Line #58 Videogame/Fez


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fez_cover.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Cover art by [[Creator/BryanLeeOMalley Bryan Lee O'Malley]]]]
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4	''Fez'' is a 2012 [[PuzzleGame puzzle]]-{{platform game}} by indie game designer Phil Fish, five years in development.
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6	The game has players control Gomez, a small white... thing who lives happily in his peaceful, floating 2D village until he is summoned by the town's Old Adventurer. The Old Adventurer gives him a magical fez before revealing a shocking truth: The world is actually 3-Dimensional! The fez allows Gomez to perceive the 3D world and shift dimensions, but he can still only move across 2D planes. Using this newfound ability, he sets off to collect all the pieces of a giant magical cube that has been scattered all over the land, causing the fabric of reality to tear apart.
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8	After initially releasing the game on Platform/XboxLiveArcade, ''Fez'' went multiplatform on May 1, 2013, with the release of a [[Platform/MicrosoftWindows Windows]] version of the game. Fish [[http://en.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1aj74m/i_am_phil_fish_cocreator_of_fez_ask_me_anything/ said]] that [[Platform/AppleMacintosh Mac]] [[Platform/MacOS OS X]] and [[Platform/{{UNIX}} Linux]] versions would eventually follow, but the release date was still to be decided. The game later came out on Platform/PS3, Platform/PS4, and Platform/{{PlayStation Vita}} on March 25, 2014, and ''much'' later on the Platform/NintendoSwitch on April 14, 2021.
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10	There was also to be a sequel to the game, simply titled ''Fez II''. However, in late July of 2013, after being insulted by Marcus Beer a.k.a. the "Annoyed Gamer" on the ''[=GameTrailers=]'' video blog-podcast ''Invisible Walls'', Phil Fish exploded into a very angry tirade on Twitter, and then outright [[ArtistDisillusionment quit]] the entire video game industry, the cancellation of ''Fez II'' coming in the announcement's wake.
11	----
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13	!!This game provides examples of:
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15	* HundredPercentCompletion: Collecting all 32 cubes [[spoiler:and 32 anti-cubes]] is necessary for getting the Good Ending.
16	* TwoPointFiveD: The game blends 2D with 3D to create spatial puzzles.
17	* AcidPool: The green liquid in the sewer area. Unlike normal water in the game, it kills Gomez on contact.
18	* AlienGeometries: ''Fez'' is all about geometric bizarreness in relation to dimensions.
19	** The dimensional shifting along the 3D axis for the 2D main character also gives a rough idea of what it would be like for a 4D entity phasing around 3 dimensions.
20	** Dot being a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract tesseract]] [[note]]tesseract is to cube what cube is to square (i.e. a dimension higher)[[/note]] provides some inherent geometrical oddness, being a 4D companion in a 3D world to the 2D Gomez, and fittingly they're also the character that helps teach Gomez how to utilize his newfound powers to see into a higher dimension.
21	** That ''Twin Peaks''-inspired house with the red curtains inside. You walk into the house in one area, look around, and see there's nothing inside but the door you entered through--but when you leave, you emerge in a completely different area.
22	* BlockPuzzle: There are a few puzzles involving picking up and arranging blocks in a specific pattern, but the fact you can only work in two dimensions at a time while the puzzles use three, and picking the blocks up to realign the patterns with each shift is part of the puzzle, getting them aligned just right can be a pain.
23	* BookEnds: The game begins and ends with Gomez waking up in his room.
24	* BottomlessPit: A vast majority of the areas contain chasms that result in instant death, though thankfully DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist, so no matter how many times you fall you'll respawn right before the pit.
25	* CartoonBomb: Classic spherical fuse-lit skull-and-crossbones-painted bombs can be picked up and used to blow up cracked walls.
26	* CrateExpectations: There are crates meant to be picked up and thrown. On buttons for an example.
27	* CrypticBackgroundReference: Much of the backstory of the world is never outright stated, just implied by various artwork and architecture.
28	* CueOClock: Dot jokes that it's Cube O'Clock when you find a large four-handed clock.
29	%%* DarkWorld
30	* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: After falling/dying, Gomez will simply be transported right back to the last stable platform he was on.
31	* DirectionallySolidPlatforms: You can jump through the platforms from below. You can also drop down from them.
32	* DismantledMacGuffin: A large cube is broken into numerous smaller cubes and a lot of those cubes are broken into even smaller cube bits.
33	* TheDitz: Dot is hilariously useless and airheaded.
34	* DontExplainTheJoke: "Well, well, well, what do we have here? ...Get it? It's a well." Although, it does look more like [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros a Warp Pipe]], actually.
