I actually had a nice long thing written out, but my internet decided to die before I hit submit, so now that's all gone and I'm not writing it again. This is all I wrote down to solve Fez. I wasn't there in the beginning so I don't know how people were thinking about this stuff. The game probably would have been better if I got it the day it came out to experience all the bombcast talked about. Anyone out there willing to share images or stories about their Fez experience so I can get a little feel for it before I completely leave the game?

I love reading peoples' Fez notes with zero context. They're all fucking insane.

I should get around to playing it if/when it comes to PC.

@golguin: haha. Your resulting notes look almost exactly like mine. It's interesting how that can turn out.

I did draw pictures of certain areas to try to draw some connections, but outside of a few instances, that was just madness. When the game was still being picked upon by people trying to get everything, though, it -really- required some writing. But then, most of that deliberation was in online discussions, as a lot of it was hard to really put down on pen and paper. Most of the game was completed with pen and paper, but that final 5% was like getting blood from a stone. ha. Really entertaining though.

I had a similar experience with Fez, but i didn't realise what I was getting into, I just knew that people had described it as "two games in one" and "difficult as hell". So when i discovered the symbols for LT and RT, and realised everything meant something and wasn't just window dressing, I started Goldblooming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv6mA0qyOo4), and my uni flatmates (who are also on game design course with me) shared some interest in the game, and some concern for my mental wellbeing for a few days. Eventually, when me and Rob went to see Argo, I left my friend who doesn't have an Xbox start his own save in the 4 hours we would be out. I came back, and he had gotten surprisingly far (he's really good at puzzle games), and understood many of the concepts I had worked out, though he had a head start because of me sharing my revelations. So we then loaded up my save together, and completed the game to 99%. We had to google that bit at the very end, but I can't imagine getting out with my sanity if I hadn't. It is my favorite game of this year, and makes me glad I purchased a cheap xbox 360 with a dodgy disc drive from a friend of mine :D

So, life story over.

@golguin: haha. Your resulting notes look almost exactly like mine. It's interesting how that can turn out.

I did draw pictures of certain areas to try to draw some connections, but outside of a few instances, that was just madness. When the game was still being picked upon by people trying to get everything, though, it -really- required some writing. But then, most of that deliberation was in online discussions, as a lot of it was hard to really put down on pen and paper. Most of the game was completed with pen and paper, but that final 5% was like getting blood from a stone. ha. Really entertaining though.

@golguin said:

@TruthTellah

@golguin: haha. Your resulting notes look almost exactly like mine. It's interesting how that can turn out.

I did draw pictures of certain areas to try to draw some connections, but outside of a few instances, that was just madness. When the game was still being picked upon by people trying to get everything, though, it -really- required some writing. But then, most of that deliberation was in online discussions, as a lot of it was hard to really put down on pen and paper. Most of the game was completed with pen and paper, but that final 5% was like getting blood from a stone. ha. Really entertaining though.

I still find it funny that I got the number solution without understanding them at the time. Remember how I was so focus on rotation? The boiler room with 1-4 confirmed allowed me to believe a rotation link with 7 and 8 because of their shape so it was fairly simple to reorganize my postits a few times to get the solution thinking the equals sign was an equal sign and not 6 to get 15=15.

Yeah, you can definitely get around fully understanding it. I explained it in my other post to you, and it's really pretty solid. But the first time it was figured out, it was just through diligent intuiting more than actually understanding it.

And I tried giving you a pretty subtle hint that the inside is what counts. If you start look at the "C"s as little inside marks, instead, you quickly get the image of clock hands, which gives away the main component. Those base 4 are then used to make the rest. Quite cool. :)

@TruthTellah said:

@golguin said:

@TruthTellah

@golguin: haha. Your resulting notes look almost exactly like mine. It's interesting how that can turn out.

I did draw pictures of certain areas to try to draw some connections, but outside of a few instances, that was just madness. When the game was still being picked upon by people trying to get everything, though, it -really- required some writing. But then, most of that deliberation was in online discussions, as a lot of it was hard to really put down on pen and paper. Most of the game was completed with pen and paper, but that final 5% was like getting blood from a stone. ha. Really entertaining though.

I still find it funny that I got the number solution without understanding them at the time. Remember how I was so focus on rotation? The boiler room with 1-4 confirmed allowed me to believe a rotation link with 7 and 8 because of their shape so it was fairly simple to reorganize my postits a few times to get the solution thinking the equals sign was an equal sign and not 6 to get 15=15.

Yeah, you can definitely get around fully understanding it. I explained it in my other post to you, and it's really pretty solid. But the first time it was figured out, it was just through diligent intuiting more than actually understanding it.

And I tried giving you a pretty subtle hint that the inside is what counts. If you start look at the "C"s as little inside marks, instead, you quickly get the image of clock hands, which gives away the main component. Those base 4 are then used to make the rest. Quite cool. :)

I took the inside is what counts as some kind of "your beautiful on the inside" type thing. It was crazy how you had to overlap the first numbers to get the rest of them with the black actually being the true indication of their value, but I had designed such wonderful counting systems designed on rotation (since you literally rotate the world of Fez) and multiplying values for dimensions or points on the dimensions that it was a letdown to see in the end that the numbers were just overlaps.

I was pretty disappointed to see the overlapping numbers was the truth.

@golguin: Well, it did have to do with dimensions and rotating, too. I mean, 0-5 are based on dimensions. And the others are different configurations of those. The Number Cube is rotated all around to make each number, and the same is true for the Writing Cube.

I mean, this was supposed to be solved. By human beings. So, while us crazy people did solve it, it's still a detail that can be figured out without just being a madman. For a game, I think it was a well-designed in-game number system that was difficult but not insane.