Fez leaps onto Xbox 360 in 2010

Last year GameSpot nominated Braid and World of Goo as contenders for its Game of the Year awards. The games were developed by indie developers, and despite the smaller teams behind them, both were critical successes.

The next big indie hit is anyone's guess, but one developer will be throwing its "hat" into the ring soon. Polytron's highly anticipated platformer Fez has been given a rough release date of 2010 and a new platform on which to win fans. The date and confirmation that the title was coming to the Xbox Live Arcade were announced on the developer's blog, though details on the expected PC version were not forthcoming.

Fez is a platformer built entirely using Microsoft's XNA tools. It takes the form of a 2D platformer but adds a third dimension and the ability to rotate the gameworld around playable character Gomez. The game also has a unique retro 8-bit pixel art style, along with a suitably retro soundtrack.

Check out GameSpot's hands-on for more details, or watch the trailer below.