Fans of indie games have been waiting a long time for Polytron's upcoming 2D/3D platformer Fez. Oddly enough, the game's creator Phil Fish made an impromptu appearance today at the Austin Game Developer's Conference to give Fez's first live demo.

Read on to find out Fish's inspirations for Fez and what to expect when it finally hits the XBLA.

Fish started the demo by showing off a lot of the same features we've seen on video before. Though at any given point in time Fez appears to be a 2D game, you can rotate the world to reveal that certain objects are in 3D space. So for example, the tower you can't seem to figure out how to climb turns out to have a ladder, but you have to rotate your perspective first to be able to see it. Additionally, pausing the game gives the camera a kind of depth-effect, giving you a better idea of where platforms exist in space.

"So what you do in Fez is you collect cubes. There's a really important cube that explodes and you have to find all the pieces of it. Kind of like a triforce," said Fish, but left the plot at that. "I don't want to spoil the story too much, it gets kind of metaphysical."

A few accidental deaths later and he started showing that Fez goes deeper than just basic platforming. But to understand why Fez is what it is, you have to understand where it came from.

Fish related how one Christmas as a child he got Zelda, Tetris, and Mario all at the same time, and Fez reflects all of those games: Mario in its platforming, Zelda in its explorable world, and Tetris in some of its environmental puzzles. Two puzzles he showed involved throwing a bomb onto a platform in order to destroy weak pillars at key points in order to progress through the level.

I noticed a bit of Echochrome thrown in as well. In Echochrome, the key idea is that what you see is what exists, and the same applies to Fez. If you can't see a ladder, it doesn't exist. Or on the flip-side, if you can't see the giant gap between two ladders, then as far as you're concerned, they're connected.

So what can we expect when the game is finally released? It's going to be effing hard. Fish says they actually had to simplify early levels because playtesters though it was too difficult, but he fully expects some of the hardest levels to take several months to solve.

"I like to fuck with your mind," he said.