canceled when Fez designer Phil Fish abruptly left the indie game industry. The game’s New Game Plus mode adds a first-person perspective feature and lets the player revisit areas to collect anti-cubes from harder puzzles. Its homage includes Tetris tetrominos inscribed on the walls and in the sky, The Legend of Zelda treasure chest animations, Super Mario Bros. mushroom levels, travel by pipe, and floating platforms. It features a pixelated art style and a limited color palette reminiscent of the 8-bit era. It has no enemies, bosses, or punishments for failure—the player-character quickly respawns upon falling to his death. It prioritizes puzzle-solving and patience over the platforming genre’s traditional interest in dexterity. It is known for its protracted and acerbic development cycle for its amount of public exposure and exposure to its developers. Apart from the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which was released to wide acclaim from Fez, Fish became known for his outspoken and outspoken public persona and his prominence in the film.

He gained celebrity status for his public persona, and for his involvement with the game and its legal issues. He is known as the “underdog darling of the indie games scene” during its high-profile and protracted five-year development cycle. It was released for Xbox Live Arcade in April 2012 and was ported to other platforms following the expiration of a yearlong exclusivity agreement. Reviewers commended the game’s emphasis on discovery and freedom, but criticized its technical issues, in-game navigation, and endgame backtracking. They likened thegame’s rotation mechanic to the 2D–3D shifts of Echochrome, Nebulus, Super Paper Mario, and Crush. One of theGame’s recurring themes is an ancient civilization that attempted to make sense of their dimensionality, as told through artifacts. For example, floating platforms become a solid road, discontinuous ladders become whole, and platforms that move along a track stay on course. In search of these cubes, Gomez traverses the game environment by jumping between ledges. Other platforming elements change with the level themes, including crates that activate switches, bombs that reveal passages, and pistons that launch Gomez airborne. Fez’s exploration parts feature a series of arcane codes and glyphs, treasure maps and chests, and secret rooms. Players are left without guidance to determine whether game elements are decipherable subpuzzles or simply false signals.