Wish there was a Fez 2?

[Laurentius]

It may be because I'm more plugged into the broader dev community, but Blow is generally regarded as a huge piece of shit in the dev community. There's a semi-influential dev writer/blogger named Bob Martin who got himself disinvited from speaking invitations to several conferences in 2020 due to his uncontrollable need to post an unending stream of barely-veiled white supremacist takes on Twitter.

Blow freaked the fuck out about this, made it into a "Free Speech" issue, preemptively refused to speak at any conference with a Code of Conduct that might discourage racism, and in general just went full alt-Right "cancel culture is out to get the white man" style apeshit.

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Jesus Christ, I hadn't heard about that one. I used to tune into his dev streams from time to time because his compiler work is interesting (when he's not on whatever hobby horse soapbox he has for the day). Some of the stuff he would say would just "blow" my mind, and I had to stop watching them entirely. It didn't help that his chat basically morphed into a swarm of mini-Jonathan Blow's that just echo his talking points all the time.

 

[rickyson33]

I find it absolutely fascinating that years and years since he's been even relevant, the muscle memory performative hate for Phil Fish is so strong, that on a thread about Fez there are immediately reflexive comments of 'fuck Phil Fish' etc.

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it's kinda hard to separate the two things when him throwing a tantrum and cancelling it is literally the reason Fez 2 never came out

kinda links them together too much for it ever NOT to come up

 

[Lua]

Look, phill wasnt the most stable person ever, and i surely wouldnt have as a friend someone who says "compare your life to mine and kill yourself(tho as always is important to remember that he was talking to another asshole online) but it does not justify the vitriol people have regarding him or the hate they retroactively gave to fez.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

it's kinda hard to separate the two things when him throwing a tantrum and cancelling it is literally the reason Fez 2 never came out

kinda links them together too much for it ever NOT to come up

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I've always hated how people called it a "tantrum".

He was a victim of a targeted hate campaign for months, and then after Marcus Beer gave him shit on air, decided he didn't want to take part in this garbage industry any more.

It's not like he just threw his toys out the pram for no reason and took away peoples videogames. People need fucking context.

 

[Kaiken]

The soundtrack alone. I'd love another in the series.

 

[angelgrievous]

It's also funny hearing Blow talking about Demon Souls being a dumb game yet it's the PS5 launch pillar lmao.

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You're misunderstanding what he said. He said modern Japanese games, with the exception of demons souls, are dumb.

 

[beansontoast]

it's kinda hard to separate the two things when him throwing a tantrum and cancelling it is literally the reason Fez 2 never came out

kinda links them together too much for it ever NOT to come up

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Sure I understand that you can't separate those two things entirely. But when people are saying 'fuck Phil Fish' in the thread, they aren't simply pointing out that he was controversial, rather they are getting back on the hate bandwagon.

 

[senj]

Jesus Christ, I hadn't heard about that one. I used to tune into his dev streams from time to time because his compiler work is interesting (when he's not on whatever hobby horse soapbox he has for the day). Some of the stuff he would say would just "blow" my mind, and I had to stop watching them entirely. It didn't help that his chat basically morphed into a swarm of mini-Jonathan Blow's that just echo his talking points all the time.

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His compiler/language ideas for game programming were genuinely interesting for a bit there.

There was a thread about Blow and Martin a few months ago, if you're interested: https://www.resetera.com/threads/jo...-due-to-cancel-culture-style-pressure.285920/. Just glancing at it, I'd forgotten about Martin's many instances of implying that women are generally incapable of programming because of their female brains, another fun thing Blow is happy to defend.

 

[Mesoian]

Wait, you legitimately think that makes it okay? Was the dude he was responding to like a nazi or something? I mean if so then fuck 'em.

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Like, there's nothing I can say that's going to change your mind.

All I can say is I hope you are never on the receiving end of a concentrated attack from a bunch of people on the internet who try to invalidate your worth because you dared insult a collection of tropes and bad products and you weren't insanely nice about it.

When thousands of people are coming at you at once for NOTHING, see how level headed you remain.

 

[Laurentius]

You know, regardless of how it all ended, I have to respect Fish for sticking to his guns and just staying off social media entirely ever since. Probably been better for his mental health. Too many people have made a big show out of quitting Twitter in the past, only to be right back to their nonsense a month later.

His compiler/language ideas for game programming were genuinely interesting for a bit there.

