polytron
Latest
FEZ topped XBLA activity charts last week
Despite being released on a Friday, the long-awaited Fez topped the Xbox Live Arcade activity charts last week. We're just glad that so many people have discovered what we already know: Fez is a pretty good game. Skullgirls and I Am Alive came in second and third on the XBLA charts, respectively.On the Xbox 360 retail game side, Major Nelson reports that Modern Warfare 3 yet again maintained dominance. It was followed by Black Ops and FIFA 12. If only some company could figure out a way to combine Call of Duty and soccer ... hey, it worked for Mega Man!Finally, on the Games for Windows Live activity list – we're just kidding. Nobody cares about what's being played on Games for Windows Live.
Metareview: Fez
Fez is already on track to be this year's indie darling among critics, like Braid, Limbo or Super Meat Boy before it. Heck, it received awards before it ever launched. We called Fez "joyful" and entirely worth its protracted development. We aren't alone. Eurogamer (100/100): "It's during this stage that you'll seriously tackle the game's many secrets - all handily marked, but not at all spoiled, on the head-spinning 3D map screen. Think Miyamoto, Kojima or Schafer at their most impish: treasure maps, invisible platforms, secret messages delivered in unexpected ways, puns and tricks of the light." OXM (95/100): "For an experience that could've drowned in an overreliance on using familiar signposts from what's come before it, Fez succeeds in celebrating the past in a smart, joyous way that has us incredibly excited for gaming's future." Edge (90/100): "Draw lines between distant landmarks; forge connections that reveal the logic of a set piece; untangle the story in short, gleeful bursts. The route you pick through Polytron's floating world is nearly impossible to verbalise, while its puzzles resolve themselves in your mind unexpectedly, in clear, wordless chunks. There's really no language to cover many of the things you get up to in Fez. For a videogame in 2012, that may be the ultimate endorsement." Gamespot (80/100): "Fez goes far deeper than the simple platformer it initially appears as, and figuring out the solutions to the many puzzles is an experience that harks back to a time when games weren't scared of taking off the leash and letting you run wild. Invest time in Fez's colorful world, and enjoy the wealth of incredible ideas buried within. "
Fez devs aware of 'nasty' bugs, working with Microsoft to resolve
Fez programmer Renaud Bedard notes "twenty thousand people" have played the game in the past 24 hours, more than have in its five years of development, adding: "So, as it happens, bugs popped up. Some pretty serious."Bedard mentions that a "small subset" of older Xboxen with smaller hard drives can't run the game. He also notes the game has problems running off a USB stick and that in a "rare situation" – by exiting the game from the "wall village" interiors – a save file can corrupt. He admits it's "nasty stuff.""We will be working internally and with Microsoft on those issues and let you know more later. It makes sense to issue a patch, but we don't currently have an ETA on it."Those experiencing "game-breaking problems" should let Polytronic know by email."Sorry, and thanks for understanding!" He concludes, "And we're thrilled to see that the vast majority of you are enjoying the game as it was meant to be."
PSA: Fez finally for really real available to buy and play and everything
Ready to get your Z-axis adventures on, all the while wearing an adorable (and potentially magical) hat? Polytron's Fez is finally (finally) available for you to do just that via Xbox Live Arcade. Better yet? It's just $10!But you haven't heard of Fez, you say? Well, frankly, that's kinda weird. We're saying we think you're kinda weird. If that is the case, however, there's a brand new launch trailer for Fez just above so you can learn all about it. Oh, and hey, we think it's pretty great, in case that wasn't already clear.
Fez review: Hats off
Whenever a game is hyped to stratospheric proportions, many times over a course of years, it enters a volatile realm of public reception.When a game has won numerous awards before its launch, is one half of an industry documentary, and is developed by an outspoken, opinionated man, it resides in a universe of its own and players are relegated to describe it in one of two ways: with blazing praise or incendiary criticism.Fez is on fire, and it burns with a brilliant, red-hot, yellow-tasseled flame.
Listen to the Fez soundtrack now for 3 dimensions of audible awesome
Fez is officially and finally coming out on Friday, April 13, but half of the highly anticipated experience is available now: The Fez soundtrack from Disasterpeace is available in its entirety via Spotify right now, or for pre-order and sampling on Bandcamp.Before anyone says, "Wutevs not every1 has been waiting 4 Fez for 5 yrs STFU u guise," the soundtrack is currently number one on Bandcamp, so it's not completely off the mainstream radar. Personally, we've been listening to the soundtrack all day and already we feel more well-rounded.
Fez hits XBLA on April 13 for 800 MSP
Xbox Live Arcade finally becomes a glorified Fez dispenser on Friday, April 13th. Polytron just blasted out the release date and ten-dollar price point for its perplexing play on perspective -- and we've decided that we now want all such announcements embedded inside exuberant and weirdly hypnotic graphics.The game's lengthy development time and subsequent trials in Microsoft certification have been dominant talking points until now, and they're joined by an unusual Friday launch date on Xbox Live Arcade. If you want to learn more about the man behind Fez, be sure to read about our afternoon spent with one Phil Fish.
