Fez spins onto Xbox 360 on April 13

After several years and just as many delays, charming puzzle-platformer Fez finally has a firm release date: Friday, April 13 on Xbox Live Arcade.

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After several years and just as many delays, charming puzzle-platformer Fez finally has a firm release date: Friday, April 13 on Xbox Live Arcade. It's unlucky for some, and a break from XBLA's regular Wednesday releases, but it'll take more than superstitious claptrap to stop the winner of the Independent Games Festival 2012 Grand Prize.

Fez will cost the very pleasing price of 800 Microsoft Points ($10), developer Polytron confirmed in its eye-searing announcement.

The game was first announced in July 2007, then won its first IGF award in 2008, for Excellence in Visual Art. It's been a long and bumpy journey since then, but it's finally almost here. And here's how the game looks now, in a six-minute gameplay trailer showing off what's in the trial version:

From The Chatty
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    March 29, 2012 6:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Fez spins onto Xbox 360 on April 13.

    After several years and just as many delays, charming puzzle-platformer Fez finally has a firm release date: Friday, April 13 on Xbox Live Arcade.

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      March 29, 2012 6:26 AM

      Cool, been looking forward to this one for ages

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      March 29, 2012 6:36 AM

      lol the guy rage quit his twitter account weeks ago, but started posting again..hopefully he learned how to be a better pr person in that time..

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        March 29, 2012 6:41 AM

        Doesn't matter to me if he learned anything or not, I for one, will not be buying this game, even if they put it on sale. I just think someone who wants to be that big of a dick to the community should not have success. And lets not even talk about the whole four years winning IGF and the whole buddy-club stuff surrounding that.

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          March 29, 2012 7:06 AM

          oh i agree, he already lost me and a bunch of others.

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          March 29, 2012 7:08 AM

          What did he do/say that was so bad?

          The game looks cool to me so I will buy it unless he is a nazi.

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            March 29, 2012 7:17 AM

            He made a comment at GDC in front of a large audience about the Japanese game industry. A Japanese reporter asking him a question about Eastern and Western games and he literally said something like "...it's because Japanese games SUCK!" He didn't mean it as harshly as it came out.. and he backpedaled after that... but it caused quite a stir and pissed off quite a few people.

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              March 29, 2012 7:28 AM

              Personally, I can get over the Japanese games suck thing. I could see how that was possibly taken out of context, even if he is an idiot for saying it.

              However, he also said this on twitter...

              "Agent M$T- Oh. It's just about some arrogant schmuck indie dev talking smack yet has zero released games. Gr8 read tho!
              Fish- I just won the grand prize at IGF tonight. suck my dick. choke on it."

              Seriously? Is the guy 12?

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                March 29, 2012 10:53 AM

                Hmm, being a dick in response to someone else being a dick doesn't bother me much.

                If someone called you an arrogant schmuck I think it's fine to tell them to suck your dick in return. Doesn't help or harm my opinion of the guy either way.

                The IGF competition sounds like a load of wank, though, I agree. Same with all the stupid "shareware awards" competitions that gash like WinZip or whatever wins year after year, despite being a fucking trainwreck these days.

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                  March 29, 2012 11:00 AM

                  I'd say 'call them a dick back' if we were in 3rd grade.

                  Take the high road, like a goddamn adult.

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                  March 29, 2012 11:06 AM

                  He also had another 'suck my dick' post that was unprovoked and wasn't a response to someone being a dick.

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              March 29, 2012 7:47 AM

              I wouldn't say they all suck Dark Souls is awesome. However I think aside from a handful of studios the industry is pretty stagnant. Genres like the JRPG really need a refresh especially in terms of gameplay.

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            March 29, 2012 7:28 AM

            Tells japanese developer modern japanese games suck
            http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=27783242#item_27783242

            Tells people to suck his dick after winning the IGF (again, for the whateverth time, even after the 2011 IGF was judged by 4 people who worked on Fez)
            http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=27795567#item_27795567

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              March 29, 2012 7:34 AM

              Yea, the sucking the dick comment is where he lost me. Especially when you start reading about the judging and the buddy buddy stuff that was going on. And also, the fact that at this point Fez is about as indie as calling Budweiser craft.

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                March 29, 2012 7:48 AM

                Yeah, the guy is a prick. But a lot of extremely talented, creative people are. As long as the things they create are as good as they seem to brag about... I can get over that piece of it.

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                  March 29, 2012 7:59 AM

                  The guy is a prick and I don't want to give him my money. Will it make him be less of a prick? Probably not. Will it make me feel better about giving someone like Tim Schafer my money? Absolutely.

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                    March 29, 2012 11:34 AM

                    I guess my desire to play a very cool game is higher than my desire to punish a small-time game developer with an attitude.

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                      March 29, 2012 11:37 AM

                      Plenty of other cool games around. I really don't see anything that special about Fez.

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                        March 29, 2012 12:09 PM

                        Well, I played it at PAX East last year and, at least to me, it is kind of a special game. It has an extremely cool look and feel to it and I pretty much decided on the spot that I'm going to buy the game when it comes out.

                        The game is especially effective when you haven't seen it running yet. It looks like a fairly basic 8-bit or 16-bit multilevel platformer... and then the whole screen suddenly rotates in 3d and you are like... holy shit! That's awesome!

                        There are also some very subtle effects like the light changing or the wind or stars coming out etc... lost of little touches which add a lot of atmosphere to what looks originally like a very basic game.

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      March 29, 2012 6:37 AM

      I read this as Rez. =(

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        March 29, 2012 12:15 PM

        Already on the 360! And its spiritual successor Children of Eden!

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      March 29, 2012 6:39 AM

      No PC?

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        March 29, 2012 7:07 AM

        nope, according to him the only proper way to play the game is sitting in front of the tv with a controller. Nevermind the fact that people can use a controller on their pc...

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      March 29, 2012 7:11 AM

      Oh man this looks fucking awesome

      Did anybody play Where is my heart? on ps3 minis? It looks like a 3d version of this but slightly less brain melty

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      March 29, 2012 7:14 AM

      Yes! Finally! I can't wait to play this game. It was already a lot of fun at PAX last year.

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      March 29, 2012 10:54 AM

      Will this be the game that saves the indie scene??????

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      March 29, 2012 11:06 AM

      wow I don't know if I'd like all that spinning.

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      March 29, 2012 11:35 AM

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