Fez

[elmuerte]

Question mark means a puzzle (piece). This could be a tetris cube decoding thingy, or a RT LT thingy, or an interaction with something.

[Erkki]

Well, crap, I got tired of just aimlessly looking for places where I could immediately solve something and tried to look for mild spoilers, then accidentally got one of the codes spoiled (it was an image on a website without much scrolling needed). Then I got back into the game, and somehow immediately found the solution to the same code -- it was just in a room I had missed. Unfortunately I also got a peek of another code

 

Anyway, I find it better to get a few hints than to aimlessly wander about -- especially as navigating the map is awkward at some places if you don't have perfect memory.

 

that timing based sewer level with awkward jumps can fuck right off

[elmuerte]

The red sewer? yeah, that sucks big time. There is a checkpoint halfway through it though, although, more like at 66% of it.

[Erkki]

Whaat? Haven't seen the checkpoint yet. So much to go still... Aargh.

 

Does anyone else think that these game mechanics of solving puzzles and collecting things while platforming don't really go that well together? Maybe what makes it seem that way is just my own desire to get the game "over with" by collecting everything and so I turn to walkthroughs, because I really don't have weeks to spend on it. But I think the fact that you collect things and specifically have goals of collecting a complete set that triggers the completionist in me.

 

I was playing The Room on the iPad just before Fez. I could leave that alone for months and come back to it later -- I suspect if I leave Fez less than 200% completed I'll never come back to it really. In one way I like it that the game just hides puzzles in the environment and you can go and do this puzzle here or that puzzle there at any time (some gating applies), and if I was a teenager with lots of free time I'd probably love it to death.

 

But as the game puts all the platforming and collectioning around the puzzles, that really takes the focus away from solving the puzzles, for me. It's almost as with The Cave, but not quite as bad as it at least feels quicker to get around or there's more to do while moving around. But what I'd love would be if in New Game+ you could just "fast travel" to all the visited rooms instantly on the world map or if there was some other way of getting around more easily once you've visited most of the game.

[coaxmetal]

Been playing this on PC. Really liking it, but so far I haven't gotten to deciphering anything. I have like 15 cubes and 2 or 3 anticubes I think. I've thought about doing frequency analysis on the symbols, but for that to work i'd need a large sample, plus I think there is a key somewhere, based on what I heard about the xbox version.

[I_smell]

I always say this, but I beat Fez with like 62 cubes without learning to read that stuff.

Infact it was really annoying me by the end, so I looked it up and the way they actually show you in-game is total bullshit and I walked passed it a thousand times.

 

To me it's a shame that overshadows everything, cos I thought the game was great without it, and I actually don't like that part.

[shammack]

To me it's a shame that overshadows everything, cos I thought the game was great without it, and I actually don't like that part.

 

I felt the same way, except I didn't think the game was that great without it. It felt like they had what seemed like a really cool premise with the rotating the world mechanic, but then it turned out not to be as interesting as expected because you could basically just brute-force your way through all the platforming by just rotating until a path appears, so they panicked and threw in a bunch of obtuse puzzles where you don't know what information is relevant or even what problem you're meant to be solving. That is my least favorite kind of puzzle; I feel it's very disrespectful of the player's time.

[I_smell]

I dunno, I feel like the game established that it's full of weird puzzles, and all the strange ones were anti-cubes, so I was fine with stuff like the clock puzzle or the observatory puzzle.

 

The main 32 golden cubes, and the main path to the end of the game IS kind of underwhelming, and doesn't really hit 100% of it's potential, you're right on that. If someone wanted to get to the end quickly and put this game down, then I wouldn't reccomend it so much, because there's not THAT MUCH to explore in the world-rotating mechanic.

If you ask me it's fun ENOUGH, though, to be a breadcrumb trail through a game-world that I thought was fun and cute, and had a really great soundtrack. It's just pixel-art, but things like the giant stone owl, and the villages and the temples are really fun things to find.

 

Ontop of that, to repeat myself, I thought Fez's weird tricks were pretty neat. Apart from deciphering the language, which I thought was a boondoggle.