There was a thread about Blow and Martin a few months ago, if you're interested: https://www.resetera.com/threads/jo...-due-to-cancel-culture-style-pressure.285920/. Just glancing at it, I'd forgotten about Martin's many instances of implying that women are generally incapable of programming because of their female brains, another fun thing Blow is happy to defend.

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Thanks for the link, what a mess.

 

[formasymphonic]

The biggest tragedy in all of it isn't even that we didn't get a sequel — its the ridiculous level of hate that continues to persist against the guy. As someone else in the thread said, Phil said some things and the internet responded 5 fold (...Probably more like 10-20 fold but whatever), and him being an early for GG shit just made it worse and I can 100% understand why he would want to just say "fuck all this shit" and leave.

 

[RedOnePunch]

FEZ is so good, but it's ok because the swapper and the witness came out.

I really want to try superliminal.

 

[Deleted member 3040]

It's been so long, but I remember thinking he's not someone I'd want to be friends with. Even when things was brought up to light it was only a handful of tweets that were highlighted, but the whole timeline - when looking at it for larger periods of time - was quite toxic. While obviously a far cry from people like, say, Jonathan Blow (which has been mentioned here), I remember it not giving a good impression to the point where I just never got around to play FEZ.

This said, it's been so long so it's kinda hard to verify if my feelings were justified. I do vaguely remember the tipping point in the whole discussion about what happened back then appearing as strange, as it got very focused on a very specific moment (the Marcus Beer "callout" and subsequent reaction), when to me it was just one of many things.

The GamerGate stuff was later to my knowledge, so not sure why it's brought up? I had to check and at least Wikipedia says it was the year after.

As a side-note, maybe let's not try to justify telling someone to kill themselves is fine just because it's a quote?

(lastly, I have no clue what Fish is up to today and despite being far from a fan, I hope he's doing alright nowadays as he at times seemed troubled back then)

 

[King of Cups]

The story of Fez and Phil Fish is one of the unfortunate incidents of the growth of social media/consciousness and overexposure to underdeveloped "personalities." Doing something great doesn't make you a great example. Given everything under consideration, it is actually a good thing he didn't pursue Fez 2, at least at the time. For his own mental health and everyone else's.

 

[.exe]

FEZ was (is) one of the all-time greats. So yes. A follow up would've been incredible.

People hounding the guy and making him out as a racist all because they were so second-hand offended that he didn't like Japanese games... That dumb remark undeservedly got him on the shit list for a lot of unpleasant people, who encouraged and enabled Fish's bad habits on social. That's what it seemed like to me anyway.

Phil had his own issues and I hope he worked through them. Not being on Twitter constantly probably did him good. He said performatively stupid and abrasive things all the time, and taking it literally makes no sense. He said games don't belong on PCs because they're for spreadsheets. And, yes, FEZ came out on PC. Like, come on folks. I know if I suddenly became semi-famous and relatively rich at that rate whilst also being clearly passionate, self-conscious and raised on a very shitty phase of the internet, I'd probably also become an idiot and not know how to handle myself, at least in the temporary sense. I also said/say stupid things on the internet but thankfully nobody put a spotlight on it like with Phil.

I wasn't aware he was vocally on Quinn's side during that ordeal. Good on him.

 

[beansontoast]

Even when things was brought up to light it was only a handful of tweets that were highlighted, but the whole timeline - when looking at it for larger periods of time - was quite toxic.

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I think it's worth remembering that the guy was facing such a constant barrage of abuse that only a small proportion of the fire he was receiving needed to be responded to with fire for it to look like his timeline was toxic.

Sure fighting fire with fire isn't productive, but can you blame him for sometimes breaking after being worn down with abuse and sniping back (so long as it isn't crossing a line, which he did on occasion)?

 

[mattiewheels]

I'm really stunned at the amount of people here calling him flat out racist. Are you being honest with yourself to claim that? What's the thought process there?

 

[doof_warrior]

Jesus Christ, I hadn't heard about that one. I used to tune into his dev streams from time to time because his compiler work is interesting (when he's not on whatever hobby horse soapbox he has for the day). Some of the stuff he would say would just "blow" my mind, and I had to stop watching them entirely. It didn't help that his chat basically morphed into a swarm of mini-Jonathan Blow's that just echo his talking points all the time.

