By Jim Rossignol on December 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am.
Trine is a physics-based fantasy platform adventure that looks really rather good. The press blurb explains the main concept: “Trine is a fantasy action game where the player can create and use physics-based objects to beat hazardous puzzles and threatening enemies. Set in a world of great castles and strange machinery, three heroes are bound to a mysterious device called the Trine in a quest to save the kingdom from evil…”
Anyway, that physics action makes it a rather splendid puzzler – a kind of Crayon Physics meets Prince Of Persia – so take a look at the trailer after the jump for elucidation. The game is due to hit in Q2 next year.
Looks quite lovely.
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Looks fun and has some pretty catchy music too. I hope they manage to integrate the platforming with the physics-puzzling in a way that makes neither feel like a drag when playing.
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Wow this looks like a cool platformer.
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Very pretty. For some reason it makes me think of Overlord – could be the title font and the forest design.
I wonder if there’s a mechanic to stop you from hovering a wall beneath you to ‘magic carpet’ your way across the level
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Yeah, it’s got the same kind of cartoon neon-edged look as Overlord.
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It looks very good. Of course, the ever-present problem with these games is whether the premise will be realised or not. Still, keep us informed on this one, RPS overlords! ;)
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Interesting… I wonder how the controls feel, switching from the mouse to draw the outlines for objects, and then back to the keyboard to make the jump, etc.
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Great idea and nice atmosphere, looks very promising.
Certainly looking forward to it.
Edit: btw, what happened to saturday (yesterday)’s part of 12 games of christmas?
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Ooh, that looks really good.
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For some reason, reminds me of the first 2 Oddworld games. Which can only be a good thing.
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Reminds us how platforming is so much better in 2D.
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Gots that Okami “Drawing the World” thing also.
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Well that looks splendid.
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We the people demand a demo! Although I bet the crayon physics dude is now looking at this going, “why the hell didn’t I think of that!”
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The guy with the sword looks sort of like the Overlord, too.
Anyway, that was lovely! I’m not normally into platformers, but I loved how seamless the physics were in that, and how organic the animations and visuals were. I’ll echo Trez’s comment about the music. ‘s nice.
Thanks for pointing this out, RPS, and I look forward to a demo!
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There’re some beautiful animations there. I wonder if I’ll have the wit to think up some of the moves it shows in the trailer when I play it, I’ll probably just end up stacking boxes to bypass every obstacle…
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I wonder how will this compare to LittleBigPlanet?
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@Jahkaivah
So far, it’s about even – they’re both video games.
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Also, Trine is from the makers of Shadowgrounds.
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looks nice but the name sucks
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Also just noticed something looking at the trailer again. There appear to be 3 classes, Ranger, Warrior, Wizard and you can freely switch between them.
Wizard can summon objects and levitate, Ranger can shot and use a grapple hook, Warrior can hit things.
(kinda obvious but didn’t observe it first time round)
@MeestaNob!
My god…. really?
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Why is there so much negativity towards LittleBigPlanet on here?
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I’m really enjoying LittleBigPlanet, as and when I can get a good group via the Tubes.
Its platforming is a little gitchy however, and could have done with some tightening.
This, btw, looks gorgeous. Yay for 2.5d. Although the main character animations seems a little off.
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Fede: Christmas celebration posts are weekdays only. At the weekend, we rest, with tea and biscuits.
Tasty tea.
KG
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[Open-mouthed-with-glee-emoticon]
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I wasn’t too excited until it got to 1:00 by which point I was pawing at the screen and mewling. Kind of like when Konnie Huq, Tamsin Greig or (bizarrely) Rik Mayll appear or the telly.
Do want!
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Looks pretty cool, thanks for the heads-up.
nabeel
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i like it, but the animations seem off to me
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I’m trine to think of a reason I shouldn’t get excited. Can’t think of one.
Ho ho ho.
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oh me god – oh my god – could this be the NEXT WOG? :D
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Been looking forward to this ever since I first read about it. Nice to see some video too, looks really great.
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This does look rather special, ta for the heads up RPS!
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That trailer made me want to replay Lost Vikings.
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The Crayon Physics dude worked for them (Frozenbyte) before showing it to the man and going independent, right?
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Crayon Physics + The Lost Vikings?
Nice.
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Looks excellent. Might have to pick it up after I get a new GFX card.
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Looks really nice, but I’m getting sick of the Indie Physics genre
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Maybe Trine will be so good that everyone else cancels their indie physics projects and makes hentai physics games.
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I don’t know BeamSplashX, there’s just not much ground to cover there. I mean, once you’ve played one upskirt simulator you’ve pretty much played them all. And there’s not much else to do with physics in a hentai game.
Unless you want to get into fluid dynamics, well then let’s just not go there.
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Made by the shadowgrounds guys? Get me a 100mb demo and 50kb of critical analysys stat!
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Neato! Looks like Contra meets Diablo meets Crayon Physics!
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Never expected something this awesome from the Shadowgrounds devs. I can’t wait, I only hope it remains a fun adventure and doesn’t lose its charm while trying to push the “innovation” (physics-drawing-puzzles) too much. Ie, hopefully it stays Prince of Persia-esque like you say, rather than become a puzzle game halfway through, like say, Vagrant Story.
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I dunno, if it’s anything like Shadowgrounds they’ll take the same fun mechanic and just keep running with it. I doubt there’ll be much more innovation than you see in the trailer (which is plenty I think).
To me, that’s the beauty of Shadowgrounds – simple fun. You’ve seen it all before – now do it in a single video game for hours on end! Kind of like playing Combat Arms without the six-year-old idiot hackers.
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sounds like latrine crossed with urine?
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I haven’t checked but I get the feeling that this game isn’t American or Japanese. I’m guessing European and probably central European.
I Don’t what what it is about it but it has a quality that somehow Jap or Yank games always lack.
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Update: Just checked Frozenbyte on Wikipedia. Finish. So i was a little south in my estimate but just about the right longitude.
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Hot damn? Where did this come from? Sweet.
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Man, that’s pretty charming. I’ve been charmed!
But the cynic-worm in me thinks it’ll end up console-only.
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Balls to cynic-worm! These boys are PC stalwarts.
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Balls to the cynic-worm!
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The opposite. With the control system they’re showing, I don’t think it’d work at all on a console.
KG
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Positively awesome
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You mean it’s not about building a railway across Australia?
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Trine is a physics-based fantasy platform adventure that looks really rather good.
Really rather good?
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Yes?
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Really rather good is a staple comment for games that are genuinely good looking due to gameplay, rather than the generic “it looks good”. Should be in the dictionary really.
This looks fun in the way World of Goo makes you coo everytime you complete a level. I’d be interested in seeing where this leads…
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looks alright, but I would really like to see a more 3d game on this premise.
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I think it looks splendid, and the waterwheel/plank physics had me giggling with girlish glee.
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Btw, the end of the cinematic clearly promises “Coming to Playstation Network and PC”.
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The one comparison that immediately hit me was not to Overlord but to Blizzard’s The Lost Vikings (three classes, each with differing special abilities all of whom have to work together and be swapped between, in order to bypass different interesting environments). Sure Vikings used a cartoony graphics style and this looks very much more pretty, but you know, I would have expected that after 16 years. From a gameplay perspective though, these look very similar.
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