Just to outline it: There's a stone tablet next to a fox and a dog, and you're supposed to notice that the tablet says "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog."

Here's the thing though: Those tablets are all over the game, you can't read them yet, you don't know that they're written backwards and vertically yet, there are birds, frogs, and all different animals just about everywhere, and there's no sign that this spot is important. Compared to the temples, churches, villages, schools and libraries: This lexicon is just sitting out on a path somewhere, next to nothing.

And the fox is orange, by the way.

And they say nothing interesting, they just say gibberish.

[toblix]

I said this in my awesome review, but I'll say it again: Fez would've been amazing if it actually mixed the awesome, crazy puzzle stuff with the mediocre platforming, instead of just having these two separate parts awkwardly sitting next to each other in the same game. Of course, much is saved by the music.

[Roswell47]

Started playing again today after stopping 2 weeks ago. Man, this game just keeps going. No wonder it took so long to make. I've only looked up one secret so far and I immediately regretted it because what you get is nothing compared to figuring it out and seeing it work. Never again will I look something up.

[Roswell47]

Holy shit @ new game+. What the fuck have I gotten myself into!? Reminds me of Frog Fractions except 100x more insane.

[melmer]

Phil is investigating if he can patch Fez on xbox360 now that Microsoft have announced they're no longer charging developers to patch their games

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-26-microsoft-no-longer-charges-developers-to-patch-their-xbox-360-games

 

My save is actually corrupted, so i wonder if this retro fit patch will retro fix my save? although i'm not that bothered, if i was to revisit the land of Fez i'd want to start a fresh

[melmer]

Fez sells 1 million. Say thanks:

http://polytroncorporation.com/fez-sells-a-million/

[jmbossy]

Is it wrong of me to miss the fish? Only crazy men can create such unique experiences... I guess there is always Jonathan Blow.

[tegan]

I started playing this today!

 

 

[Twig]

I see you're stuck on the first puzzle.

[tegan]

I've got a couple of cubes and even 2 anticubes at this point, it's just that going through one specific small gate always crashes the game for me. It's weird.

[Twig]

Hm. Tried verifying the files on Steam? That's always the easiest thing to try, and tends to solve most of those problems. Beyond that, I don't know. ):

[filk]

I finished this game a couple weeks ago with 200% and no guides. I absolutely adored it, but agree that it's biggest weakness is probably that it pretends to be a mediocre platformer with a gimmick rather than a Myst-style puzzle game. The latter is where all of the games enduring strength is, supported by visuals and a soundtrack that exude mystery.

 

I think the hint for the language decoding is the size of the animals, by the way. It's the only time in the game I can think of that you see creatures that are bigger than the general owls/squirrels/etc. And if you've decoded the numbers or the tetrominos by then, you can have a good sense that it reads top-down.

 

At this point, I find myself wanting to just re-enter the game world to walk around some more.

[jmbossy]

I actually felt some weird sense of loss after beating Fez. It didn't compute with me that I could "complete" this game; it would be like solving all of the world's mysteries.

[elmuerte]

That's why you can beat it twice. Just imagine if it only went up to 100%.

[CaptainFish]

The platforming actually drove me away from this game...

 

I'll probably get back to it for the other stuff at some point, but I don't appreciate the way they designed the moment to moment gameplay at all.

[Griddlelol]

Digging this thread up after what happened to Polytron. Hearing they're attacked made me want to play Fez. I've had it downloaded for a while, but never got very far in it because the map makes me panic. 

Normally when I have trouble I'd look up a guide to get going, but I'm concerned about ruining the puzzles. Any tips to help me get started, or just "suck it up and play"?

[dibs]

I just wander around exploring. When i get further in, or too a door that i can't open then i'll start backtracking a little. One of the best things in it (so far) is passing through a door and finding a whole new world of pixel goodness that you had no idea was coming.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I did look up guides when playing and probably slightly ruined it for myself, but at the same time those guides made me able to play for longer because a lot of puzzles were based on a specific system I would have found inscrutable and was not into the game enough to dedicate the energy to learn them.

I personally recommend exploring and puzzling without a guide until you hit a brick wall (if you even do).