Written April 20th, 2026

Played: 1 completion, May 16th-28th 2023, 100% at 20 hours.

You know those games that you hear about again and again? Maybe they’re triple-A titles that everyone loves, or maybe they’re “indie darlings” like Journey or Night in the Woods. FEZ was one of those for me; it was a game that I had been aware of for many years by the time I sat down and played it. I remember installing it on a whim – I think right after I’d seen a glimpse of a spoiler-free speedrun – and the thing that made me stop and say “huh, maybe I should play this”, was the music.

FEZ’s soundtrack is an iconic low-bit sound font that feels perfectly at home in its visual design. I don’t think FEZ would feel like itself with any other style of sound; it needs a little bit of crunch, a little bit of jaggedness to give you something to catch on to. There’s a little piece of audio design where you’re turning a crank to lift a big stone platform, and a groovy 1-3-1-3 rhythm as it slowly lowers back down. It is a deeply satisfying texture.

About halfway through the game, I found that I didn’t need my reference sheet for the game’s language anymore, and I could generally sight-read my way through signs and hints – learning the tetramino system felt like uncovering a secret handshake to share with a friend. I didn’t go so far as to start writing my own notes with tetraminos, but I definitely considered it.

At the time of writing it’s been almost three years since I last played, and I think about this game regularly. It’s in the category of “things I wish I could play for the first time again”; I loved the feeling of newness and discovery that I had as I puzzled my way through its platforms and quirks. Playing FEZ mostly blind felt like following a friend who promised me that they were going to show me something cool, and then they did.

I think I’ll have to revisit it again soon.