35 Facts About Phil Fish

Phil Fish was born and raised in Quebec, where his experiences with Nintendo games in his youth would later influence his game design.

Phil Fish studied game design at the Montreal National Animation and Design Centre, and worked at Ubisoft and Artificial Mind and Movement before starting Polytron in 2008.

Polytron later published the 2015 Panoramical, and Phil Fish returned with Kokoromi to release SuperHyperCube in 2016.

Phil Fish was born Philippe Poisson in Montreal in 1984.

Phil Fish was raised in Quebec, where his parents shared their interest in art and gaming with him.

Phil Fish's father translated The Legend of Zelda into French so the two could play together.

Phil Fish graduated from the 2004 Design and Digital Art for Video Games program at the Montreal NAD.

Phil Fish began his career at the video game publisher Ubisoft, where he worked on Open Season as a level designer.

Phil Fish was initially excited for the job but grew disenchanted with their large development teams and working conditions.

Phil Fish later described it as "the worst experience of [his] life".

On May 24,2006, Phil Fish won the Artificial Mind and Movement Award for Best Cut-Scene at the annual NAD Center Awards of Excellence Gala.

Later that year, Phil Fish began work as a level designer at Artificial Mind and Movement, where he designed for film tie-in games including The Golden Compass.

Phil Fish is a founding member of Kokoromi, a group that designs and promotes experimental video games.

Phil Fish planned a similar event, GAMMA 256, for 2007, and a third event, GAMMA 3D, for November 2008 in Montreal.

Phil Fish was invited to present a lecture on GAMMA 01 at the 2007 Game Developers Conference.

Phil Fish wrote a review of the 1999 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in the 2007 book Space Time Play: Synergies Between Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level.

Phil Fish has been characterized by Sean Hollister of The Verge as "notorious for voicing angry, controversial opinions about the state of video games".

Phil Fish initially defended the comments, but later acknowledged that he had been rude and apologized.

Phil Fish began to work with Toronto-based indie developer Shawn McGrath on McGrath's idea for a puzzle game that showed 2D views of a 3D space.

Phil Fish provided the project's art until the partnership crumbled due to creative differences: Phil Fish wanted their product to be more of a platform game.

Phil Fish continued to work on the game in his spare time, and incorporated the idea of voxels, where a 2D pixel could be seen from four sides.

Phil Fish searched for a programmer on DeviantArt and Renaud Bedard, the first person to apply, became the game's programmer.

Phil Fish marked this January 2008 moment as "when I became indie".

Phil Fish felt the game would work better with the new Kinect motion tracking.

The film chronicles the stories of several indie developers at various stages of their games' development cycles, and Phil Fish is shown preparing for Fez booth at PAX East in March 2011.

Eurogamer wrote that the scene where Phil Fish resolves to kill himself if he does not release his game is "the film's most startling moment".

Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote that Phil Fish is portrayed as melodramatic, existential, theatrical, and neurotic in contrast with the other developers shown in the film, which would exacerbate his outspoken public perception.

The game sold one million copies by the end of 2013 and Phil Fish announced eventual ports for most video game platforms.

On Twitter, Phil Fish condemned the industry for its negativity before his final tweet announced the cancellation and his leave.

Phil Fish was an early target of Gamergate; his personal and company records were hacked and released publicly in August 2014.

Phil Fish responded by announcing that the company and Fez property were for sale.

Phil Fish designed the boot-up animations for the Analogue Super Nt console in 2017.

Phil Fish spoke about the cancellation of Fez 2 and his self-declared departure from the industry in a 2023 interview on the My Perfect Console podcast.

Phil Fish claimed that the cancellation had less to do with the argument with Beer and more with his own lack of interest in creating a sequel.

Phil Fish called the Twitter spat an "out" borne from his own frustrations at having suddenly become a public figure from Indie Game: The Movie as well as the obligations of trying to build on his success by creating a sequel he did not care to make.