FEZ - Full Game

A full no commentary playthrough of FEZ

Game: FEZ
Release Date: April 13, 2012
Platform: PC
Developer: Polytron Corporation

Fez (stylized as FEZ) is an indie puzzle-platform video game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game's puzzles. The object of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.

The game was called an "underdog darling of the indie game scene" during its high-profile and protracted five-year development cycle. Fez designer and Polytron founder Phil Fish gained celebrity status for his outspoken public persona and his prominence in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which detailed Fez's final stages of development and Polytron's related legal issues. Fez met critical acclaim upon its April 2012 release for Xbox Live Arcade. The game was ported to other platforms following the expiration of a yearlong exclusivity agreement.

Reviewers commended the game's emphasis on discovery and freedom, but criticized its technical issues, in-game navigation, and endgame backtracking. They likened the game's rotation mechanic to the 2D–3D shifts of Echochrome, Nebulus, Super Paper Mario, and Crush. Fez won awards including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Eurogamer's 2012 Game of the Year. It had sold one million copies by the end of 2013, and it influenced games such as Monument Valley, Crossy Road, and Secrets of Rætikon. A planned sequel was canceled when Fish abruptly left the indie game industry.

Fez is a two-dimensional (2D) puzzle platform game set in a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player-character Gomez lives peacefully on a 2D plane until he receives a red fez and witnesses the breakup of a giant, golden hexahedron that tears the fabric of spacetime and reveals a third dimension. After the game appears to glitch, reset, and reboot, the player can rotate between four 2D views of the 3D world, as four sides around a cube-like space. This rotation mechanic reveals new paths through the levels by connecting otherwise inaccessible platforms, and is the basis of Fez's puzzles. For example, floating platforms become a solid road, discontinuous ladders become whole, and platforms that move along a track stay on course. The object of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments, which accrete to restore order to the universe. In search of these cubes, Gomez traverses the game environment by jumping between ledges. Other platforming elements change with the level themes, including crates that activate switches, bombs that reveal passages, and pistons that launch Gomez airborne.
The basic idea for the 2D/3D aesthetic really just started with the Trixel idea. I figured that if we built our entire game world from these little cubes, all perfectly aligned on a 3D grid, we'd get this "3D Pixel" look.

The exploratory parts of the game feature a series of arcane codes and glyphs, treasure maps and chests, and secret rooms. Players are left without guidance to determine whether game elements are decipherable subpuzzles or simply false signals. These sorts of puzzles include hidden warp gates, enigmatic obelisks, invisible platforms, sequences of tetrominos, a ciphered alphabet, and QR codes. One of the game's recurring themes is an ancient civilization that attempted to make sense of their dimensionality, as told through artifacts.

Fez has no enemies, bosses, or punishments for failure—the player-character quickly respawns upon falling to his death. The game's designer described Fez as a "'stop and smell the flowers' kind of game". It prioritizes puzzle-solving and patience over the platforming genre's traditional interest in dexterity. Fez features a pixelated art style and a limited color palette reminiscent of the 8-bit era. Its homage includes Tetris tetrominos inscribed on the walls and in the sky, The Legend of Zelda treasure chest animations, Super Mario Bros. mushroom levels, travel by pipe, and floating platforms. The game's settings include forests, factories, a coastal lighthouse, an urban city, and a library. Fez's New Game Plus mode adds a first-person perspective feature and lets the player revisit areas to collect "anti-cubes" from harder puzzles. This second half of the game is more challenging and focuses on code cracking.

[ice.]

Man I remember playing the demo when i was like 6, good times

[Handycan-xm]

Years later and this game still holds up

[viva]

There's something about this game's soundtrack that no other game does for me. It sounds so pleasant and inviting, yet eerie and empty in a way that I cannot tell whether or not it was intentional. I keep coming back to Disasterpeace's works and this one has always stood out to me as something that plucks at my curiosity.

[milesaway]

After decoding the language, it was a lot of fun going back through the game and figuring out what everyone was saying (including the big cube at the beginning).

[Shigawire]

OMG what a masterpiece this game is. One of the few games I finished 110%!

[kepli]

1:13:09 a timestamp for when i show people how cool this game is

[hortenciamartinez]

Man i remembe playing fez on my dads ps4 when i was young and this video gives me nostalgia

[smellyfishstiks]

nice, When I want to take in some Fez after my copy broke I can do it here now

[Strawb_be]

I remember playing FEZ on my dads phone, to a six year old this game was very odd

[zombieguy]

Fun! The whole changing perspective is Cool 👌

[laprincess]

This game felt like a fever dream, I was trying so hard to remember the name !!!!

[bonbonpony]

07:27 "All 32 cubes"?! 32 is not a cubic number! :o How could the Hexahedron consist of 32 of those then? 64… now _that_ would be a nice cubic number (4×4×4). Or 27 (3×3×3). 32 would make only the upper and lower faces of the Hexahedron. What about the sides? :q
Also, it's pretty crazy that all those villagers seem to already live in each of the four views. Was Gomez the only one not aware that his world is 3D? :q

[tomaszniemiec]

Hello good sir ☺️ I wanted to ask if I could use your gameplay for a video review I want to make of FEZ? Of course, with full credit to your content.

[bravo]

Hey mate, can I play it coop? I'm looking forward to play it with my brother on my xbox, if it's possible

[xavierayala]

si pones reondo al lado de una persona te abla