Video: Cubes all the way down: Fez technical postmortem

[Note: To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website] After nearly five years of development and plenty of major changes along the way, it's safe to say that Polytron's Fez has quite a storied history. It all began with a very small team -- just one designer and one programmer -- but eventually became one of the most anticipated indie games of all time. Just ahead of the game's debut in April, programmer Renaud Bedard offered a behind the scenes look at Fez's creation in a technical postmortem at GDC 2012, where he showcased the techniques he used and the lessons he learned while creating the mind-bending platformer. Now, that session is available (above) as a free video, courtesy of the GDC Vault. It's a detailed, comprehensive talk that examines not only the programming techniques that powered Fez, but also the dynamic between Bedard and designer Phil Fish. During development, Fish dictated the game's design, while Bedard implemented his ideas. Of course, that's not to say Bedard was just taking orders. As the game's programmer, he had to decide what was worth implementing and what didn't make sense. Fez might have been borne of Fish's imagination, but Bedard had to call some of the shots to make sure the game actually came together. "As a programmer you know what's possible," he said. "At one point, Phil said, 'I think it'd be really cool if [the character] was built in animated trixels,' and I had to be the one to say, 'I just don't think that's worth the time.' "You can always say no [to a designer], but you can't just say, 'No, I don't feel like doing this.' It's a discussion, and in this case, Fez is Phil's game... But at the same time he had to recognize my limits so we could make the game together." For Bedard's full breakdown of how Fez actually came to be, simply click the Play button above to start the video.

About the GDC Vault

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