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its such a shame jon blow fucking sucks so much
i love(d) listening to him talk about game design. i think braid and especially the witness, are brilliant
but everything else about him...yeah

 

[Dan-o]

If you're interested this is a very good video about the subject matter

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This is an excellent video I re-watch from time to time. Not just because it better contextualizes the undue hatred of the guy, but because I still see this shit happen with a good number of folks who are constantly misrepresented and taken out of context.

More critical thinking and less bullshit should be everyone's mantra of 2021, but I doubt that'll happen; everyone likes to be a part of the pile-on.

 

[RecRoulette]

Not sure if things are better now in 2021, but back then I know a lot of folks I thought would know better had the mentality of "He's an asshole so he deserves ALL of the shit thrown at him" which is just flat out wrong. (Who am I kidding, that shit probably still goes on today)

Honestly, I gotta respect him just walking away from it all and actually staying away. I hope he doesn't have any regrets about it and is happier for doing it.

 

[Lobster Roll]

It may be because I'm more plugged into the broader dev community, but Blow is generally regarded as a huge piece of shit in the dev community. There's a semi-influential dev writer/blogger named Bob Martin who got himself disinvited from speaking invitations to several conferences in 2020 due to his uncontrollable need to post an unending stream of barely-veiled white supremacist takes on Twitter.

Blow freaked the fuck out about this, made it into a "Free Speech" issue, preemptively refused to speak at any conference with a Code of Conduct that might discourage racism, and in general just went full alt-Right "cancel culture is out to get the white man" style apeshit.

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Always picked up a vibe from Blow so this doesn't surprise me.

 

[TheLastOne]

Look I definitely think the Fish hate is way overblown, but look at those tweets on the last page. You can't tell someone to "compare your life to me and then kill yourself" and then be considered someone who never said anything hateful. Even if it's in retort to someone insulting you first. edit: And yes I'm aware it's a futurama quote, but considering the context it's still clearly a hateful remark.

That is however the worst thing he's publicly said (I hope) and yet it's clearly not the source of people's ire against him.

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1) The guy he said it to was harassing him continuously publicly, fueling the flames of waves and waves of hate Phil was receiving from all sides. Did Phil Fish lose his cool? Yes absolutely, but I mean anyone can only take so much before some anger is bound to come out.

2) As you said yourself, it was a Futurama quote, again warped out of context (he was not actually suggesting suicide) continually misused as one of the only pieces of evidence to justify all of the hate Phil got from an insane internet mob

I find it crazy that people are still looking for every excuse to justify online harassment campaigns. Phil Fish was not angel, but he hardly deserved to be chased out of the industry with pitchforks and torches by an insane childish mob for daring to question the quality of Japanese development output at the time.

 

[Ausroachman]

Not sure why he would want to come back. Some section of gamers treated him like shit.

Wasn't his accounts and all his personal info also stolen and released as well? No wonder he cancelled a sequel and never came back.

 

[logan_cadfgs]

Good to get some of those misconceptions cleared up. Phil Fish was super unstable, unnecessarily abrasive and obviously had a lot of growing up to do — but at least he's not a racist, sexist transphobic shitheel, at least as far as I can tell. More than anything, guy just needed therapy and to stay off social media.

 

[Hailinel]

Here's the line that everyone got SO worked up over:



It was a Bender quote, without a meme image or video link.

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Quoting something like that out of context is an extremely bad idea because:

1. It's a horrible thing to say regardless.
2. Not everyone has seen Futurama.
3. Bender himself is a fucking shithead.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

I haven't played Fez yet despite being in my library for so long. Maybe this year.

As for Phil Fish, I've read more outrageous shit on this forum than anything he has ever said. He just said it out loud, and the Internet got under his skin.

 

[Stoze]

1) The guy he said it to was harassing him continuously publicly, fueling the flames of waves and waves of hate Phil was receiving from all sides. Did Phil Fish lose his cool? Yes absolutely, but I mean anyone can only take so much before some anger is bound to come out.

2) As you said yourself, it was a Futurama quote, again warped out of context (he was not actually suggesting suicide) continually misused as one of the only pieces of evidence to justify all of the hate Phil got from an insane internet mob

I find it crazy that people are still looking for every excuse to justify online harassment campaigns. Phil Fish was not angel, but he hardly deserved to be chased out of the industry with pitchforks and torches by an insane childish mob for daring to question the quality of Japanese development output at the time.