Gain some perspective with this new Fez trailer
Fez's concept of 2D platforming in a 3D space sounds simple on paper, but you have to see its execution in motion to really, really wrap your head around it. Thankfully, we've got six minutes of said motion after the break.
Fezes are cool: An afternoon with Phil Fish
Amidst the gridlocked, city-wide pandemonium that is SXSW Interactive, I was able to rescue Fez's lead designer and artist Phil Fish from a pack of ravenous, business-card waving fans long enough for an interview. We set up at the quiet end of the Palmer Events Center's glass-lined second floor, standing at a chest high, sidewalk cafe-esque table overlooking Zilker Park. It had been raining for two days straight, but that morning the clouds had parted and festival attendees were treated to one of the few gorgeous spring afternoons Texas will get this year.Fez has missed its most recently announced release window of Q1 2012, but the fact that the game is undergoing Microsoft certification means that it'll be out relatively soon. "We almost made it to Q1," Fish said. "We entered certification like two weeks ago, but we actually just failed it, which is kinda standard. Pretty much everybody fails their first cert."Microsoft has a two-month window in which it can release Fez once it has gone gold, and Fish wants to make sure it happens as quickly as possible. "We're trying to put pressure on them to release it as soon as possible because the zeitgeist is really good right now, with the movie starting to get a lot of play and the award. And, also, it's been five years. I don't want to wait another two months after that."
Phil Fish's next game won't be on XBLA, might be Kickstarter'd
Fez may just now be undergoing the certification process at Microsoft, but that doesn't mean designer Phil Fish is resting on his laurels. Quite the contrary, in fact; Fish's next project is already in its formative stages, and he's so anxious to begin work that he may use Kickstarter to fund it. Whatever that project might be, however, it won't be an XBLA game."Well, our next project is going to be not for XBLA," Fish told us during SXSW Interactive, in response to a question regarding Fez's limited XBLA exclusivity, and the possibility of a similar arrangement for his next title. "I think it's unfortunate that Microsoft works that way, but like I said [during the panel] we gave them what they wanted and they've been backing us up the whole time. I'm sure you've heard many horror stories of people working with XBLA; they've been nothing but understanding and supporting of us this whole entire time."It's been three months since Fish's work on Fez ended; the game is still being debugged by other members of the team, but in his capacity as a designer he's finished. He hasn't quite known what to do with himself in the interim, and that restlessness has lead him and his team to heavily consider Kickstarter for their next project."It's going to take a while before we get money from Microsoft, and I want to get started on this project that I'm making with a couple people, a larger team than just me and another guy," Fish said. "We wouldn't need much and we wouldn't ask for much, but I assume we'll get more than we ask for, having just won the grand prize and Fez about to come out."The campaign wouldn't start until after the release of Fez, which Fish is concerned about: "I'm afraid people might take [the Kickstarter] the wrong way. Like, 'Why do you need a Kickstarter, you just made Fez?' Yeah, but it takes five months before we get paid, maybe, it's totally variable, but at least three months. The best case scenario is we get paid three months after the release. I don't want to wait three months."
Fez hits XBLA on May 2 [Update: Nope!]
Update: Turns out the date Microsoft has listed for Fez is completely wrong. Polytron's Phil Fish has informed us that Fez has no set release date, that the May 2, 2012 date listed on the Xbox Live Marketplace is incorrect, and that the game hasn't even been certified by Microsoft. We sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding and have reached out to Microsoft for comment. It's been a long time coming, but it looks like the wait for Polytron's Fez is finally nearing its end. The adorable pixel art indie darling will arrive on May 2, according to the Xbox Live Marketplace.Originally slated to launch in 2009, Fez's development has been characterized by repeated delays, as well as accolades from the indie-gaming community. It is also one of the titles featured in Indie Game: The Movie, which is an official selection at this year's SXSW Film festival. Here's hoping the game can download in less time than it took to develop.[Thanks, Freakservo!]
It's getting there: Fez rated by ESRB
Phil Fish's Fez contractions continue, with the game finally being rated by the ESRB. It was also rated by Europe's PEGI board in December, but has yet to hit the Australian boards. So, expect labor to last for a little while longer.The long-in-development (yet award-winning) game now has a release window of "early 2012." If you order cigars from Cuba for the birth, feel free to go with the cheap shipping option.
Fez rated in Europe, the four-year wait is almost over
Fez is finally showing signs of imminent birth, with this being the equivalent of "water breaking," as Europe's PEGI board recently classified the game for Xbox Live. XBLAfans took note of the rating, a step which has yet to occur with the Australian Board or the States' ESRB. The unreleased -- yet award-winning -- game currently has a release window of "early 2012." Now, if we all eat our vegetables and wash behind our ears every night, that launch window may actually stick.
