{"id":1362,"date":"2012-04-26T17:47:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T17:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2012\/04\/polytron-and-me\/"},"modified":"2012-04-26T17:47:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T17:47:44","slug":"polytron-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2012\/04\/polytron-and-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Polytron and me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/40317848?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"webkitallowfullscreen\" mozallowfullscreen=\"mozallowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/40317848\">Pajama Jam #3<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/user428312\">har0ld<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>FEZ is out. I followed everything since the day they won the IGF in 2008 which feels like three decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>The game is out and there are bugs. 5 years, one programmer and pretty nasty bugs -corrupted saved data, reboot and stuff-. I\u2019m at the same time amazed that that kind of bug is making it to a finished and approved product on a console (MS, what the hell?) and at the same time, <a href=\"http:\/\/theinstructionlimit.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Renaud Bedard<\/a> did a fantastic job at coding everything, even a complex audio system (we really need a <a href=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2011\/05\/we-need-a-midi-engine-i\/\" target=\"_blank\">real<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2011\/05\/we-need-a-midi-engine-ii\/\" target=\"_blank\">MIDI<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2011\/10\/we-need-a-midi-engine-iii\/\" target=\"_blank\">engine<\/a> instead of reinventing the wheel each time). Chapeau bas.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s funny because Polytron\/FEZ make me \u201clove them and hate them\u201d at the same time. Love the indie, hate the 360 (I hope nobody ever releases a small game as a console exclusive, ever. Oh shit, Sound Shapes). Love Phil\u2019s open mouth, hate his open mouth. Love the colorful artistic direction, hate 8bits, old school platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Like Jesper Juul <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/the-impossible-fez-puzzle\" target=\"_blank\">says<\/a>, <em>\u201cFez is surely supposed to be interestingly old-school &amp; challenging, but I think this type of puzzle worked much better when you were 12 and only had a single game \u2013 and you were playing it with your friends on long afternoons.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Then <a href=\"http:\/\/nightmaremode.net\/2012\/04\/fezs-shifting-genres-18371\/\" target=\"_blank\">this article<\/a> (or this <a href=\"http:\/\/infamousgoat.tumblr.com\/post\/21794468715\/perception-is-reality-thoughts-on-fez-fez-is-a\" target=\"_blank\">one<\/a>) seems to nail what a lot of players find as a negative with FEZ: meh platforms and mind-fucking puzzles so hard that people wonder what\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n<p>FEZ was like the next Braid, the next \u201cindie sensation\u201d. Five years later, it seems like it\u2019s not. It\u2019s OK, making games is hard but I feel that winning the 2012 IGF Grand Prize, shouldn\u2019t really had happened. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antichamber-game.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Antichamber<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.botanicula.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Botanicula<\/a> seem so fresh compared to FEZ, I don\u2019t get why they didn\u2019t win, they could have used some PR. I know Polytron is friend with IGF judges and game journalists and they all have parties together and stuff so when I hear that really, it doesn\u2019t change anything with judging games I can\u2019t help but think <em>are you fucking serious?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And then it hits me: we are an incestuous micro scene focused a little too much on the past, our achievements and our limitless nostalgia. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, if you have a kid and live where rainy days are the default, FEZ might keep you warm. And busy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pajama Jam #3 from har0ld on Vimeo. FEZ is out. I followed everything since the day they won the IGF in 2008 which feels like three decades ago. The game is out and there are bugs. 5 years, one programmer and pretty nasty bugs -corrupted saved data, reboot and stuff-. I\u2019m at the same time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}