Phil Fish

This article is about the video game designer. For the Barney Miller character, see Phil Fish (character). For the 17th and 18th century French actor, see Philippe Poisson (actor).

Phil Fish
Fish wearing anaglyph (3D) glasses, a black tie and vest, and blue cardigan while holding a red drink at the GAMMA 3D 2008 video game event
Fish at GAMMA 3D in 2008
Born
Philippe Poisson

1984 (age 39–40)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
OccupationGame designer
EmployerPolytron Corporation
Known forFez

Philippe Poisson (born 1984), better known as Phil Fish, is a French Canadian former indie game designer best known for the 2012 platform game Fez. He was born and raised in Quebec, where his experiences with Nintendo games in his youth would later influence his game design. He 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.

Fish was a founding member of Kokoromi, a collective that explores experimental gameplay ideas, and organized Montreal's annual GAMMA games events. While Fez was in development, Fish worked on other unreleased games at Polytron including SuperHyperCube and Power Pill. Fez was released in April 2012 to widespread acclaim after a protracted five-year development cycle. Its final phases of development were shown in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which brought Fish fame unusual for game developers.

Following an online argument and doxxing, Fish publicly announced his exit from game development twice over the next two years, citing long-term mistreatment by the industry. Polytron later published the 2015 Panoramical, and Fish returned with Kokoromi to release SuperHyperCube in 2016.