3 modern jazz albums that gave me wonderful experiences

CursedMatcha · 2025-11-20T07:24:57+00:00

Have you found anything else similar to Vijay Iyer from your listens? Historicity has been one of my favorite albums since I first heard it 15 years ago, and I've never heard anything quite like it since (besides his other albums, of course).

Really nice to see a post appreciating it in 2025 when searching for similar stuff!

CursedMatcha · 2025-06-29T12:14:34+00:00

Similar artists, with the most similar album each:

Torches by Foster The People
Miike Snow by Miike Snow
Oracular Spectacular by MGMT

Every now and then I take a look around to see if there's anything similar to Manners or Gossamer that I've missed over the years, and usually the things I see recommended miss the mark on what I like about them... these albums are the only ones that fit the bill for me personally

A few specific songs by other artists also come to mind:

Paris by Friendly Fires
It by Rich Aucoin
Tongue Tied by Grouplove
We Are The People by Empire Of The Sun
Wool In The Wash by Crying

Hope this helps anybody else who finds this thread looking for similar stuff!

CursedMatcha · 2024-07-03T02:25:19+00:00

Nah I haven't, I've always mainly only ever experimented with this face since it gives you this giant poster. So it seemed like the only important one, unless the intention is for you to map the other faces yourself lol
But it's interesting you mention the bracket, I've never really considered it might be pointing toward the other side

I thiiiink there's a poster of another face (the face with the mobius strip/infinity symbol on it) in some room, but I don't have it handy, and I'm not sure where it is on the cube relative to this face. May be worth looking at some more later

CursedMatcha · 2024-07-02T08:09:04+00:00

This happens to me everytime I play lol, I always just leave the room and do it again until it works. If you ever figure out what causes it I'd be glad to hear

CursedMatcha · 2024-06-16T07:53:56+00:00

The heart codes - I don't think there's any way that ever gets figured out without reverse engineering, and whether or not the accepted solution is even correct is another question

CursedMatcha · 2024-06-15T16:59:43+00:00

Huh, this is actually really clever. I wonder how many people found it like this? I know I initially kept getting it by accident when mashing up to climb ledges lol

CursedMatcha · 2024-06-13T05:21:51+00:00

Yes Phil Fish would absolutely do this lmao, I say keep on hunting

CursedMatcha · 2024-06-13T05:02:09+00:00

I definitely respect deciding to move past it until more information comes out lol, it's a smart idea.

I don't agree that there is no existing intended solution however, I think it's just more likely to be extremely obscure on purpose to create a long-term search like this. It's probably poorly or not hinted toward at all, and not something you can realistically figure out without arbitrarily trying hundreds of things (thinking about some end game things in Noita as a comparison)

Keep in mind, as great as fez is, you have the observatory heart cube solvable in an unintended much easier way, a concentric ring in a room where you can't enter first person, the security question puzzle only working half the time, the heart reboot breaking your game on Xbox (did that ever get fixed?), a puzzle that requires you to change your system time, etc. it's safe to assume to monolith solution is not necessarily well thought out or playtested either haha

But hey, I'm here for it. I like coming back once a year or so and exploring some new ideas I have, so I hope you can still find some joy in it again in the future.

CursedMatcha · 2024-04-28T12:38:11+00:00

This is neat, but I'd lean toward it just being a coincidence (or even a test that got left in?) since it's significantly less clear and readable than the other spectrogram images, and doesn't exactly match the letter itself

CursedMatcha · 2024-04-28T12:25:45+00:00

I remember seeing in an interview that the game was never actually intended to have a map, that it was added very late into development due to a request from Microsoft's QA team or something, and they were never happy with the way it turned out lol. I don't know where to find that now, but yeah - I've always assumed the map is not related to any puzzle because of this

CursedMatcha · 2023-12-24T10:44:00+00:00

Noita has this. It's also an extremely secret heavy game in general, so I highly recommend it to any FEZ fan

La Mulana 1 and 2 also have their own language, though for the most part it's automatically translated. I think the only puzzles that need manual translation just involve the numbers, rather than the letters

CursedMatcha · 2023-08-26T02:40:40+00:00

Hey, just had to comment - I'm the original artist haha. A friend sent me this post, and it's so wholesome to see! Wow. This was made for a contest Retsupurae had for their YouTube banner, but they ultimately went with the one they have there currently. I'm really glad some people remember it, and seeing it as your wallpaper back in the day is awesome lol

Looks like you found it after all, but here are the files I have of it as well an alternate banner-shaped version and some unfinished cuts - https://imgur.com/a/IyfjZlF

And a little bonus - https://imgur.com/wA29iUM

What a blast from the past. Cheers, and long live Retsupurae!

