Fez & Character Interaction

I feel as if Fez would have been able to tell the exact same narrative without any characters at all. This is because the only character interaction in the game was at the very beginning, and this dialogue wasn't important or required for the game's narrative at all.

In my opinion, Fez has no character based narrative outside of  the opening sequence. The only dialogue beyond that sequence is purely informative and offers nothing in terms of story. As far as player created dialogue is concerned, I don't believe anything exists other than whether you complete the stage or give up, as there is no mechanic for failure; if you die you instantly respawn where you were seconds ago, making it so there is no way to fail the game. In previous games I've blogged about there has always been room for the player to create their own narrative throughout the game, whether they take another route or even just dying whilst playing the game, this all adds to the player's own experience with the game.

However, just because there is no player or character driven narrative, it doesn't mean there is no narrative present at all. "Even the genres where stories are not part of the gameplay at all, such as strategy or simulationoneones, fictional worlds prompt players to imagine that their actions take place within a meaningful frame" As said by this quote from 'Understanding video games', even though Fez has no real story, the environments alone are enough to create immersion; arguably they aren't very immersive as you don't spend long in any given area, there is still an element of immersion present. This could be as simple as finding an extra cube in a hidden area or staying in an area long enough for it to cycle through day and night.

I found the lack of narrative also made the game difficult to play, as it didn't provide me with any direction that a 'string of pearls' narrative would have, leaving me lost as to where I should go next. The only exception to this was if I managed to find enough cubes to unlock a door in which I was informed by a floating cube that I had now unlocked a door back at the original junction. Also, there were often times where I had to revisit areas to look for anything I'd missed which took away from the immersion of the environment as I was having to re-explore the same areas.

To summarise, Fez's narrative is told through the environment rather than any character dialogue or other interactions within the game. I found this made the game unnecessarily harder due to this. It felt as if the challenge was in figuring out where to go, rather than game play itself. This also made it fairly boring to play at times, as there was no connection formed between myself and the somewhat lacking narrative of the game.


Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S (Author). (2008). Understanding video games : the essential introduction [Book]. United States: Routledge

Polytron Corporation. (Developer). (2012). Fez [Game]. Canada: Trapdoor