Trine

Working together to solve a common problem? What a novel idea.

Side-scrolling adventures with ultra-high production values were a rarity in 2009, says the 1001 list as it introduces us to side-scrolling action-platformer physics-puzzler Trine.

I don't know where I picked Trine up, and definitely don't know why Trine 3 is in my Steam library either, because I haven't got a clue what this game is about, and the title isn't spilling any secrets either. It looks like the kind of game you'd only know existed if you were the exact target audience it was aiming for.

If that's the case, I don't think I'm that target audience...

Fun Times

Today, Trine exists inside an Enhanced Edition, where you can opt to play it with the improvements that the sequel introduced, or as it was back in the day, which is how I'm going to play it.

If there was an option for subtitles, I missed it, but these artworks serve as the backdrop for the narrator to welcome us to the world of... wherever we are. The King is dead, there are no heirs to the throne, and the undead have decided that now is the time to rise up and wreak havoc.

Meanwhile (or maybe 'later, once things have all calmed down a bit'), a thief is sneaking into an academy where she thinks she'll find lots of undefended treasures.

Armed with a bow and arrow and a grappling hook, you control this thief through the environment, jumping over gaps and swinging around the place like spiderman.

Within a minute, we've made it inside, but the door has locked shut behind us, and we're trapped between two giant axes. No worries. Grappling hook, right?

Frustrations

Right mouse button to use your grappling hook. Yeah, I've got that, Trine, but how am I meant to best use it? I can swing and climb and dangle, but letting go with a jump is a pain in the arse, and as you can only grab onto wood, and there's no wood on the other side of the second axe, you've got to work out how to actually swing past this obstacle without any idea beyond 'Right mouse button to use your grappling hook'.

I worked out how to get back over the first axe, but that wasn't exactly forward progress, was it? No word of a lie, I quit out of the level and restarted it, thinking I had done something wrong to get stuck so easily in the tutorial, but no, this was scripted, this is your first puzzle, solve it.

Somehow I fluked my way over the second axe and ran through the door to find a massive pile of treasure, one of which seems to capture my attention and trap my soul: the Trine.

Now I'm a wizard, waking up after a failed fireball potion, with the ability to move objects from a distance and create boxes out of thin air. More puzzling solving using those mechanics leads us to a familiar-looking hallway and massive pile of treasure, and the wizard gets caught out by curiosity, too.

And now we're a warrior, decked out in armour, sword in one hand, shield in the other, hacking and slashing our way through wooden barriers, chopping down ropes to set physics puzzles into motion, and this guy, too, finds himself staring into the Trine, which has now captured and combined all three of these individuals for reasons unknown.

This, then, is Trine. 2D side-scrolling action-platformer physics-puzzler, where at the press of a button you turn into a thief, a wizard, or a warrior to engage with the next part of the environment, be it a box in need of moving, a walkway in need of swinging, or a skeleton in need of smashing.

You'll quickly see how various problems can be overcome. If a gap looks too deadly to jump over, and there's something to swing from instead, switch over to the thief to swing from it.

Alright, I find the swinging mechanics to be a right pain to use, but they are a lot quicker than creating a magic box and jumping precisely from platform to platform to avoid the spikes between and beneath.

Different characters work better in different situations. The thief does have a bow and arrow, but if you don't have the time and space to pull back on the string to power up your shot, then it's better to switch to the warrior and slash your sword like a madman. Skeletons go down in a few hits, but they'll dish out a few in no time at all if you're not on top of things.

Of course, you don't need a skeleton to get in your way to fail. If a grappling hook shot misses, or if you release from it at the wrong time, you might have just fallen into a bunch of spikes. Sorry, but that's physics for you, get good.

Too much damage and that character will die, and will only get resurrected when another character reaches a checkpoint elsewhere in the level. Better keep an eye out for health potions to keep you afloat before you succumb to yet another puzzle.

Trine gives you a lot of reasons to get annoyed. Some puzzles just don't make sense at first glance, and as soon as you dare to interact with a seesaw, you don't seem to be able to rely on how it's going to act to changes in weight.

When you can't trust how a seesaw will behave in a puzzle that uses a seesaw, you either have to have a lot of patience, skill, or find a way to cheese your way past the problem with some Scribblenauts-like thinking, usually involving the wizard creating boxes or the thief zipping around on her grappling hook.

When it all goes wrong - and for a great many reasons, I often found it all going wrong - you've got to figure out a solution to your problems with characters who aren't best equipped to succeed under those conditions.

The wizard can only make one magical box at a time, but thankfully he is as agile as the thief and can bounce his way up from the spike pit and return to where the rest of the party was a few minutes ago because this puzzle is here just to have a puzzle near a switch that opens the thing you couldn't pass earlier... 

Backtracking. Don't you love to see it?

At least with backtracking you know where you're going. You often can't see where to go in Trine, or at least I couldn't always see what it was trying to point me towards, and when I ended up at another dead end with another seesaw, I knew I just had to walk away from this one.

My brain was already taxed trying to grasp the controls, light though they are, but now I don't know why I'm here and what I'm doing, and I'm fighting the very puzzles I'm meant to be solving because the physics engine is there in the background, diligently doing its thing, and to hell with helping the player out by fudging the numbers in any way.

Final Word

Half an hour of Trine was all I managed in the end. I'm just not cut out for it. It felt like LittleBigPlanet, only without the charm. If you fail in LBP, you laugh. If you tail in Trine, you don't.

But like LBP, Trine caters to cooperative play, each player taking the role of one of the characters, and teamwork is now essential to making any sort of progress through the levels. I read that it's much better to play Trine as a co-op, and I can certainly agree with that.

There's a slim chance I'll play the Enhanced Edition, and a slim chance of seeing what Trine 3 is like as well. I mean, I've got them both, somehow, so I might as well check them out. Does the Enhanced Edition make grappling hooks easier to use? Is Trine 3 easier to look at?

Trine does look pretty good, to be fair. I probably should have said so earlier, before I went and moaned about how plays and how dumb I am.

Don't let my irks get in your way. For someone in search of physics puzzles in their platformer, Trine has something to offer, and for someone who doesn't, well, give it a shot anyway.

Fun Facts

The game was little more than a side project until another project fell apart and something needed to fill its place. A few sequels later, that was probably quite a good little side project.

Trine, developed by Frozenbyte, first released in 2009.

Version played: Trine: Enhanced Edition, 2014.