35	* EvolutionaryLevels: The village classroom contains a depiction of evolution from single-pixel organisms to people. [[spoiler: The equivalent of proto-humans had narrow, vertical heads, and their ruins (behind the four-cube door) seem to indicate that they were only aware of two dimensions. All the people seen and depicted outside of Village have heads of square proportions. It is implied that the people of Village, with their flat, horizontal heads, are mutants who lost awareness of the third dimension when they devolved.]]
36	* ExcusePlot: Something bad happened. Now go find cubes. Or something. There ''is'' a big block of unreadable alien text at the start of the game before the "something bad" happens, but if you translate it, [[spoiler:it doesn't reveal much more than "if something goes wrong, fix it."]]
37	* ExposedExtraterrestrials: The bizarre humanoid creatures that compose Gomez' species don't normally wear any form of clothing, at most getting SignatureHeadgear or females having TertiarySexualCharacteristics like hair and/or bows.
38	* ExpositionFairy: The ever-rotating rainbow-colored tesseract named Dot exposites what they can about the plot while floating around and following Gomez. Bonus point for their tesseract design bringing to mind a SparkFairy.
39	* {{Fictionary}}: Extensively used throughout the game, both for letters and numbers. Decoding both is key to solving several of the higher-end puzzles.
40	* FlatWhat: Dot has this reaction to [[spoiler:the 64-cube door]].
41	* FloatingPlatforms: Most of the areas are filled with inexplicably floating steps that let Gomez reach higher areas. There's also the occasional TemporaryPlatform, of both the crumbling and timed kind.
42	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In one area you can observe a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog. [[spoiler:Recognizing what this is is vital for decoding the game's alphabetic fictionary.]]
43	* GainaxEnding: Fez's endings can't be different than the premise allows it to have. [[spoiler:In the first one, the world seems to be destroyed, but then everything is fine. The second ending suggests Gomez's world is one out of very many in a universe also surrounded by countless others in the vastness of existence]].
44	* GameBreakingBug:
45	** Sadly enough, lots of players have been having their saves corrupted by patches whenever close to the completion of the game. The only option is to create an entirely new game, which then is invulnerable to the patch.
46	** Another game breaker relates to the throne room (now fixed), where solving the puzzle for one throne would make the other throne unsolvable. Now, solving either counts for both throne rooms.
47	* GhibliHills: The general idea of the game is a lush and vast "wilderness" of sprawling areas full of wildlife with not a single person besides a traveling Gomez within them, with only two {{Adventure Town}}s full of people in them, that being the FirstTown and the town just before TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon.
48	* GottaCatchEmAll: Not only do you need to collect various items to complete the game, the trope is outright invoked by Dot telling Gomez he needs to do so.
49	* GreenBoyColor: One area is rendered entirely in the classic Game Boy green. There's also a sister area to this location which is rendered in Platform/VirtualBoy red.
50	* GuideDangIt:
51	** Unless you're a rocket scientist working at NASA, your chances of finding everything in this game without a walkthrough are slim to none. One of the puzzles has a dozen obtuse hints scattered throughout the game as text, and one was so tough to even figure out that it was just brute-forced. A few theories as to how it was supposed to be solved have surfaced, but whatever it actually is, Fish isn't talking. The game also has ''two'' made up languages you'll have to decipher to solve some of the puzzles, and Dot is intentionally unhelpful to any of them.
52	** The creator at some point confirmed that not all of the puzzles had been solved. Some new behaviors were discovered after decompiling the PC version, there are a few puzzle hints that are not attached to any known puzzle, and nobody has any idea what the "{{crop circles}}" mean. Since then, all of them seem to have been solved, though.
53	* HatOfPower: The eponymous Fez, which allows Gomez's two-dimensional self to rise up into the third dimension and explore places he never thought were possible.
54	* HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory: Downplayed. One of the stone pillars reads, when translated, "Please send help. Trapped in a fez factory."
55	* HeroicMime: While every other living character talks when "spoken" to, player-character Gomez never utters a word on-screen.
56	* HeroOfAnotherStory: The Old Adventurer's dialogue implies that he has been on a quest similar to the one Gomez is undertaking during the game in his youth.
57	* {{Homage}}:
58	** Several of them, including ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' and ''VideoGame/CaveStory''.
59	** The two ending cutscenes are basically [[spoiler:the two halves of ''Film/PowersOfTen'']], reinterpreted for a blocky video game universe, with some bits of ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' thrown in to boot.
60	* InexplicableTreasureChests: For some reason, treasure chests can be found out in the open.
61	* IntentionalEngrishForFunny: Just about everyone but Dot talks a bit... off, grammatically. "Today is special day!"
62	* InterchangeableAntimatterKeys: A single-use key fits all the locks.
63	* InterfaceScrew: Alongside all the dimensional confusion, sometimes you'll deal with glitches that OneHitKill you on a touch, and maneuvering through the third dimension is needed to bypass them.
64	* ItemGet: The main character does a victory pose when acquiring a cube or other item.