Fez was inspired by Ico's minimalism and 'lonely isolation'
Polytron's Fez has been such a long time coming, designer Phil Fish explained at Fantastic Arcade this weekend (where Fez won the above Audience Choice award), because "we've had no points of reference for what our 2D/3D 'moment to moment' play is." While there are other games that involve moving from 2D into 3D space, like Echochrome and Crush, they "don't work like Fez at all," he said. As Fish has worked to figure out how Fez does work, he's removed a lot of features from the game that he began to see as cruft. "There used to be a billion different things in Fez that didn't have to do with the core mechanic of rotation," Fish said. "We used to have the concept of weight: objects had different weights; if a vase was empty you could fill it with water to trigger a switch ... It was nothing to do with flipping between 2D and 3D." Other lost concepts included health, which Fish resisted removing at first simply because he liked the classic look of a heart meter on the screen. But it wasn't necessary in a game with no enemies. Both the "design by subtraction" mindset and the lack of enemies are inspired by Ico, he said. Fumito Ueda's game design philosophy informed his, as did Ico's "nostalgic, lonely isolation." He also cites Mario, Zelda, and Myst games as inspirations.
Fez footage is positively magical
After the break you will find nearly six minutes of gameplay footage from Fez. It looks, in short, pretty magical. We suggest you watch it as often as possible. You could start right now. That would be a good choice.
Fez preview: It's the little things
Fez is not just a platformer. Nor is it just a puzzle-platformer. Fez is an experience. A crazy experience that's clearly the product of some eccentric and passionate game developers -- two, in fact, who are all that comprise Polytron Corporation, the game's Montreal-based developer. Fez is what happens when you mix fancy, high-end modern consoles with 16-bit-era graphics, and put two guys with very serious detail obsession in control. In short, Fez is very, very impressive.
Fez being co-published by Trapdoor
Before jumping around Villageville with Gomez in Polytron's Fez at PAX East, we couldn't help but notice a bright logo for relatively unknown developer Trapdoor. This might not be so strange if it weren't for the fact that Trapdoor itself isn't a game publisher -- and its own XBLA/PSN/Steam game Warp is being published with EA Partners. When asked about the surprise splash screen, Trapdoor founder Ken Schachter explained it by saying, "We should be issuing a press release this week, but the gist of it is that we're going to be announcing that we're co-publishing Fez." That said, given Trapdoor's ability to co-publish Fez, we wondered why the studio isn't publishing its own game, Warp. "We met with a bunch of publishers, and we weighed a bunch of options, but at the end of the day we were really impressed with the team at EA, and with what they had to bring to the table," Schachter told us. He further explained, "Basically, with regards to EA Partners, they've been really great about letting us be and focus on the creative part. And really just work on our game, and retain ownership of our IP. And they have a world class business, marketing, and PR team. And that's really the best of both worlds." As previously announced, Warp is expected to launch this summer, while Fez should arrive at some point later this year.
Fez playable at PAX East, visible in this trailer
If you're at PAX East this weekend, you'll finally get the opportunity to play Polytron's perspective-shifting XBLA platformer, Fez, in booth 1118. We're guessing there's going to be a line. But even if you don't get to play it, you can enjoy a new trailer released for the occasion.
Gameloft treads on XBL Indie games with Tank Battles
Xbox Live Arcade was once thought to be a bastion of independent game development, destined to help independent studios get their projects to the game-playing masses. While that's still true to a certain extent -- Ska Studios and Polytron say hi -- there's no denying that an increasingly large number of XBLA games are being created by major publishers and development houses. And now it seems as if Xbox Live Indie Games -- quite literally a bastion of independent game development -- might suffer the same fate. Unstoppable mobile game publisher Gameloft (a subsidiary of Ubisoft) is officially entering the Indie Games space with Tank Battles. As the title implies, the game features tanks doing battle from a third-person perspective. If the title sounds familiar, it's because the game was already released on PSN last year as Battle Tanks. The game offers up to 4-players (locally or online) to duke it out and, truth be told, it looks pretty fun. Check out a trailer after the break. [Via GamerBytes]
Austin GDC 2009: Phil Fish offers first public demo of Fez
Capping off the "The New Indie Hotness" panel at Austin GDC, Polytron's Phil Fish played an early version of the multidimensional XBLA platformer, Fez, for the audience. Though there were a few issues related to the pre-release state of the game -- specifically, Fish claimed that some platforms were disappearing -- we saw enough to know that this is something to continue following!Fez plays sort of like Super Paper Mario, but with more of an emphasis on optical illusions. It appears as a 2D sidescrolling platformer most of the time, but at any time the player can rotate the entire world 90 degrees along a vertical axis. This allows the player to use optical illusions to navigate the game world. For example, Fish climbed a ladder up the side of one platform, and then rotated the world to reveal another identical platform several yards away. By rotating again, the perspective shifted such that it looked like the ladder was connected to the second platform -- and so it was, and Fish emerged atop the once-distant platform.In another example, Fish tossed a bomb onto a moving platform to expose the entrance to a cave. He walked to the entrance, and then rotated the world 180 degrees to reveal the other side of the rock structure into which the cave had been cut, granting him immediate access to the other side.When Fish paused, we noticed a "leaderboards" item in the pause menu. We don't know as yet what the leaderboards will compare, but at least they'll be there.
