After 4 years in development, Polytron Corporation’s long-awaited, perspective-shifting platformer FEZ will finally be seeing the light of day sometime this year. And I was able to take the most current build for a test drive on the show floor.
FEZ opens on the colorful, sprite-based island serving as both introductory stage and home to the character I’d be controlling: a large-headed man named Gomez. Following a brief cutscene, I was tasked with completing some fairly simple platforming in order to ascend the island and meet an eyepatched man. A man who informed me that it was now “Gomez time!”, which as it turns out, is the signal for a golden, floating cube to descend from the top of the screen and grant Gomez an object: the titular Fez.
It was at this point in the demo that something very strange happened (though not quite as strange as a sentient, floating cube, perhaps): the game appeared to reboot and start as before, only, this time, Gomez awoke wearing his new accoutrement. From here on out, a press of either the left or right trigger caused the camera to focus on a different side of the formerly two dimensional landscape, revealing platforms and items once hidden out of view. What I had originally thought to be a box next to me was now a bridge connecting this island to the next; the small, floating islands surrounding the main island were now a series of platforms leading up to the previously unreachable grassy area several feet above. Of course, not all changes in perspective resulted in such drastic geometrical shifts. Some merely revealed a patch of vines I could use to climb up the side of a cliff face or a doorway I’d use to reach the next area.
It was then that the multicolored DOT, a guide of sorts, informed me of my next objective: find small golden cubes scattered around the stage (most of which were stashed in alcoves hidden by the shiftable geometry). Finding all of the hidden cubes formed a larger, golden cube (1 of 32, in fact) and allowed access to the first of many doors blocking off future areas of play. Much to my disappointment, however, the end of the demo was waiting on the other side. A problem I look forward to fixing when the full version of FEZ releases on XBLA sometime later this year.
*All images courtesy of Polytron Corporation.
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