65	* InUniverseGameClock: Most outdoor areas have a day-night cycle, with each lasting about five minutes. This is significant because clues to certain puzzles are only visible at night. There's also a literal clock tower in the game, which is involved in a particular WaitingPuzzle.
66	* InvisibleBlock:
67	** These are present in the ghost area and are revealed by lightning and water droplets hitting them.
68	** Some invisible blocks appear in zones where the sky is clear, and the player has to consult treasure maps to find them.
69	* JumpPhysics: Being able to move a different direction mid-jump is crucial to some puzzles, where after jumping, you need to shift the dimensional axis then move "sideways" or even "backwards" to land on certain platforms.
70	* KillScreen: An intentional one happens at the beginning of the game when the giant cube breaks apart, complete with a fake OS reboot, no less. [[spoiler:This also happens in both of the endings.]]
71	* LetterMotif: Gomez, his predecessor Geezer, the titular Fez, [[spoiler:and the cities Zu and Nu Zu,]] all have a Z in their names, in reference to the z-axis of the third dimension.
72	* LiftOfDoom: The second half of the Foundry room with the rising lava: you ride atop a platform floating on the lava, and have to dodge obstacles as you ascend.
73	* LightningReveal: Lightning reveals some things in some levels. For an example, platforms and ghosts.
74	* LockAndKeyPuzzle: There are many locked doors throughout the game that lead to new areas for puzzling, and finding the InterchangeableAntimatterKeys for unlocking them can be puzzles in themselves.
75	* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: Murals, portraits, pictures and even constellations in the sky provide lore on Fez's world and also clues and codes to various puzzles.
76	* {{Metroidvania}}: It's an adventure-platformer that involves a lot of {{Backtracking}}, though it utilizes figuring out the rules of the world as much as getting additional powers to advance.
77	* MindScrew: The game plays numerous tricks on the player, such as pretending to crash.
78	* MoodWhiplash: A big one during the bad ending. [[spoiler:The Hexahedron is unable to restore itself and the game crashes again, but once you control Gomez at the village, [[ItsAWonderfulFailure everything blurs and melts into nothingless.]] This is followed by a few minutes of ominous bizarre imagery, after which it cuts to Gomez drumming triumphantly at the top of the village as if nothing had happened]].
79	* {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}: Most, if not all, of the [[spoiler:anti-cubes and heart cubes]] are this, with the solutions ranging from {{Fridge Brilliance}} to absolute madness. In fact, some of the ways you are supposed to figure out certain puzzles are solved are so complicated, that [[GuideDangIt no one has figured out how to properly solve them.]]
80	* MultipleEndings: The ending depends on whether you go to the final point with half or more of the cubes or all of them.
81	* NewGamePlus:
82	** Finishing the game grants this, which comes with [[spoiler:all speech and non-puzzle signs in English and a first-person ability (that allows the player to see the world from Gomez's eyes).]]
83	** Finishing the game after collecting all the cubes ''and'' all the anti-cubes gives another layer of this. [[spoiler:Gomez receives a pair of 3D glasses, and unlocks the option to view the entire game in stereoscopic 3D.]]
84	* NoAntagonist: There is no big villain trying to hinder you. The conflict comes from the hexahedron spontaneously exploding and you needing to collect cubes for fixing it to restabilize reality.
85	* NoFourthWall: Quite a few references are made to this being a game and the dimensional axis in relation to platforming, especially the PerspectiveMagic granted by the fez.
86	* OminousCube:
87	** A giant, floating, ambiguously sentient, yellow cube that speaks in a StarfishLanguage grants the player character, Gomez, a fez which lets him perceive the third dimension. Something causes this cube to shatter into multiple, smaller cubes,[[note]]and some of ''those'' cubes shatter into ''even smaller'' cubes[[/note]] which causes reality to start falling apart. The game centers around reassembling it.
88	** Gomez is also accompanied by a sentient Tesseract named Dot, who acts the game's ExpositionFairy.
89	* OminousOwl: Sinister owl statues can be found turning their heads to stare at you at various points and four mysterious owl characters who appear at night must be talked to. Inhabitants are not fond of them. [[spoiler:Late in the game, Gomez finds things that indicate that no, they're definitely not what they seem.]] [[spoiler:It's suggested the owls are worshiped by the Zu people for their natural ability to perceive the third dimension by rotating their heads]].
90	* OneHitPointWonder: While there are no enemies in the game, Gomez cannot withstand long falls and other hazards.
91	* Over100PercentCompletion: 209.4% is the maximum percentage, which is gotten by being extra thorough in area searching and collecting extra things besides the regular cubes like [[spoiler:artifacts and heart-shaped cubes]]. Abusing some glitches can actually get you a higher percentage, but 209.4% is ([[GuideDangIt as of current research for the game]]) the "official" max percentage.
