Fez is a nice 2D platformer where the unique mechanic is that the world is 3D in reality and you can shift the world in 90° angles, whereby you can then reach new platforms and places, because now the backwall is suddenly a 2 block high platform that you can jump on.
You play as a cute little dude who gets the titular fez, which gives you the world turning power. Then you explore to your own liking and solve secrets to find cubes. A bit like The Witness in that regard. There is no real story or narrative, but simply exploring to my hearts content was enough to motivate me.
The music is also great and I still listen to it, since it portrays very fittingly the adventure spirit and mystique of some places. The atmosphere is similar to Tunic in that it feels whimsically adventurous.
If you like exploring things and finding hints and connections to solve puzzles, this game is for you. Especially if you like con languages and secrets behind secrets, but then you probably already played this game.
Sadly we will probably never play another game by this developer, as he behaved like an asshole and then the (not unfounded) backlash to that pushed him enough to quit developing.
Ah, no I meant why is he an asshole? What did he do/why don’t people like him?
It’s nearly 10 years ago, so I’m not sure anymore how it went exactly, but what I remember:
Phil Fish was an active part of an online forum for indie developer. His personality was brash/rude/unfiltered, however you want to call it, meaning his answers were right, but he also made fun of the people who did the mistake. After becoming famous, more people learned of that and said: you are famous now, you should behave better and not be rude to other small developers. At least that is what I heard from the outside, I never saw any of the actual messages. Knowing how people can act in private internet messages though, maybe the stuff he got was also not correct, I don’t know that part.
But as far as I know, he felt that he got shit just for being famous now. Since he didn’t change his behaviour! He was like that, even before he published Fez, so his resolution was: don’t publish stuff, since then people don’t care how rude you are.
wasn’t it more about how he got annoyed with people decompiling the game to search for hidden stuff and to brute force some of the puzzles?
that’s the part of why he doesn’t want to make games anymore I remember