 Dead Head Fred uses the Vicious Engine , a game engine created and maintained by game design company Vicious Cycle Software . Considered " middleware " in the video game industry , the engine was designed as a simple set of creation tools that could be used across multiple consoles . The game was originally conceived as a platform game based on the character " Geo . " Vicious Cycle 's president , Eric Peterson , and some of his staff developed a conceptual world called " Prime " where Geo lived . Geo had the ability to switch his head between several different shapes ( a cube , sphere , cylinder , and pyramid ) that would help him solve puzzles , fight , and move around Prime in his quest to stop the evil King <unk> , who was trying to destroy Prime . Each of Geo 's shaped heads had unique properties that gave him different abilities — the sphere head allowed him to roll around very quickly , for example . 
