Fish walk through some of the features we've seen before (2D game rotating through 3D space). However, game site Kombo reports that Fish did touch briefly on the plot line for the fez character hero named Gomez.

"So what you do in Fez is you collect cubes. There's a really important cube that explodes and you have to find all the pieces of it. Kind of like a triforce," Fish told the audience. "I don't want to spoil the story too much, it gets kind of metaphysical."

Not only metaphysical, but hard. According to Fish, the game had to be simplified somewhat so playtesters could even play through the game. They thought it was too hard. "I like to fuck with your mind," said Fish. Okay, then!

News: Austin GDC: Polytron's Phil Fish Shows Off Fez [Kombo]

There's an interesting interview with the game's shaggy developers, Polytron, along with a few minute's worth of in-game footage. The clip below is the full episode; you'll want to skip to around 6:15 in to get to the Fez stuff.

New Fez Footage at G4TV [IndieGames]

Fez, which follows the platform hopping adventures of Gomez, "a 2D man on a voyage of discovery into the mysterious 3rd dimension" officially, has been platform TBA for what seems like forever. In reality, it hasn't been in development forever, just highly coveted since winning its "Excellence in Visual Art" award at the Independent Games Festival last year.

Have no idea what the hell we're talking about? Watch Fez's teaser trailer and join us in eagerly anticipating the game's XBLA arrival next year.

FEZ IS COMING TO XBOX LIVE ARCADE EARLY 2010 [Polytron]

"By buying our high-quality t-shirts, silk screened on high-quality American Apparel stock, you not only help support the development of Fez, but you also get to clothe your naked body, protecting yourself from the elements, sunburns and humiliation," blogs Fez designer Phil Fish. "Not only that, but you will instantly gain entry into thousands of restaurants that would otherwise not let you in because of your shirtlessness." More goodies in the developer's Polyshop below.

Polyshop [Official Site]

He was toiling away in a Montreal game studio Artificial Mind and Movement, one of many working on some movie-based game. The game he'd been working on it in his own time was up for two awards at the Independent Games Festival at GDC. That game was Fez.

The game stars 2D fez-hat-wearing Gomez on an adventure on a 3D platform world. The pixelated title looks like something you could have played as a kid, but didn't — you poor bastard. Blame the M.C. Escher-esque level design and a 2D-3D platform perspective shift.

"I'm pretty sure Fez could have been made on a SNES without the 3D graphics," says Fish. "The world rotation thing could have totally been faked by having 4 parallel 2D levels that you 'rotate'. The gameplay here really doesn't depend on the modern tech." What it does depend on is some fancy programming from lead programmer Renaud Bédard.

It's an ambitious game, and an easy one to possibly screw up, Fish points out. "We've spent a lot of time working on tools, and figuring out tons of little technical and gameplay details." All this had to be worked out before making the game, and the tech that powered the game needed to be built from scratch. "Making a 2d/3d game is hard," says Fish. "I have to design and draw everything 4 times, basically."

The son of art school dropouts, Fish had art in this blood. That, and gaming. When he was four, his parents got a Nintendo Entertainment System.

"I remember playing Zelda for a good 3 years straight," says Fish. "At that point it was already clear that its what i wanted to do for a living." (No, not play Zelda.)

His parents encouraged his interest in gaming with his father translating The Legend of Zelda into French so the Quebec born and bred Fish could follow the game, while his mom got "scary good" at Tetris.

"Did you know Tetris ends at some point?," Fish asks. "I saw my mom beat Tetris once. There's a shot of the kremlin or whatever and little penguins parading in front of it."

It's upon the backs of these games, or rather, the memories of these games, that Fez owes its existence to. Fish calls the game "a love letter to an alternate past childhood." With Super Paper Mario comparisons abound, the main 2D-3D stage shifting concept was gestated long before the Nintendo released its platform — a game that Fish isn't impressed with.

Before Fez, Fish was doing art for project with an indie from Toronto named Shawn McGrath. Things fell apart, there was a disagreement and they both went their separate ways. "So the basic 2d/3d idea was Shawn's," Fish concedes. "But the look and feel of the game, that's all Miyamoto and Miyazaki."

