Montreal Tech Watch

Fez at the Independent Games Festival

By michel Feb 24th 2008 in video games

A new gameplay trailer for Fez, the 2D-no-wait-it’s-3D puzzle/exploration game primarily being developed in Montreal, was revealed earlier this week at the Independent Games Festival in San Francisco. The game involves navigating a 3D world from various 2D perspectives. Puzzles and obstacles are overcome by rotating the world and shifting your 2D character’s plane of existence. Just…watch the video below. It’s actually very intuitive and amazing to see in motion.

This past Wednesday, the IGF, a self-described “Sundance for independent game developers,” selected Fez as the recipient of its award for Excellence in Visual Art. The team behind the game received a $2500 cash prize and, presumably, enough exposure to help secure a distribution deal. It was also a finalist in the category of Design Innovation.

Originally attached to the Montreal-based experimental game collective Kokoromi, the virtual team behind the game is now calling itself Polytron Systems Corp. This international team consists of Kokoromi member Phil Fish (design and art), Renaud Bédard (programming), Graham Lackey (animation), and Jason “6955″ DeGroot (producer, music and sound effects).

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Comments

  • Heri February 24, 2008

    michel,

    the projected 3d/2d world is innovative, but imho, the best part of Fez is the music.

  • michel February 24, 2008

    Yeah, Jason’s music will add a lot to the game I think. I first heard of him from the web show he produces called Points. If this were tokyotechwatch.com I might write a post about it, but here’s the link for anyone who’s curious:

    http://points-tv.com/

    Short documentaries about things like the nintendo museum, game bars where people can drink sake and play nintendo games from the 80s, etc.

  • Montreal Tech Watch February 24, 2008

    Fez at the Independent Games Festival http://tinyurl.com/357to3

  • Seb February 25, 2008

    The Engrish adds an exotic touch.

  • Heihachi Y August 18, 2008

    This game does look awesome indeed, but it is not the first 2D/3D puzzle platformer to come out. Last year saw Crush for PSP, which was quite fun with a zany storyline to match. Obviously, it wasn’t as cute or Engrishy as this one looks.

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