Trine Two Players

[Zita Lifland]

Trine4: The Nightmare Prince is a stunningly beautiful game that features excellent accessibility options. While players must hold certain buttons to utilize specific actions, the overall pacing allows disabled individuals to indefinitely rest to recover their strength.

Developed by Frozenbyte, and published by Modus Games, Trine 4 places players in the hands of Amadeus, Pontius, and Zoya as they traverse stunningly beautiful landscapes to rescue a young prince with dangerous ties to magic. In order to effectively complete each stage, the trio must utilize their unique character powers to create platforms, scale walls, and bash through structures, all while simultaneously acquiring collectibles.

While the capability to customize every key is a welcome sight, Trine 4 may become challenging for some when playing as Amadeus the wizard. Amadeus can conjure several shapes to create new pathways, a necessary power when attempting to complete levels or collect items. Much like Zoya and Pontius, players can create different shapes by pressing a corresponding key. However, Trine 4 offers an option that enables individuals to physically draw different shapes with the mouse, thus allowing Amadeus to spawn varying objects. For disabled players that have difficulty holding buttons, pressing a key is an excellent substitute. Yet, if players, much like myself, are unable to utilize much of their keyboard, they must sacrifice a limited number of keys to effectively play as Amadeus.

However, this game has co-op, and the marvelous puzzle mechanics have to work for up to three players as well as for one, and for the most part, they do. The game plays slightly differently depending on how many players you bring along, as each player controls one of the characters. In a two-player game, either player may switch to whatever the remaining class would be, but it will take an enormous amount of communication to determine who takes over and when. Three players is ideal, as each character will be represented at all times- the Knight can cover everything combat-wise while the Wizard and Thief work on navigating the world and doing their part so solve the puzzles.

The challenge is raised considerably in co-op, because you will need to make sure that each character can make their own way through the world instead of just whoever you choose to control, and being able to master combinations of moves is critical. The Knight can use his shield to block fireballs that would otherwise be harder to avoid by the Wizard, the Wizard can attach wooden blocks to ceiling spikes that create a new path for the Thief to grapple on, and the Thief can reach plenty of areas neither of the other characters can. Your range of motion is limited to the edge of the screen, and though the camera will pan back a bit to allow for more movement, you will eventually get teleported back together.

I played the PC version of Trine, and though you are able to play using a mouse and keyboard combination, it is far easier to play using a gamepad. As it happens, the game natively supports the Xbox 360 controller, so if you've got a spare wired controller (or sprung for the wireless receiver for your computer) lying around, plug that bad boy in. Unfortunately, the lack of online play did nothing to help enable decent co-op sessions for me. Getting a crowd of people to a.) huddle around a desk (barring someone hooking their PC up to their HDTV) and b.) have three suitable gamepads to play on is a chore. While the developers have alluded to a possible patch to enable online co-op, it doesn't exactly help players now.

When all is said and done, Trine is one of the finest, most charming puzzle platformers I have ever played, and though I would normally remain platform-agnostic, I would have to recommend co-op players lean towards the upcoming PSN release, if only because the couch co-op will be easier to manage, and you won't have to stick someone with the keyboard.

Trine is a puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Frozenbyte. The game was originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2009, and has since been ported to Linux, OS X, and game consoles. The game takes place in a medieval fantasy setting and allows players to take control of three separate characters who can battle enemies and solve environmental puzzles.

The player controls and switches between three different characters (a thief, a knight, and a wizard) to try to complete levels. There is also a cooperative play feature, whereby multiple players can join in at any time to control different characters simultaneously. Each character has their own health and energy meter. Energy is used for certain weapons and abilities, and is replenished by blue-colored bottles found throughout levels. Health is replenished by collecting heart-shaped containers, which result from destroying certain enemies.

The player also has a single experience rating that is shared among all characters, and is incremented by acquiring green-colored bottles found throughout levels and by defeating enemies. Every 50 experience points, each character is given one point towards the purchase of upgrades to their abilities. Treasure chests are also spread throughout levels, each containing a charm that offers the bearing character new or upgraded abilities. The player can transfer these objects between characters, though some will only have an effect on certain characters.