The game wasn't finished, but a buzz was building. The game's trailer appeared in October 2007, which was the first time that producer Jason DeGroot saw more than shaky cell phone cam footage of the game.

"Right then I knew that I had to be more involved in things," he says. DeGroot, a fellow Canadian, was living in Japan at the time and had only known Fish since meeting him at an E3 party the year before. DeGroot, who's been making tracks GameBoy Camera after it came out in1998, is also responsible for Fez's hypnotic score.

Those IGF nominations didn't hurt. "I pleaded with my boss to let me go to GDC — not even send me there, like they were doing for so many other employees, but just let me go," Fish recalls. "They wouldn't give me clearance to leave." IGF Fez awards or not, Phil Fish, you are not going anywhere. "So I had to quit right there and then," he says. "That's when I became indie. It felt good."

The next month, Fez picked up up the Excellence In Visual Art award. That felt better. Ditto for the praise colleagues gave the title. "Fez twisted my brain a little when I played it," says World of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel, "and that's one of my favorite feelings in games."

A month before GDC 2008, the relatively unknown Montreal-raised Phil Fish, who had been kicking around the Canadian indie scene since the middle of the decade as Philippe Poisson, was suddenly on everyone's radar, giving speeches, talking to press. Mr. Big Shot. Every major publisher was trying to get a piece of him, and with Fez hype train leaving the station, Fish felt like he was doing something right. Next thing he knew, he had a government loan, a new start-up called Polytron Corporation and a full-time job working on Fez. Still indie, but no longer unemployed.

Not bad for someone fired from Ubisoft, who still calls his experience at the publisher "the worst experience of my life." It was his first gig in games, and initially he was jazzed.

"The way these people make games, it's so horrible," he says. "Hundred of people on your team, you don't know any of their names. It's so big and impersonal." Some people find ways to persevere, to grow in that environment, Fish adds — like weeds pushing up through cracks in concrete.

"In my case it made me want to give up games altogether," he continues. "It was an extremely dark period of my life. Years and years thinking this was my dream only to realize it's a sweatshop."

Gaming was changing, the way games were being made was changing and with the rise of the video game blogs, the way gaming was covered was changing, too. Everything was in flux. Indie developers were saying "Screw the corporate ladder" and going off and making their own games — devs like Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler. Young developers, like Everyday Shooter's Jonathan Mak, weren't even climbing that ladder.

Even with Fez slated for mainstream consumption, Fish and his three person strong (DeGroot, Bédard and, well, Fish.) Polytron Corporation still wear their indie badge on their sleeves for as long as they can. No corporate office suits here — Polytron Corporations sits in a big open room in a small converted studio apartment. "Incidentally, we're located right across the street from Ubisoft," says Fish. "Or is it Ubisoft thats right across the street from Polytron?" All depends on how you look at it.

GDC '09: Fez Trailer II [TIGSource]

It's not the "something wonderful is about to happy!" message that has people talking, it's the tiny green A button stuck in the bottom right corner of the speech box.

Could it mean that the game is soon to appear on the Xbox 360's arcade? With the Game Developers Conference right around the corner, I imagine we won't have long to find out.

SOMETHING AWESOME THIS WAY COMES [Polytron, via infinite lives]

The game's developer Polytron has just launched its website with some FEZ screens and some very terse info about the game. That info is:

Release: 2009

Platform: TBA

In development: Yes

So, let's review — there's a lot to review, we know. The game is in development and will be out this year. But on what platform? Smart money says that'll be announced at GDC.

FEZ [polytron Thanks Antoine!]

Right now I'm collaborating with Alec Holowka on a little iPhone game that will probably come out way before Fez. It's a bit early to commit to anything yet, but Alec and I are making this cool little game that's all about multi-touch. You play as a little dose of medicine inside people's bodies, and you have to cure them.

Alrighty, then!

Interview: Phil Fish (Fez) [Indie Games via Game|Life ] [Pic]

"This year was kind of a perfect storm for the IGF," says Wired Magazine editor Chris Baker. "For one thing, we're well-ensconced in the current generation of game consoles, so there were no big surprises."

Independent games, however, are a breath of fresh air. And with digital distribution coming into its own, something that just continues to grow.