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I basically agree with all of this. Carefully re-read my post and you'll realize none of this refutes what I said. Regarding that twitter reply, as it has been pointed out many times in this thread, just because something is a quote or a reference doesn't make it ok, especially in this context. And "he was not actually suggesting suicide" is a really bad defense. If someone sends a death threat without actually meaning or planning to harm someone, guess what, it's still a death threat.

Outside of that I genuinely think the dude is overall fine and have 0 issue with him, hell I even have posts in here defending him, I just think "he's never been hateful" isn't being truthful to how he acted on Twitter. That's it. If you want to take that akin to "he's no angel" as you put it, then yeah, that's all I was saying in response. It's not a huge deal especially considering the time passage and the deluge of much, much worse shit being spewed on social media today by people who aren't nearly as publicly vilified.

 

[Radarscope1]

Fez was one of the best games of the era and one of the all-time great independent games. Personally one of my favorite games ever. Making all those notes to decipher the language code and clues.... what a fun time.

 

[TheLastOne]

I basically agree with all of this. Carefully re-read my post and you'll realize none of this refutes what I said. Regarding that twitter reply, as it has been pointed out many times in this thread, just because something is a quote or a reference doesn't make it ok, especially in this context. And "he was not actually suggesting suicide" is a really bad defense. If someone sends a death threat without actually meaning or planning to harm someone, guess what, it's still a death threat.

Outside of that I genuinely think the dude is overall fine and have 0 issue with him, hell I even have posts in here defending him, I just think "he's never been hateful" isn't being truthful to how he acted on Twitter. That's it. If you want to take that akin to "he's no angel" as you put it, then yeah, that's all I was saying in response. It's not a huge deal especially considering the time passage and the deluge of much, much worse shit being spewed on social media today by people who aren't nearly as publicly vilified.

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Fair enough - but I still hold that there is a big difference between using a Futurama joke (albeit an insensitive one) in the exact context it was meant to be used and actually suggesting that Phil Fish was actually recommending suicide. In your example - there is a big difference between literal words out of context and a real death threat to be taken seriously.

Honestly, I don't think any one of us should really be judging how we would react to an angry internet mob threating us and our loved ones dozens of times a day, including doxxing us, etc. A lot of good people in similar situations also have equally cherry-pickable angry response tweets that are far worse than a Futurama joke.

 

[mentallyinept]

FEZ is in my top 10 games of all time.

FEZ II not happening was a punch the gut when it happened and still sucks to think about today.

 

[mclem]

Taking the term purely literally, I don't really have any need for a Fez 2. But I *would* like to see more games with huge overarching metapuzzles underpinning them which Fez did really well; The Witness and to some extent Baba Is You fit the same mould there. but it's a type of ambitious puzzle game I adore and would love to see more of.

(That said I do still have to play Return of the Obra Dinn which I suspect may at least scratch some of that itch)

 

[Jane]

I say yes, but I haven't 100%'d Fez 1 yet so I probably wouldn't buy the sequel until I did.

 

[BackwoodsAltar]

Phil Fish famously once tweeted something that I can't help but feel is extra poignant after 2020. Especially in relation to TLOU2 response and the pre-release CDPR worship.

"I wish videogames was a building so I could burn it down with you all in it."

That some of you are still angry at him years later for an off the cuff remark that he maybe delivered a little too harsh shows that not much has changed. His comments were not racist, but the infantilising of the Japanese developer who asked the question in many people's attacks on Phil probably is.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Here's the video of Fish saying Japanese games suck. It's a nice 1-2 douche combo from Fish and Blow.

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I dont know how anyone watches this person ask their question, receive that response, and still think "this is fine".

 

[Deleted member 17184]

I dont know how anyone watches this person ask their question, receive that response, and still think "this is fine".

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It's definitely a horrible way of expressing that he didn't like modern Japanese games, just like his tweets weren't okay. Also, none of that justifies the harassment he got.

 

[Hailinel]

I dont know how anyone watches this person ask their question, receive that response, and still think "this is fine".

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Fish could absolutely be ineloquent, and frankly, it's clear he should have had someone else assist him with PR. Not just because of his thoughtless comments about Japanese game development, but just his general attitude toward and use of social media. It was clearly unhealthy for him, just as it is for many people, and the vilification he received in response only made everything far worse for him.

I still remember when Fish had his major blow-up on Twitter, declaring Fez II cancelled, and going silent. A lot of people treated it like it was just a publicity stunt or some lead-in to a Fez puzzle, and didn't take it at the face-value statement it was. Fish wanted out. And the final straw, unless I recall wrong, was just a back and forth with...Arthur Gies, I think, about an interview or something Fish didn't appreciate, and he called it quits.