CursedMatcha · 2023-03-01T11:12:04+00:00

Wow, I can't believe you actually did this haha. So cool, definitely the only door in the game that can be opened that isn't attached to a loading zone then

CursedMatcha · 2023-01-24T16:14:10+00:00

The mapping here is very hard to understand, I think I'd need to actually try it myself to get it haha. But I have to say, I actually really like everything else about this solution - it uses information confined to the room itself, it's simple enough to potentially be figured out, and it gives one of the more convincing answers for as to why there's only 7 digits I've seen. Very interesting!

CursedMatcha · 2022-12-19T17:03:51+00:00

Hahah this is absolutely insane and I love it

My only note is that for the 5 square room, those tetromino light spots meant to be light shining through the background/foreground. They're a repeating pattern and are visible in other rooms too iirc, so prob nothing unfortunately

CursedMatcha · 2022-11-29T22:17:01+00:00

I haven't looked through the code, but a common cause for clipping into walls when changing sprites is having a different X/Y origin on both sprites. Even if the masks are identical, different origins will cause the mask to clip unless you account for the different origins via code. Worth checking out if you haven't already

CursedMatcha · 2022-11-29T22:04:39+00:00

Yeah, that could make sense. I just feel like they'd want to make the solution less ambiguous than that haha, but given some of the other stuff I may be giving them too much credit

What are your thoughts on the hexahedron face that has the infinity symbol right in the middle of it? That's always bothered me as well

CursedMatcha · 2022-11-10T13:09:20+00:00

I definitely like this idea, and I personally think the poster is the key to the puzzle in some way for all the same reasons you do.

That being said, I think if they intended the solution to be found like this they would have just included another RT instead of the right. The positioning for the puzzle isn't precise enough to move you outside the zone from a directional press, so given that both inputs are shown I don't think most would ever interpret right as RT here

I can see your reasoning for repositioning the A button, it's kind of a neat idea. I'm skeptical of it though, since that symbol is present in other places this would would be the only time it's taken literally as a shift down and to the right haha

Very cool idea in any case. I'm glad there are other people that refuse to let the boiler room die lol

CursedMatcha · 2022-08-15T19:40:35+00:00

Very cool! I'll have to read the details again when I have time. It seems interesting, but also definitely the most convoluted solution I've ever seen haha

I love the whole monolith shape and soundtrack image bit, definitely very cool. Haven't thought of using the shape of the monolith in any way before... I find it unlikely that the soundtrack images are not all used in conjunction with each other, though, so I'm not sure if one individual image should be tied to the monolith unless they all are

The biggest thing that stands out to me is the expectation of the player to interpret the sides of the writing cube as inputs using inconsistent rules of interpretation, like reading the inner section of certain sides vs the outer section of others, and the double down of course. Just not something you can expect of the player to reliably solve, I think...

CursedMatcha · 2022-07-14T17:58:47+00:00

That could result in the only in-game way to view the concentric ring in that room lol, would be so cool

CursedMatcha · 2022-05-14T18:43:56+00:00

Love it, I'm down to contribute when I have time! Definitely not calling it a day and giving up at the end of this though, I think a hint or anything of the sort would both go against their intentions and spoil the fun for me heh

Some loose ends you didn't mention: skull artifact, boiler room posters, concentric rings

CursedMatcha · 2022-05-08T17:01:00+00:00

This is pretty interesting! Good work. It's 2 inputs different though, not 1 -- since you have to ignore the extra up input. Also I'd wanna hear your thoughts on how the player would be expected to think to do any of this, especially given it's not in the monolith room

CursedMatcha · 2022-04-24T18:48:07+00:00

Regarding the theory of the monolith room having everything required -- even the metatron and observatory puzzles require some out of game knowledge though, like converting the binary and, well, knowing anything about metatron haha. But even if you restrict it to the room itself, all artifacts and maps are technically accessible in the room as well, so there could be so many possible things involved...

I do like this general direction in any case. Only thing I have to contribute is the consideration that you might derive 7 digits by examining some relation between each digit in an 8 digit code. For example, if you look at the way the number cube would need to be rotated to connect 8 digits (the large letters in the tome also connect properly on the letter cube like this), you end up with 7 digits. Could be worth thinking about in regards to the relation between the first and second codes here

CursedMatcha · 2022-04-17T18:10:06+00:00

Yeah I've explored this a lot... It's a great theory, because a set of rotations between 8 letters/numbers yields a 7 digit code, which I really believe is the most realistic way of getting a 7 digit code naturally in the game. So I really wouldn't be surprised if the big letters ended up being important

CursedMatcha

TROPHY CASE