"I think this year further reinforced that indie game creators are getting better and better at conceptualizing ideas that likely aren't 'mainstream' enough to thrive in a $60 AAA Xbox 360 game," says IGF judge and Gamasutra editor Simon Carless, "and making them into totally fun, extremely playable titles."

Year after year, indie games are looking more and more polished. Slick, even.

"Tools are only getting easier to use, and digital distribution is increasing in scope and popularity every day," points out Andrew Maneri, character designer and AI developer for Synaesthete. "These were the two big barriers to entry for many developers."

But what about the winners of this year's IGF? Did anyone get any deals? Advance their career? We chatted up some of the winners, and got a glimpse of why deals don't really matter and how IGF changed their lives. Or didn't.

Oh, and we totally forgot to ask about indie gaming groupies. Sorry.

• Crayon Physics Deluxe Seumas McNally Grand Prize
When asked what memories of IGF stick out, Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho replied, "English isn't my first language so I had to google out what "stick out" means. And this is the only definition I found: stick out with my dick out." Purho, a student at Helsinki Polytechnic in Finland, continues, "It might be early Alzheimer symptoms, but I don't remember anything like that happening during the IGF. Or then my mind just wants to shut it down. Or then I was just too drunk to remember my penis hanging out while trying to be important during the IGF. The last sounds like the most probable scenario."

Since he was eight, Purho has been making his own QBasic games. He started up his kloonigames blog in late 2006 to focus more game design. "Idea was (and still is)," he says, "that I'd do one prototype of a game every month to learn and experiment with game design." Leading up to this year's IGF, Purho says getting his Crayon Physics Deluxe ready was a crunch. "I had to grind my way through the dungeon of C++ and fight level 5 bugs there," he recalls. "The end boss, called Change-physics-engines-one-week-before-the-IGF-deadline was particularly nasty. Especially with the lacking a proper save game system and the time limit." Lessons learned? "To spend a little bit more time working on the game, before the last week of the deadline."

While Purho only submitted Crayon Physics Deluxe to get a free GDC pass, his delightful virtual crayon physics title charmed the IGF judges, winning the grand prize. "There have been some emails and contacts from various publishers," he says. But he hasn't gotten any deals out of his IGF win. In the mean time, while the rest of us wait patiently for the long overdue DS version of Crayon Physics, Purho's keeping busy churning out games for his blog and with other things. "I'm planning on growing enough hair to beat John Romero in the hair length contest."

Good luck, Petri. That Romero was a Rapunzel.

• Synaesthete Best Student Game
Is game school the new film school?

"I wouldn't say it's the new film school," says Will Towns, Synaesthete technical director. "Maybe it's film school's illegitimate sibling. The film industry and the gaming industry share a lot of the same aspects: both contain a corporate piece and an independent piece, both fostering the same advantages and disadvantages."

What are these corporate disadvantages you speak of?

"I don't want to work on the next 20 million dollar EA genre game," says Synaesthete's designer Joseph Tkach. "Someday, I would like to have my own dev studio, where I and my team can have complete creative freedom."

Meet the new generation. Armed with gaming degrees and a fierce sense of independence. Knowing that it's possible for small teams to deliver satisfying game experiences, these guys aren't happy to be "fortunate" enough to crunch code on some bland $20 million sequel. No way.

Tkach and Town, along with Zach Aikman and Andy Maneri, are the team behind Rez inspired, music driven arcade-style shooter Synaesthete. Since the team snagged Best Student Game at IGF, it's safe to assume that they are, well, students. All four study at DigiPen Institute of Technology, where they were pulling late night after late night, preparing their game for IGF. After their win, the team says they've been in talks.

"There's exciting news on the horizon," says Zach Aikman.

Game deals or not, the Synaesthete guys are sitting pretty for college kids.

"Getting recognized by such a large industry is the best thing that can happen to us, being soon-to-be graduates," says Towns. "Anything else is just icing on the cake."

Like paying off those student loans, for instance.

