Development of Fez
The game was released to critical acclaim as an Xbox Live Arcade timed exclusive, and was later ported to other platforms.
[1] Nathan Grayson of VG247 likened the game's rocky development process to "an indie Duke Nukem Forever".
[9] Though Bédard had some hobbyist experience in 3D graphics[10] and was studying computer science,[9] Fez was his first professional[8] game development project.
[16] As Fez was a side project, Fish was employed full-time at Artificial Mind and Movement in Montreal, where he worked on a tie-in game for a film.
Fish received a Canadian government loan to open Polytron Corporation as a startup company and began full-time work on Fez.
[19] In March 2011,[20] the nearby Québécois developer-publisher Trapdoor offered to help Polytron, having just signed a deal with Electronic Arts to publish their own game, Warp.
Trapdoor assisted with Polytron's finances and operations[18] and offered to treat them as part of their company and let them keep their intellectual property rights in exchange for a portion of Fez's earnings.
[22] As a subplot, the film presents Fish amidst a legal dispute with a former business partner that jeopardizes the game's future.
[22] Fez won the Audience Choice Award at the September 2011 Fantastic Arcade,[26] Best in Show and Best Story/World Design at the October 2011 Indiecade,[27] and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2012 GDC Independent Games Festival.
[31] Fez was displayed in its entirety in a secluded lounge room at the October 2011 GameCity festival in Nottingham, England.
Fish told a Gamasutra reporter that he had received positive feedback from Independent Games Festival Chairman Brandon Boyer and Braid designer Jonathan Blow.
[43][44] The PlayStation releases include cross-console support for cross-buy (where one digital purchase allows access across multiple consoles)[45] and "cross-save" (game save sharing between consoles), as well as support for 3D televisions, the DualShock 4 controller's decorative lightbar,[43] and graphical upgrades due to the full port into the C++ programming language.
[47] Bédard planned to leave Polytron after finishing Fez to experience work with a full development team,[9] but stayed to port the Windows release before joining Toronto's Capybara Games.
[48][49] Ars Technica described the apparent end to the game's harder puzzles as "anticlimactic",[50] but Fish told Eurogamer in March 2013 that hidden in-game secrets remain to be found.
[51] More than three years after its digital launch, Fez received a physical release designed by Fish and limited to a signed edition of 500 in December 2015.
[10] Bédard also wrote the game engine, Trixel Technology, which turns 2D tiles ("triles") into sides of a 3D cube pixel.
[9] So as to fit the rotation mechanic, the levels were made tall instead of wide, and the first part of the game was designed to acclimate the player to 2D controls before introducing the 3D element.
[8] Fish describes the game's changes during development as "organic"—they tested different kinds of levels and replicated the types of in-game exploration that the team appreciated most.
[18] Fish cited Myst as another touchstone and compared its open world, nonlinear narrative, and "obtuse metapuzzles" to Fez's own alphabet, numeric system, and an "almost unfairly hard to get" "second set of collectibles".
[51] Fish also fought against including the navigational assistant, Dot, but later felt that the addition was successful and a positive contribution to the game's mythology.
[10] Fish cited Fumito Ueda's Ico as the game's third inspiration, and he sought to emulate its feeling of nostalgic and isolated loneliness.
Fish also sought to emulate Ueda's "design by subtraction" philosophy, where the Ico development team would periodically remove parts of the game so as to leave only what was essential to their vision.
[32] So as to better emulate Hayao Miyazaki's signature "open blue sky", "feel-good" atmosphere, Fish watched all of the director's films one weekend early in the development cycle.
