Fez+(Terry)

Fez is a 2-D game that is essentially an Easter egg hunt through several interconnected worlds. The biggest game is a 3-D twist on the 2-D world where you can toggle between four different views, each turning the world 90 degrees. It is still a flat world but it moves the camera from N, S, E, and W. Where the character ends up in the new flat view depends on where he is in the previous view. This manipulation is part of the game, different paths or objects are only available in particular views.

Fez is a puzzle game. One puzzle aspect includes how to manipulate the different view to find a path where you need to go or to find objects. There might be a path up or down on the North view but not the other views, etc.

Another aspect of the puzzle is finding the hidden cubes as well as keys and other objects that help you get to the cubes that you are collecting. In the different worlds there are different challenges to get to the cubes, sometimes navigation (jump, climb, swim) and sometimes logical (use a bomb to blow out a wall to game access to an area).

As far as games go, I found this one to be pretty easy at the beginning. The frustration level is pretty low because there are unlimited lives and you only lose the last move when you are regenerated. Still, I was learning perseverance as I tried a move many times before getting it right. There is conversation in the game that occasionally gives you clues for where you are going and how to overcome different challenges. This information is not saved anywhere so there was some memory work going on for me, although if I was more organized and taking notes, this lesson would be an organizational lesson instead. I learned the mechanics of the game, how to move, jump, climb, rotate the scene, etc. I learned how to use the maps and other tools, like the inventory. I experimented with different search schemes and strategies while I was looking for cubes, depth first - where I exhausted an area before moving on, or breadth first - where I went through an area and gathered the all the easy finds, only looking for the difficult cubes when the easy ones were exhausted. There are advantages and disadvantages to each strategy.

The teaching principles were mostly based on practice. I am pretty novice when it comes to controlling a character. It's always tempting just to ask someone else in my household for help when I get stuck rather than practice and learn myself. But this game was pretty good for novices like me, it raised the bar as I progressed but I was able to practice and keep up. A more experiences gamer might find it too easy with not much learning taking place. This teaching reflects the Practice, Ongoing Learning, and Regime of Competence principles. I also found myself trying things, failing or succeeding, rethinking and trying again. This reflects the Probing principle.

There are several forums where players give hints for the locations of the cubes. I can see that near the end its going to be real hard to find the last few that have been missed along the way. I found in the forums that there are apparently cheat codes that many players break down and use to get access to areas that they haven't unlocked. There are forums on Steam, which is how I played Fez. Fez is an indie game with a developer that people seem to love to hate. Lots of chatter about that.

Overall this is a fun little game. The graphics are very cute, in a pixel art style. The game mechanic of switching the views of the flat world is clever, fun, and rewarding. It's pretty simple, there is no characterization and although you can choose the order that you pick your path, I believe everyone will have to visit all the same places by basically the same means. I'm told it will get more challenging as I continue, It'll be interesting to see if stays just ahead of me to push me or if it takes a leap somewhere along the way where it will lose me like many games do. So far, so good.