Independent Games: Case Study: Fez

Independent Games 

An independent game is a game that has been developed by a individual or small team without any financial support being generated by a publisher. Mostly referred to as "indie games", they predominately rely on the use of digital distribution to be sold (as mentioned in my essay on many different platforms) and focus on innovation. These combined have lead to a sharp increase in indie games' popularity over the last few years with the most successful and obvious game choice being Minecraft, which generated over 100,000 registered users and 1000 sales in the first 24 hours of the Alpha stage released game. However, all independent games aren't always as successful and can fall flat on their face instantly.

Although in most cases "indie" games can be, and often are, considerably cheaper to create and buy than big blockbuster or AAA games, one of the main really attractive things about that games are that they are highly known for innovation, creativity, and artistic experimentation, making them a lot more visually interesting to play and in most cases this is a massive attraction to casual gamers or gamers like me that are more drawn to  arty and musically appealing, classic games (such as fez). However, because there is only a small team working on the development of the games without a certain time restraint or not have controlling interests or creative limitations and do not require publisher approval as mainstream game developers usually do, it means that the game's cost would come down. This was especially apparent when in 2008 a developer could earn around 17% of game's retail price and around 85% if sold digitally. Also, with physical copies of the game not having to be shipped throughout the world, it is cheaper to distribute the game digitally, even after paying any loyalties to the platform holder, bringing the cost down.
In opposition to this however, with the elimination of financial support from publishers, it can sometimes be the case that the team may have to pay more to advertise and create the game. They rely hugely on advertising by the majority of them having a trial run where the user downloads a trial of the game to see if they like it, rather than buying it straight away without knowing what it is like, something that huge blockbuster companies such as Rockstar would never dream of doing.

Fez by Polytron

The Guardian Tuesday 17 April 2012: Simon Parkin 

" Fez is at once a tribute to the joy of childhood exploration, the wonder of adolescent Nintendo video games and the adult realisation of life's unending mysteries.

Metascore scored Fez a 89/100 based on the reviews of 66 critics (May 13, 2012) saying;

" A masterpiece of a game that draws inspiration from many classic franchises in order to deliver a unique experience."

" thanks to rewards after successfully solved puzzles, thanks to detailed graphics with well-made mechanics of the game world rotating - you will gladly and constantly return to this title."

For my case study of an "indie" game I struggled to decide as I have many favourites and was debating between Limbo, the walking dead, fez or Minecraft, those being my top favourite "indie" games but finally decided with fez as I thought that not many people will have played it and it would be interesting to do something different.

Fez is a puzzle/platform game developed by independent software developers Polytron.  The game was initially announced by its creator, Phil Fish, on July 17, 2007 and was released on April 13, 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade, although further release on more platforms are being considered. Its protracted development was featured in the documentary film Indie Game: The Movie and A demo of Fez was shown on 31 January 2012 at the International Game Developers Association Montreal DemoNight.

In Fez, you play as Gomez, a 2D creature who lives in a 2D world. That is until one day when Gomez encounters a strange and mysterious artifact; a Hexahedron. The Hexahedron gives Gomez a magical fez hat that allows him to perceive a third dimension. Gomez must use his new ability to save the Hexahedron before his world is torn apart. Fez features 2D/3D perspective shifts in a manner similar to Super Paper Mario and uses Echer-like optical illusions to dominate the gameplay. Fez’s 2D gameplay consists of mechanics typical to platform games, such as jumping and climbing. Fez’s unique 3D trait is the ability to rotate the world 90° around and this rotation allows the player to change the perspective, realigning platforms. Since depth is not a factor in the 2D gameplay, certain actions that would be impossible in a 3D world are still possible in 2D, from the right perspective. This feature is definitely what attracted me to Fez along with the graphics and music (sounds) as I found it really interesting and unbelievable when i played it for the first time, as I had never played or really heard of another game that held this ability which I found amazing and really enjoyable to play. The goal of the game is to collect 64 cubes and anti-cubes. Cubes are visible and placed around the world for the player to collect. The player must figure out how to navigate their way through the environment to each cube, rotating the world to enable the access to certain platforms from the different perspectives. Anti-cubes are invisible and revealed only after the player has solved a puzzle and many of the puzzles require some form of cryptanalysis.

Fez won the "Excellence in Visual Art" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2008, where it was also nominated for the "Design Innovation" award. It appeared at PAX Prime 2011 as one of the PAX 10, and won "Best In Show" at IndieCade in 2011. It also won the "Seumas McNally Grand Prize" at the Independent Games Festival in 2012.