Fez is an indie puzzle-platformer designed by Philippe Poisson, aka “Phill Fish”. It’s a game about discovery and exploration, with no real punishment for death and no antagonist for players to rally against.
Players take control of Gomez, a little 2D creature that lives in a 2D world. Everything changes for Gomez, however, when he receives the titular hat, a fez, from a strange, sentient golden cube that promptly explodes afterwards. With the hat, Gomez realizes that his world is actually 3D (a concept he initially has great difficulty in understanding). With this new ability to move in a 3D world, Gomez sets out to collect the pieces of the strange being that have scattered throughout the world in order to prevent the collapse of his reality.
Players are able to interact with the world by rotating the level to 4 different perspectives. Gomez is never able to actually abandon his 2D movement but, in this way, the world moves around him and allows him to traverse the environment in new and unexpected ways. Using voxels, which are basically pixels with volume (read: they can look like traditional 2D sprites, but they’re actually 3D), Phil Fish and his cohorts were able to create a highly-detailed world that allowed players to transition to different perspectives of the same space.
Although Phil Fish had worked with development teams on retail products before, Fez was his first full project as an independent developer. The project took 5 years due to the project’s large scope and complexity, as well as set backs in funding and changes in partners on the development of the game. Although the game received incredible acclaim from critics and players alike, Fez looks to be Phil Fish’s first and final independent project.
He has cited the stress of such a lengthy development, as well as the pressure and overwhelming negative, toxic treatment he received from followers of the industry throughout the process of development as the main reasons why he ended his career in game development. It’s been years since anybody has heard anything definitive from him, but it’s suspected by some that he is still working on new projects while keeping himself out of the spotlight.
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