92	* PaintingTheMedium: [[spoiler:Tuning forks cause the player's controller to vibrate if Gomez stands near them,]] providing a clue towards that room's secret. If you don't ''have'' that particular ability, there's a backup method also relevant to what it does.
93	* PerspectiveMagic: The power granted by the Fez involves utilizing 2D perspective to your advantage when traversing a 3D world. If two distant objects look close together from one angle, you can hop between them no matter the physical distance, and if a ledge isn't visible at another angle, it currently doesn't exist and trying to move inside will make you rebound out of what is at the moment a solid wall.
94	* PortalNetwork: Five of the zones, each of which being located a good distance away from each-other map-wise, have a four-sided portal cube located in a central area for quick and easy travel between previously explored areas, which really helps with all the {{Backtracking}}.
95	* {{Retraux}}: An unrotated screen looks like something that would have been possible to create in the SNES era.
96	* RiseToTheChallenge: One of the Foundry rooms features rising lava. The first half of the room involves tricky vertical platforming to escape.
97	* SceneryPorn: The game features elaborately designed cubical scenery filled with wild-life, fauna, and architecture, with each Zone providing a specific theme depicting equally impressive aesthetics, ranging from GhibliHills to EternalEngine.
98	* ShoutOut: There are numerous references to other games, such as ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' pieces and the guide character busting out a "[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hey! Listen!]]"
99	** Upon starting NewGamePlus, players who receive the fez [[spoiler:a second time are treated to sunglasses descending onto Gomez's face in a manner identical to the "Deal With It" meme.]]
100	** The library from ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' makes an appearance.
101	** A well in one area looks suspiciously like a [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros warp pipe]], which leads to a sewer area with a Platform/GameBoy color palette and style--and a nearby foundry rendered in Platform/VirtualBoy red palette.
102	** A poster in Gomez's house appears to be the title screen from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' with the text removed.
103	** As well, the weird owls and various characters' wariness of them, along with a room with walls covered in red curtains could be a ShoutOut to ''Series/TwinPeaks''.
104	** A few references to ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'': The first ending cutscene has visuals reminiscent of the film's trippy Stargate sequence. And one of the [[spoiler:red heart cube]] puzzles involves a black monolith.
105	** One area has a door that's only visible at night while it's closed. And it needs a password to open. And it leads to a mine. Clearly someone is a ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' fan.
106	** At one point Dot says "I can feel it! I can feel the cosmos!", a direct quote from ''VideoGame/KatamariDamacy''.
107	* SugarBowl: Despite the present "[[ExcusePlot conflict]]" of reality being in danger, there are no directly threatening enemies or outright dramatic themes in this world, with everything being done through solving puzzles and collecting items, and the various locations provide plenty of breath-taking SceneryPorn for you to just hang around and enjoy looking at.
108	* SurrealHumor: With the IntentionalEngrishForFunny of most characters and the nonsensical area designs, the game provides quite a bit of humor through how crazy and confusing everything is.
109	* SuspiciouslyCrackedWall: If the wall is cracked and there's a bomb in an area, chances are you're gonna use the bomb on cracked wall.
110	* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: The female creatures are distinguishable by long hair and/or by bows in their hair... even if not all of them actually have hair.
111	* TitleDrop: Extra points are awarded to the developers for literally dropping the Fez from the sky.
112	* UnrealisticBlackHole: Gomez's rotating of the world eventually causes glitchy, cubical black holes to spawn in regions of the world, providing extra obstacles to navigate around.
113	* VideoGameFlight: The code [[spoiler: Up, Up, Up, Up, Jump]] allows Gomez to fly in the post-game.
114	* WaitingPuzzle: You thought ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'''s was bad? This game has the infamous clock puzzle. [[spoiler:At the top of a certain room there's a cubic clock with four hands, and when they reach the top, an anti-cube (one for each hand) appears; the fastest hand cycles once every minute, the others cycle respectively: every hour, [[SerialEscalation every day]] and... every week!]] If you're playing on Xbox 360, that means either waiting, or restarting the game after changing the time and date while offline. Sounds tedious yet? At least in the PC version, if you alt-tab and change the system clock, the in-game clock hands will react immediately when you resume the game...
115	* WarpZone: While the game itself has a PortalNetwork for quick travel (though activating all portals gives you an achievement ''named'' "Warp Zone"), the idea of a secret area teleporting you somewhere new is referenced with what is essentially a hidden [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Warp Pipe]] that takes you to the sewers zone.
116	* WhenThingsSpinScienceHappens: The [[spoiler: Star Gate]] is made of concentric rings that whirl around as it activates. It's an obvious ShoutOut to the machine from ''Film/{{Contact}}''.
117	* WrapAround: Some areas loop when going too much up or down.

Context Videogame / Fez