FEZ

Well...I beat FEZ. I know that because credits were involved. As to what happened, what I accomplished, what the fuck that ending was about, it's hard to say...symbolism is not exactly my forte.

Let's back up for a sec though. I don't even know what FEZ is, you say. For the uninitiated, FEZ can best be described as a puzzle/platformer. The interesting mechanic that it's built around is the ability to rotate the world. Not everything is as it first appears. What looks like a 2D world is actually 3D, and Gomez, after receiving his magic fez hat, is able to rotate the world 90° left or right at will to navigate through the world. Platforming will always be performed in a 2D space, but each 2D face has three other corresponding sides that can be rotated to the foreground. Platforms, ledges, ivy to climb, etc. may not line up in your current configuration, but with a change in perspective, the way can be found.

The immediate surface goal is to find shiny yellow squares scattered around the world. Find 8 of those squares, and they form a cube. Find/construct enough cubes, and you can open certain doors around the world, revealing more of the world. The true goal is exploration and discovery. As you progress, you realize there are secrets, hidden cubes, puzzles that will make you tear your hair out, and even an entire language to decipher.

When you start playing, you're totally confused. You're also lost and can't use the map system for shit, but that's okay! Keep plugging away, and you start to understand how to get around in the world. I told one of my friends, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I'm doing it better than I was an hour ago."

Whenever you actually figure out one of the puzzles USING YOUR OWN BRAIN, there is tremendous satisfaction in that. In order to have the best gameplay experience possible, I recommend resisting the urge to look to the internet for help. I did that on occasion and felt like a cheating asshole when I did. Three things to keep in mind while playing FEZ:

1. Don't go into this game putting time constraints on yourself. If you think you're not progressing as quickly as your arbitrary self-imposed schedule demands, you're going to get frustrated and look shit up. Try not to look shit up.


2. Know that there are some rooms that you simply cannot do anything in on your first pass. You may do something down the road that makes unlocking the secrets of that room possible. Don't feel like you can't backtrack. You're going to have to backtrack. You're not a failure if you backtrack.


3. You don't have to unlock everything to see the endgame. Finding 32 cubes will allow you to "beat" FEZ, however there is a slightly different ending if you find all 64 cubes and anti-cubes. Whether or not that's worth it depends on how much fun you're having, I suppose.

I was an impatient asshole and did not follow rule #1. I only created the rules after realizing I was being an asshole, so forgive me. The nature of the game is meant to be a little frustrating. The true joy of the game comes from overcoming that frustration with your noggin.

FEZ was one of the games featured in the documentary "Indie Game: The Movie", and Phil Fish, FEZ's creator, said he "wanted to bring it back to the old days of gaming pre-internet when there'd be like these urban legends where if you stand in this one corner and stand still for 5 seconds and then press down, and jump two times, it warps you somewhere." You definitely get that feel. Secrets abound within FEZ. I even heard that there are hidden images, text, and QR codes hidden in the tracks of the soundtrack when viewed in any audio program with a spectrogram.

Phil Fish, you're a clever dude, and I'm glad that after five years, you could share FEZ with the world. It made me feel like a genius at times; it annoyed the shit out of me at times, but all the while, it was an enjoyable world to spend some time in.