Two Years of Fez / Fail

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:08:00 GMT

Two Years of Fail
For anyone hungry for Fez content, as I know many of you are, Polytron recently posted Two Years of Fez (or Two Years of Fail), a little retrospective highlighting some of the delightful ways development of the game has gone wrong over the past couple years. Check it out here.

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Upcoming 2: XBLA Edition

Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:59:00 GMT


Yo, I’m in Washington right now for PAX (first time)! The show starts tomorrow, but today I got to attend a Microsoft event where some indies were in attendence. Slick Entertainment was one of the teams present, and they were showing off Scrap Metal, a “cars with guns” racing game that’s coming out to XBLA next year. As a fan of Rock n’ Roll Racing, RC Pro AM, Off Road, etc., I’m very excited about this one. The handling and physics felt great, and the action was raucous.


The inimitable and cheeky Introversion guys were also present and had Darwinia+ available to play. This game includes both the IGF award-winning Darwinia as well as Multiwinia (shown in the video above). I enjoyed Darwinia a lot but hadn’t ever played Multiwinia, mostly due to my aversion to multiplayer-only games (this might change now that I’ve tried Left 4 Dead 2). But hell, Multiwinia is great fun in singleplayer mode against the computer, too. I’ll be looking forward to grabbing D+ for the full experience.


And finally… Fez wasn’t on hand at the event, but it is coming out for Live Arcade in 2010 and there is some new footage of it in this episode of G4’s Electric Playground (around the 6:00 mark).

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Stimergy

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:01:00 GMT

Antsy.

I should have seen this on either Heather or Renaud’s blog, but of course I saw it on Offworld.

Stimergy is a game by Kokoromi’s Heather Kelley and Polytron’s Renaud Bédard (Team EMERGENCY HAMMER), created in under 36 hours for the Bivouac Urbain game jam in Quebec. In the game you must guide ants toward a picnic blanket using attractive and repulsive pheromones. According to Renaud:

“The game was made from scratch in C# 3.0 using the Truevision3D engine with no prior design, graphics or sound work. All the graphics in the game are procedural, and the gameplay itself is based on AI rules, basically a cellular automaton plus the notion of “stigmergy” from the insect world.”

You can find Stimergy here, along with a postmortem and time-lapse video of the creation of the game. And on the forums Renaud was kind enough to post a link to the rest of the Bivouac Urbain games, which includes entries by Anna and Messhof, among others. Pictures of the event can be found here.

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Surprise Surprise

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:11:00 GMT

Oh Shiiii--

Fez. XBLA. 2010.

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GDC '09: Fez Trailer II

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:10:00 GMT

Internets, rejoice! Over a year in the making, it’s finally here. The second Fez trailer.

Another TIGSOURCE EXCLUSIVE, courtesy of Polytron Corporation.

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Polytron Corporation Acquires Fez

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:56:00 GMT

Fez Screenie

Hurrah, the Polytron site is live! And I’ll be darned if it ain’t the slickest thing ever. More good news! Fez is planned for a 2009 release. Here’s the press release, direct from Polyplex One:
Montreal, Thursday the 22nd of January , 4:29pm, Montreal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Polytron Corporation is proudly excited to announce its friendly takeover of Fez!

The venerable multimedia multinational giant today announces it has taken control of the production of highly anticipated indie darling sensation Fez. The rights to the game were transferred from indie darling sensation collective Kokoromi, who demanded nothing in return but a dream, and a wish.

Winner of the 2008 IGF Excellence In Visual Arts Award, Fez also features 2008 IGF nominated design innovation.

Polytron is vibrating with glee at the prospect of bringing it’s much needed decades of experience in the field of computer entertainment to Fez, and its team.

Confident in its dedication to the project, Polytron projects a release in 2009.

More screenshots here. (Check out the new and also improved art style!)
More press after the jump.

Read more...

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The 1UP Show, Featuring Phil Fish

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:24:00 GMT


Here is an indie-centric episode of The 1UP Show, featuring an interview with the ever awesome Phil Fish—now an IGF winner at long last.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with a few of the 1UP folks since I’ve been here and, I gotta say, it feels good knowing there are people who “get” indie games within the mainstream press. (Also, they’re pretty cool to hang out with.)

FUN FACT: Cactus is older than I am.

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GDC: Oodles of Videos

Posted by Derek Yu Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:57:00 GMT

Interview with Kyle Gabler (World of Goo)


Not sure when video of the award show in its entirety is going to be available, since G4 is covering it this year. It’ll be pretty awesome to see Phil Fish say “fucking” (or rather, “bleep!”) on national t.v. And they’ll undoubtedly blur out Petri’s amazing sign…

In the meantime, hit the jump for some indie-related vids:

Read more...

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Fez: World 1-1

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:38:00 GMT


Please, enjoy some straight gameplay from the GDC build of Phil Fish and Renaud Bedard’s dimension-bending platformer Fez.

P.S. Though previously from Kokoromi, the company behind Fez is now officially known as Polytron, with a super-sexy new logo and all.

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Fez Teaser Trailer

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:01:00 GMT

At long last, the great Phil Fish has unveiled in-game footage of his IGF contender Fez.

Early on he had mentioned a big, secret element to the gameplay… but people say that kind of thing all the time, yeah? Usually it’s some gimmick, or something not as great as they imagined. Not so with Fez. Once you experience it, you realize it’s not only no gimmick—it’s an entirely new and compelling experience.
I cannot wait to play the finished game!

It’s fun looking back now and noticing the little hints Phil dropped along the way… If you had a keen enough eye, you probably could’ve figured him out.
Awesome job, Phil and Renaud!

Watch the video. DISCUSS.

UPDATE: Fish just released a new shot of the game showing off their 3D 2D rendering tech, which they call “Trixels.” (Not voxels, I swear!) Check it out here.

Notice how every “pixel” (trixel) is rendered in 3D. Very cool.

UPDATE II: Fez programmer Renaud explains Trixels vs. voxels, and a bit of Fez’s gameplay, on the Kokoromi blog. (Thanks Petri!)

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