Fez making its way to other platforms

Fez, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed indie games of 2012, will finally be making its way to other platforms. The announcement was made recently by developer Phil Fish on the Polytron blog. The game was originally exclusive to the Xbox 360, and was part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade promotion for 2012. Gamers on the PC and the PS3 can finally get their hands on the game and see what the big deal was about.

Fez is a puzzle platformer that was in development for five years. You control a small white creature named Gomez, who lives happily in a floating 2D village. He comes across a magical fez hat which reveals that the world is actually three dimensional. The main gameplay mechanic is the ability to perceive the 3D world and shift dimensions, but you're able to move across only 2D plans. Gomez has to collect several pieces of a giant magical cube with this newfound ability as the cubes are causing the fabric of reality to tear apart.

Fez is finally coming to other platforms!

The main goal of Fez is to collect the 32 cubes to rebuild the Hexahedron and restore Gomez's world before it is torn apart. Cube and cube fragments are visible and are collected by simply going near them. Players can also collect 32 anti-cubes by solving puzzles, many of which require some knowledge of cryptology and analysis. As cubes and anti-cubes are collected, doors are unlocked and allow the player to access new areas.

Players can shift the perspective of the game at any time and rotate the world by 90 degrees. This reveals new doors and passageways and causes platforms to re-align on the screen.

Fez was first announced in July 2007, and an early version of the game was shown off during the 2008 Independent Games Festival. Even then, the game received praise. The development faced problems, though, as the company, Polytron, lost its funding and encountered legal problems. This was mainly due to Fish's business partner leaving the company and threatening legal action.

The game also faced some problems during development. Polytron released a patch for the game two months after the release that originally aimed at fixing some bugs. While the patch had been certified by Microsoft's testing process, players discovered it corrupted their save files and forced them to start over. Polytron later warned players against installing the patch if they hadn't done so, and Microsoft later pulled the patch from its service.

Most of the hardships faced by the developers during the five-year development cycle of the game was showcased in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which was recently available as part of the Humble Indie Bundle 7.