The first moments of Fez seem like a child's sketch. Skies are the deepest Crayola blue, the greens are unnatural, almost fluorescent. The game, from the start, tells us it's going for a mindset away from the greys and browns that populate big budget games. Fez does not fetishize faux-realism, instead choosing to live in a world of primary colours.

In Fez you play as Gomez, tasked with finding pieces of an artifact scattered around the world. Up until that point the game is nothing if not conventional: jump on platforms, move left and right in a 2D world with pixel art that brings to mind an earlier era of gaming. Another in the long line of indie games made in the image of Mario. 


Then we are given the ability to rotate the world. Can't reach higher ground? A press of the trigger changes the view by 90 degrees and perhaps a new ledge will reveal itself. Treasure and cubes hide themselves in plain sight, if you're looking from the right perspective. The game filters a 3D world a thin slice at a time, a simple metaphor: the world is more than just what you see.


Fez's lead designer, French-Canadian Phil Fish, is a Nintendo brat whose brain has been indelibly etched with the explosions of colour effortless design of Shigeru Miyamoto. It is Miyamoto's Legend of Zelda, and its emphasis on careful exploration, that informs Fez. Many cubes can be retrieved just from walking though Fez's intricate constructions; the gorgeous pixel art cemeteries floating in the sky, the strange underground world made of pipes and valves. The environments are pleasures in and of themselves. There are no enemies to distract, and large falls are only a minor setback that reset you back to your last position. You are a tourist, free from pressures of time and circumstance. 


Dig deeper and the world opens up further. There are hidden platforms, treasure maps, cubes that only appear at certain times, patterns to discover and exploit. For the hardcore set, there is an entire language to be deciphered. These aren't all necessary, and a player only needs to devote as much attention as she sees fit. 


It's hard not to get cynical after a while. I started to play, not to explore and be wowed, but to find more cubes. The game starts with the thesis that wonder is just around every corner if we look hard enough, but then asks us to dissect that wonder. Everything has a hidden meaning, everything is a secret that can be understood, everything is a piece in a larger puzzle. The game stopped being about finding wonder, and, instead, about examining what everything means in its vast cosmology. Fez, if one delves too deep, stops becoming about awe and more about undermining that awe, controlling it, subjecting it and, sadly, solving it.


Polytron have been working on the game for five years and it shows. Care has been poured into it, the sort that makes the work look effortless. Its bright colours hide a sophisticated design, one that rewards the patient player somehow able to avoid the easy answers of the internet. Make no mistake, this game was worth the wait, but it fails to transcend its form. Fez starts with child-like awe and then subverts that with the adult habit of cold logic: that one can, with enough attention and effort, solve everything and stare directly into the face of God.

Designer: Phil Fish
Publisher: Polytron
Platform: Xbox 360 (Arcade)
Rating: 4/5