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Indie developers are having a little fun at the expense of trademark troll Tim Langdell. As TouchArcade reports, several devs have created mock games to get under the skin of the abusive IP bugaboo, who pops up like a rabid prairie dog when a company uses the word "edge" in a video game. In response to Langdell's attack on Killer Edge Racing, several indie devs have jokingly renamed their games. Fez is now Fedge and Critter Crunch has vomited out Critter Credge.

In their posts on the name changes, the developers use the word "edge" as many times as is edgeingly possible to edge in there with edginess. Inspired by Langdell, we are currently discussing with our attorneys if we can trademark the words "war," "warfare," ... oh wait, "Mario," yes! That's where the infringement bucks really are.

Capping off the "The New Indie Hotness" panel at Austin GDC, Polytron's Phil Fish played an early version of the multidimensional XBLA platformer, Fez, for the audience. Though there were a few issues related to the pre-release state of the game -- specifically, Fish claimed that some platforms were disappearing -- we saw enough to know that this is something to continue following!

Fez plays sort of like Super Paper Mario, but with more of an emphasis on optical illusions. It appears as a 2D sidescrolling platformer most of the time, but at any time the player can rotate the entire world 90 degrees along a vertical axis. This allows the player to use optical illusions to navigate the game world. For example, Fish climbed a ladder up the side of one platform, and then rotated the world to reveal another identical platform several yards away. By rotating again, the perspective shifted such that it looked like the ladder was connected to the second platform -- and so it was, and Fish emerged atop the once-distant platform.

In another example, Fish tossed a bomb onto a moving platform to expose the entrance to a cave. He walked to the entrance, and then rotated the world 180 degrees to reveal the other side of the rock structure into which the cave had been cut, granting him immediate access to the other side.

When Fish paused, we noticed a "leaderboards" item in the pause menu. We don't know as yet what the leaderboards will compare, but at least they'll be there.

Ever heard of Fez? How about N+? DeathSpank, maybe? If any of these games are near and dear to you like they are to us (we're looking at you, N+), then you have the Canadian government to thank. Government funding towards game development in Canada helped make each of the aforementioned games come to fruition, according to Gamasutra.

Similar initiatives are being proposed or practiced in many US cities, however, the Canadian government has a long history of promoting game development in the country. It even gave DeathSpank developer Hothead Games over a half million dollars -- to develop a game named DeathSpank! Though it'd be nice to say that such quality stuff was being developed in our backyards, we'll take what we can get. Good games are good games, no?

With just the simple image you see above, developer Polytron announced that its dimensional-shifting platformer Fez would arrive on the Xbox Live Arcade platform at some point next year. Though we've seen a date of 2009 in a previous trailer, the teaser image is the best indication we've had so far in terms of a concrete platform for the game.

Though we can't say it's a huge surprise (we spotted an Xbox "A" button in the game back in March), it's nice to have it officially official.

If indie Polytron's dimensional-shifting Fez isn't on your radar yet ... well, you need to call whoever you've got running your radar and have some stern words. Honestly, in this economy, your operator should be happy just to have a job.

As a final test, watch the above trailer for Fez. If it doesn't appear on your radar then, you'll know it's time to let your radar technician go ... just like we're about to fire our guy that's supposed to tell us when our metaphors have become too protracted.

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]

It's nice to see independent games have a rabid fan base of arts and crafts aficionados -- case in point the Fez plushie pictured above. (Etsy via Albotas). Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Dark Messiah: Might and Magic Elements DLC: The Journals
Joyswag: Win a $100 InstantAction account
Readers pick best webcomic: Our Crucial Pamphlet
Super Smash Bros. Brawl has voice chat ... it's called Xbox Live, PSN, Skype, etc.
SXSW08: ScreenBurn Arcade in pictures
SXSW08: Virtual worlds and indie games to dethrone publishers
Today's most retro hack: Four-player Ocarina of Time

News
Rock Band Weekly: Black Tide, Paramore and Serj Tankian
WiiWare to launch March 25 in Japan
Line Rider coming to PC, Wii, DS this summer
NIS America: PS2 lacks the power to run Disgaea 3
Harmonix' LoPiccolo wants user music in Rock Band
WV may teach hunting in school, thanks to video games
Wii Fit makes Australia sweat May 8
Error Code 85010: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection 'Smashed'
Novastrike shooting up PSN in Q2 '08
Virtual Jihadi art exhibit expelled from RPI
Don't like Derek Smart's game? He'll refund your money
Take-Two hit with shareholder lawsuit, creates severance plan for employees
Square Enix commits to simultaneous worldwide releases
BioShock 2 due in fiscal Q4 2009 from 2K Marin
Carnival Games expands to DS, back to Wii with Carnival Games: Mini-Golf
Borderlands shifted to fiscal '09, 'better balance' cited
Starcraft II: Zerg video and info dump
Take-Two posts $38M loss in first fiscal quarter
Notes from Take-Two's fiscal Q108 conference call
Crytek trademarks 'Crysis Warhead'
Hudson to bring online Tetris to Wii Ware
Kojima working on next project
NPD study: Hard core gamers spend more on other media

Culture & Community
The best thing you'll see today: Guitar Hero for the Commodore 64
Spend a virtual evening with Will Wright
Web services allow for easy Brawl stage sharing

At the Independent Games Festival Awards, Fez took the award for excellence in art. Now, here's an opportunity to hear the developers chat anxiously about their game, prior to the awards show.

Mahalo Daily and Veronica Belmont spoke to members of the art collective Kokoromi about their innovative platformer. Check out the video above for development details, and Kokoromi's explanation of why Fez pulls off 2D/3D better than Super Paper Mario.

The finalists for the 2008 Independent Games Festival have been officially announced, with twenty independent titles spanning six categories.

Noteworthy are the four music-based games (Audiosurf, Synaesthete, Fret Nice, and Cinnamon Beats), indicating a stronger emphasis on the rhythm genre than in previous years. Other notable finalists include Kokoromi's Fez, and Petri Purho's Crayon Physics Deluxe. All finalists will be playable at the Game Developers Conference in February 2008, and the winners will be announced at the IGF Awards Ceremony during GDC.

[Via GameSetWatch]

Indie game designer Phil Fish has pulled the pixelated, two-dimensional tarp away to reveal his latest project, Fez, an apparent platformer that blends an old-school look with with a new twist, the ability to shift the character's environment to make some obstacles easier to overcome.

The two-dimension to three-dimensional shifting gimmick doesn't seem quite as revolutionary with games like Crush and Super Paper Mario already on the market, but we still have to admit that we're intrigued to see where Fish will take it.

[Via TIGSource]