 

[cyba89]

I dont know how anyone watches this person ask their question, receive that response, and still think "this is fine".

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I don't know why this comment still matters so much to people almost NINE years later. It is known that Fish personally apologized to the dev Makoto Goto.

"That was rude, sure, but I really want to thank Phil Fish, too, for what he said," Goto added. What he said, if you don't remember, during a Game Developer Conference Q&A last year, was that Japanese games "suck." "I think his remark really motivated Japanese game creators to work harder," Goto, who is a programmer and a designer, said. "I know it has motivated me."

Phil Fish has apologized on numerous occasions for his remark, including to Goto. He's made amends. He doesn't hate Japan or Japanese games. He stuck his foot in his mouth. Happens to the best of us. But out of that inelegant statement, Goto didn't become bitter or spiteful.

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Japanese Games "Just Suck" Target Has a Message for Phil Fish: Thank You - Kotaku

 

[Deleted member 1627]

Lol folks still twisting themselves into knots trying to justify the "yeah well he's a tool so fuck him" is peak fucking irony in this context. Gamers capital G keep on keeping on.

 

[Shopolic]

Fez was amazing and was one of the best indie games of 7th generation, alongside games like Super Meat Boy and Braid. So yes, I really liked to play Fez II.

 

[Deleted member 4262]

The internet's hatred for this guy always seemed unjustified to me. Sad to see it's still a thing.

 

[NotLiquid]

On the topic of Fez itself, I tried several times to get into it but in the end I kinda couldn't.

It reminds me of the most uninspired gameplay parts of Super Paper Mario where most of the solutions to a "puzzle" is simply flipping the screen. I also thought most of the actual puzzles it had were just a bit too "cute" in how they flexed the meta element and rarely held much in-game tangibility. The game is "anti-game design" in a lot of ways; usually the worst kind. Trying to go for a completionist run with Fez seems like total hell.

The game looks pretty and is definitely well presented but it feels like a rampantly excessive game, which in a way reflects the egocentricity of its creator I suppose (that's not a jab at Fish; having some ego isn't necessarily a bad thing and that was just what drove his persona). Indie Game The Movie painted him as so obsessive to a fault that it was unlikely Fez wasn't going to capture that spirit, but the end result, much like Fish's tenure as a game dev and public figure, felt like this insistent curiosity that was way overblown and only notable for its oddity, though still fascinating to look at from the surface.

 

[Alien Bob]

Fez was legit a transcendental experience for me, and on the ranking list of toxic game developers Fish isn't even in the top 1000, so yeah, I would have loved to see what he would have done with a sequel.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

If I told you to eat shit and die, do I get a pass for my Duke Nukem quote?

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I don't know. Are you telling me to eat shit and die?

also. Triggered much?

 

[StrappingYoungLance]

Do I wish things were different and we had gotten Fez 2? For sure. Do I currently wish for a Fez 2? Nah, I've moved on. Fez was a fantastic game, though. Playing through it and figuring it all out for the first time is definitely up there as one of the more memorable journeys through a game.

 

[Type VII]

Nah, Phil Fish is a cunt.

 

[XaviConcept]

No, I wish Fish wasnt an asshole cause then I would have played his game. Good riddance

 

[Kutaragi]

Fez was a great act of love for videogames and I would be more tha happy if we could get a proper sequel.
Don't really care that much about who Fish is/was or what he had done.

 

[ShapeGSX]

Twitter just sucks.

JFC, people are still coming in here to pile on him. WTF

 

[Pyccko]

I wish there was a Fez 2 more than pretty much anything else in my life

ps Phil Fish is an actual for real genius

 

[ShapeGSX]

I'm going to repost this quote from Mesoian because it does a really good job at contextualizing the situation that Phil Fish was facing.

Mesoian, posted:
"All I can say is I hope you are never on the receiving end of a concentrated attack from a bunch of people on the internet who try to invalidate your worth because you dared insult a collection of tropes and bad products and you weren't insanely nice about it.

When thousands of people are coming at you at once for NOTHING, see how level headed you remain."


People are still posting one sided screen shots of Fish's Twitter messages (probably grabbed from the other forum) without any of the context of the thousands of messages sent to him that led up to that point. Frankly, the full context would have required pages upon pages of screen grabs, so how could you? But to just post those screens of Fish's messages is deceptive.