Rumor: Fez dev site hints at possible XBLA release

by Ben Gilbert { Mar 4th 2009 at 8:45PM }

It's been quite some time since we've had any sort of substantial news on the Fez front, but if a screen and (somewhat vague) hint on developer Polytron's website is to be trusted, it looks like we should hear "something wonderful" in the near future.

Posting just the image you see above and the headline, "SOMETHING AWESOME THIS WAY COMES," the 2008 Independent Games Festival winner (in "Excellence in Visual Art") clearly intends (at the very least) rampant speculation over the inclusion of a tiny green "A" -- like a certain console's controller button you may know -- in the lower right of the massive, hilariously mistranslated, text box. We've put in word to both Polytron and Microsoft for word on this and will let you know if and when we hear something back.

[Via Geekadelphia]

Tags: fez, geekadelphia, independent-games-festival, indie-games, microsoft, polytron, rumor, xbla

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Patrick @ Mar 4th 2009 8:55PM

I've been waiting for news on this for a long time. This is a day one purchase for sure.

DBuck_Eye @ Mar 4th 2009 9:42PM

So this will be the Gamecube's last hurrah, eh? I thought everyone stopped developing for the Cube years ago...

Levi (God Hand Defense Force) @ Mar 5th 2009 3:17AM

At first I thought you were making a joke about GC's graphics, but after a minute I realized that you were making a joke about the "I Win!" button.

Uncontrol @ Mar 5th 2009 3:54AM

he was making a joke about the green A button

Levi (God Hand Defense Force) @ Mar 5th 2009 11:49AM

I know that. During the life of the GC, I lovingly called the A button the "I win" button.

EdgeOne @ Mar 4th 2009 9:46PM

nice 2010:TYWMC reference!

obo @ Mar 4th 2009 9:56PM

It was never a secret that Fez is built with Microsoft's XNA. XNA's gamepad support maps directly to the 360 controller.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16698

What sort of development tools are used to work on Fez?

RB: Microsoft Visual C# Express with XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh for all the coding. The level editor is home-made, using XNA as well. I ended up making a tool to compile volume maps (which are used for the sprite animations) and cubemaps (the trile textures) more easily too. There are no models in the game, all the geometry is generated by the engine, so the content tools were mostly Photoshop and the custom tools I developed.

http://www.destructoid.com/gdc-08-hands-on-with-fez-71624.phtml

Feb. 21, 2008

I played Fez using an Xbox 360 controller (although the game was originally created for the PC), leading me to believe that it will be an XNA game and therefore available on Xbox Live Arcade. When asked about this, the creators of the game (who I think are my new best friends) said XBLA seems like a strong possibility. Yup, my head pretty much exploded when I heard this amazing news.

obo @ Mar 4th 2009 10:04PM

And if you're hung up on the style of the A button, or think it was posted to implicitly confirm an XBLA release, where were you guys at GDC 08?

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/17594

It's on every text window that pops up.

psxman @ Mar 4th 2009 11:42PM

Is... is that engrish?

obo @ Mar 4th 2009 11:31PM

Ben, thanks for e-mailing me, but... why? I'm not raising huge hell here, just wondering why it's a rumor now, and not in Feb. 2008, when the devs were saying they were going for an XBLA release.

Polytron posted this picture on Feb. 15, and most the other games blogs - including Offworld, which I know most the Joystiq editors read - that reported this that week reported it as a non-story (OW's Boyer: "we'd just be as well off trying to strip hints off the hieroglyphics hiding in the preview shot from earlier (in February)").

But what sets off my BS meter is that I now know you're a blogger for Geekadelphia, which you didn't disclaim in the post. All the Geekadelphia post links to is Infinite Lives... from back in February. I'm not complaining about this being old - it's not, really - but come on. What are you up to? This does more to drive traffic to Geekadelphia than it does report anything about Fez that wasn't already known.

EDIT: For full disclosure, yes, I (Ben) do write for Geekadelphia (though significantly less lately). I LEGITIMATELY saw the news there because, yes, I write for that site. And yes, they sourced another page. The way our "via" system works at Joystiq is we "via" wherever we saw it and source the original, which I did. In fact, to be completely clear, I even asked the editor on duty at the time if that's what I should do. I'm sorry if you thought I was just trying to drive traffic there but that's just not the truth.

Levi (God Hand Defense Force) @ Mar 5th 2009 1:47AM

BEN! SHOW YOURSELF! Can't you see that obo wants to talk about this in front of everybody!

Booxatron @ Mar 5th 2009 4:05PM

Ben-

Don't you have an account here like the rest of the staff? Makes it much easier to get a dialogue going when your comments stand on their own rather than just being tacked on to the end of another person's comment.

Benjamin Gilbert @ Mar 5th 2009 4:12PM

@Booxatron: I do. It's much easier for me to just add an edit to comments that are aimed directly at me though. It also saves the comments section some real estate. But whatever makes *you* happy, Mr. Atron. ;)

peepoop @ Mar 4th 2009 11:48PM

1) So many PC games come with built-in support for the 360's gamepad, as obo mentioned.

2) I've never seen a game try so hard to shoehorn into another game's visual style and aesthetic ("Looks like a dumb Cave Story rip-off" if you want the dumbed-down version).