• Fez Excellence In Visual Art
When Montreal-based Fez designer and artist Phil Fish took the stage at IGF to accept the Excellence in Visual Art award, he wore, well, a fez. The 2D-meets-3D game stars a fez-wearing character named Gomez. Fish had been kicking around the idea for Fez for ages. He wanted to make an inviting game, built on childhood gaming cliches, but turning them on their ear.

"Having no time or money," says producer and the game's soundtrack composer Jason De Groot. "It was made in our free time." What did they learn from that? "That we'd like to have more time and money."

De Groot first came on board last year. The Japan-based De Groot was in Kyoto on business and on his laptop watched the Fez clip Fish had put together of the prototype.

"It was a "Woah...." kind of moment," recalls De Groot. "Until then, I had only seen concept art and a couple questionable cell phone videos. Right then I knew that I had to be more involved in things."

Post IGF, Fez garnered considerable interest. Not just for an indie title, but for a game — a still very much in development game.

"No moneyhats yet," says De Groot. "But we've been getting a lot of interest."

We're sure of that.

• Iron Dukes Best Web Browser Game
"The IGF seemed very professional this year, both in terms of the competition and production of the festival," says Iron Dukes programmer Darren Koepp. "I was expecting a kiosk next to the sandwich tables."

He and the game's writer and designer Tynan Wales submitted the game to give themselves a deadline. You know, just to finish the damn thing.

Iron Dukes is about 19th century fictionalized treasure hunting made by two guys who ran out of money.

"I ran out of money," says Koepp. "Yes," confirms Wales,"we had money trouble."

Both Koepp and Wales, industry vets, haven't seen big profits from their win yet, but are in talks.

"The Sundance comparison was bandied about a fair amount this year," says Wales. "There was an air of indie camaraderie, but I'm not sure if the IGF is as much of a golden ticket as Sundance is now. I saw no one leaving with bags of money."

Still, the pure acting of winning is in itself satisfying.

Recalls Koepp: "During the IGF, the awards night was really a surprise. I remember one of the volunteers ushering me down to the "VIP" area. He called me sir. That was hilarious. Winning was nice too. I couldn't feel my knees."

Winning is always nice.

• World of Goo Design Innovation, Technical Excellence
Two former Electronic Arts employees make good.

"The first commercial game I worked on was an urban Sims game at EA, and we learned that putting 3D versions of the Black Eyed Peas into a game might not necessarily increase the funk," says World of Goo creator Kyle Gabler. "On the other hand, it has recently been discovered that putting dinosaurs into a game will increase the funk every time."

Blobs of goo work well, too. Gabler and co-designer Ron Carmel created gooey gaming goodness with World of Goo. The puzzle game has players overcome gravity and build goo ball structures that reach the in-game exit. A simple, yet brilliant mechanic.

"World of Goo is one big physics lab, so things move and interact exactly like you would expect," says Gabler. "It's fun just to fling things around."

"We spent most of September in a tizzy, working from the minute we woke up until the minute we fell asleep in order to meet the IGF submission deadline," recalls Carmel. "We didn't touch a computer for two weeks after the submission date."

Crunch time paid off in spades. The game charmed the IGF judges, and World of Goo won not one, but two awards: Design Innovation and Technical Excellence. Two awards? They're on easy street! For like, forever!!

Uh, no.

"I was a little surprised that actually winning an award didn't help us much on the business end of things," says Carmel. "But overall, the IGF really helped us get the word out. In my opinion there's nothing else out there that is doing as much good for the indie game scene as the IGF."

True, true. So instead of waiting for some plum deal, Gabler and Carmel are selling the game through digital distribution on their 2D Boy site.

"I think people are realizing that a game doesn't need to be complex or contain two zillion polys or 193 hours of gameplay in order to be worthwhile, it just needs to be fun," says Carmel. "This allows micro-studios like ours to actually make a living doing this... If I thought we'd need to find a publisher for World of Goo in order to get it out into the world I might not have left my job to work on it."

Gabler and Carmel are developing a Wii version of World of Goo on a profit sharing basis.

"If a team of three people make a game that brings in a million dollars in profits, they should each see a third of that amount, not get a $5k bonus and a round of applause."

Spoken like a true industry vet.

YaYaLuvsCupcakes [Etsy, via A Little Bit of Awesome]