FUZ

A fan-made PICO-8 demake of Polytron Corporation's
2012 game FEZ.

Released: May 2019
Developed: April 2019 - May 2019
Team: Joseph Henry Stadolnik IV
Tools: PICO-8
Programming Language: Lua

My Role: Solo Developer
I made the entirety of this game by myself, working closely from FEZ's art, mechanics, audio, and puzzles for reference.
My achievements on this project included:

• Reverse-engineering a version of FEZ's unique rotation and collision system within the limitations of PICO-8.
• Implementing an image-based system for creating the game's voxel-based levels.
• Implementing a convincing 3D rotation effect using just 2D sprites and visual trickery.
• Designing an interconnected world of eight diorama-like levels.
• Designing an intricate language-deciphering puzzle using many of the game's rooms.
• Recreating two prominent types of input-based puzzles from FEZ.
• Drawing all visual assets using PICO-8's editor, heavily referencing FEZ's original art and adapting it to PICO-8's limitations.
• Creating all audio assets using PICO-8's editor.

About:
The idea of a demake is the reverse of a remake: take an existing game and make a simpler version of it on a more limited platform. In making FUZ, I sought to recreate as many aspects of the original FEZ as I could within the heavy restrictions of PICO-8.
You can read much more about my development process in my retrospective here.

Other Notes:

• As a fan game, this was not released for profit and is not endorsed by Polytron Corporation.
• True to the original, there are multiple possible endings depending on whether the player solved all the puzzles.
• Several FEZ puzzle types make use of specific symbols. I preserved this in FUZ, but whenever possible I used my own symbol designs instead.

Retrospectives:
It's Gomez Time (Again): Reflections on Demaking FEZ

Articles:
"Fuz - Browser Game" (Free Game Planet)
"FUZ" (Wireframe, Issue 17, Pages 24-25)

Links:
PICO-8 Forum Post
itch.io