Fez
I stumbled into the wonderful world of Fez last night. I sat up until 5 AM trying to peel away at the layers. I still don't really know what the hell is going on.
The basic game mechanic is easy, but I accidentally found out that there's a lot more to this game than first meets the eye.
I was originally helping Christian with his game, trying to help out with solving puzzles - when he found an item, and we couldn't for the life of us figure out how to use it, or if it could be used at all. I tried to look it up in a spoiler-free guide, but was baffled when I noticed that I simply didn't understand anything the guide was saying. Tetriminos? Alphabet? Numerals? How could we have overlooked so much?
So I started my own game, mostly to watch the opening video, but then curiosity got the better of me, and we looked up one of the secrets that are supposed to be in the first area, just to get an idea of what these secret puzzles are like ... and I thought I saw a pattern in it. I'd forgotten puzzle games could feel like this. I busted out pen and paper and did my best to decipher what was going on.
I realise I had a huge advantage because the spoiler-free guide mentioned the word "Tetriminos", and after a bit of try and error, I figured out what that meant. And after a couple of more hours of play today, I finally reached the area that "explains" them. How you're supposed to be able to get there without knowing how to solve secrets is another story...
[Cubes all the way down]
I'm a little over halfway finished with the game, and some (... come to think of it, most) of the puzzles have been unlike anything I've seen in any other game. There's been unique use of time mechanics, rumble function, light, shadow, sound, and interactive elements - which shall remain unspoiled.
And to think I thought this would be a simple platform game.
I'm still completely in the dark regarding most of the ciphers. I might have figured out the numeral for 1. But that's pretty much it. I confess I ended up looking up the solution for the Bell Tower area puzzle, because it was driving me insane. I still haven't figured out how you're supposed to figure out how to solve it. Working on it.
The most amazing thing about Fez is that it's possible to play and enjoy this while completely oblivious that there are lots of things going on in the background for you to solve and obsess over. You'd be annoyed that so many areas on the map was marked as "incomplete", and you'd never get 100% completion, but... you know. Completely playable without busting out pen and paper. Or so I imagine. Wouldn't be the same experience, though.
Anyone else ventured down this rabbit hole? I'd love to hear about your experiences (keep spoilers under spoiler tags, please - those work in comments too!). And if you haven't heard of Fez, or haven't gotten a hold of it yet - I warmly recommend you go do so.
Here's the launch trailer!
FEZ LAUNCH TRAILER from POLYTRON on Vimeo.