Checkpoints are spread throughout levels, in the form of silver orbs on pedestals. Upon crossing a checkpoint, any deceased characters are brought back to life, and any characters below a certain amount of health and energy are replenished up to that amount. The amount of energy and health replenished is dependent upon the difficulty setting chosen by the player. When a character dies, the player must choose another living character to continue playing the level. If all three characters die, the player is sent back to the last checkpoint crossed, and all three characters are resurrected.

Enemies primarily include walking skeletons, spiders, and bats, along with boss characters, like giant skeletons and other large creatures. Some skeletons are armed with swords, others with bows and arrows, some spit fire, and some have shields. Skeletons are capable of scaling walls. Other dangers include lava, fireballs, giant sharp pendulums, and various other booby traps.

Amadeus the Wizard, voiced by Kevin Howarth, has the ability to use sorcery to move objects remotely, as well as conjure new objects into existence. Initially, the Wizard is only able to conjure a cube-shaped object. At some point in the game, he acquires the ability to conjure an oblong platform (called a "plank" in the game). The box and plank behave as normal objects, obeying the laws of physics and gravity. The Wizard later acquires the ability to conjure a floating object shaped like a square pyramid (called a floating platform in the game), which remains at a fixed point in space unless the Wizard moves it.

Conjured objects are primarily used to help overcome obstacles and reach difficult areas. The plank, for example, can be used to bridge gaps. All conjuring and remote moving drains the Wizard's energy. The Wizard has no traditional attacks, however he can crush certain enemies by hurling objects into them. He can also block attacks by conjuring or moving objects in their path. The Wizard's possible upgrades include the ability to conjure more than one box or plank into simultaneous existence (whereas initially only one of each could be on the screen at once), changing future conjured floating platforms into wood (so that the Thief can attach her grappling hook to it), and making the floating platform into an explosive that the Knight or thief can trigger. In the game, he is shown as being wise but also foolish, cowardly but determined, and imagines himself to be a bit of a ladies man.

Pontius the Knight's initial weapons are his sword and shield. He is voiced in the game by Brian Bowles, and is presented as a brave and loyal companion despite the fact he is not that bright, and has a strong love for food and drink. The player can at some point acquire a flaming sword during the game, which the Knight can use to inflict more damage as well as use to light torches; the player can also pick up a sledgehammer for Pontius. The Knight also has the ability to lift certain objects and hurl them, and his shield can be used to deflect enemy attacks, as well as falling objects and projectiles. The Knight's possible upgrades include additional sword damage, charging attacks, and additional sledgehammer attacks.

Trine takes place in a forsaken and ruined kingdom. After enjoying a period of great peace, the king died without leaving an heir, plunging the kingdom into political instability. Taking advantage of the chaos, an undead army suddenly appeared and attacked, forcing the inhabitants to abandon the realm, save for those few souls brave enough to face the perils that had now befallen it.

The game's story is primarily told by an all knowing narrator voiced by Terry Wilton. Speaking after the fact, he fills in plot details in between the levels, as well as introducing and concluding the game.

After some time, the Astral Academy, an institution of magical studies, is evacuated due to the undead menace; Zoya the Thief sees this as an opportunity to search the academy for treasure. Unknown to her, Amadeus the Wizard is just waking up after sleeping for a fortnight due to a backfired potion he prepared while trying to learn the fireball spell; he realizes he must escape immediately. Finally, Pontius the Knight had also arrived, convinced that it was his duty to protect the academy. The three meet at the shrine of ancient treasure and, touching a magical object at the same time, disappear. The Wizard recalls that the treasure is actually an artifact called the Trine, which has the power to bind souls. This results in only one of them being able to physically exist, with the other two being forced to remain inside the Trine. Amadeus also remembers that the Trine was connected to the legend of a guardian, whose tomb could be found under the Astral Academy.

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