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Trine is a game of threes. The theif, the wizard, the warrior. The three artefacts. Each character's three abilities. And, most importantly, the fact that the game is all three RPG, platformer and puzzler. Let's take a look into Frozenbyte's masterpiece...
Thanks to my nice new PC (as discussed on the forum) and a predisposition towards getting hold of this game, I enthusiastically downloaded Steam and went for Trine. I've been harping on about this game for ages on the podcast and yet I didn't really know what it involved, other than it was a three-oriented puzzle-type effort that was meant to be amazing. And I was not disappointed.
While the feel of the controls was a bit alien to me (it has been a couple of years since I actually played a game seriously on the PC) I was instantly struck by the game's utter beauty. I'm running it at 1280 x 1024 and it looks amazing. The lighting, the textures, all rich and impressive. The scale of the environments is immense. As a faux 3D sidescroller (think LittleBigPlanet but with only one playable layer) it certainly takes its illusion of depth seriously. The layers of environment are lusciously rendered and while I could harp on about how beautiful it looks for paragraph upon paragraph, I probably should move on. Let's just say that it's a gorgeous-looking game and leave it at that.
The gameplay takes three parts. One is the puzzle: how do I get from here to there? Another is combat: hordes of undead need reducing to dusty bones. The third is RPG: what abilities will you level up? Who should keep hold of which magical items and such. The concept is that a magical artefact known as the Trine has bound the theif, the wizard and the warrior together as one entity that can switch between these three individuals at will. If the undead are giving you trouble, you become the warrior. If you have a puzzle that requires blocks to be placed in certain areas, then you employ the wizard to conjur such items up. If you need to go leaping and springing about, use the theif and her graplling hook. Posts with balls of light atop them act as checkpoints that restore health and energy (used for special abilities) and resurrect fallen members of your peculiar party. If, say, the warrior dies, then you can become the theif or the wizard and carry on. While the theif's arrows and flaming arrows are a good match for the enemies, the wizard has no offensive spells, but can use his creation spells offensively, creating a large box above a skeleton and dropping it on them is as cumbersome an attack as it is satisfying. There's a storyline there, and the three members of your player squabble in an acceptably amusing fashion, but you don't have to sit through all that, you don't have to listen, you can just get on with the game, which is great, to be given the choice to subscribe to the backstory or not. There are hidden chests and extra experience potions (get 50 and you go up a level) littered in hard-to-get-to places. It's up to you to use your brain to figure out how to get to them after first being sharp enough to spot them. Some of them are very, very devilish. And this is something that really keeps Trine going in my mind, that it actually is rewarding. You do feel a sense of achievement once you've overcome a puzzle or a big boss battle. That, and the fact that it's pretty cool to make the wizard spawn these blocks, planks and floating inverted pyramids all over the show. You are given your tools, given your environment and left to it and I love that feeling of freeform. There are no big, glowing, semitransparent boxes where things are meant to be, you just have to wing it, based on how you think things will react and most of the time, they will react how you think they will. 
Which brings us onto the physics. The physics of Trine are very, very realistic and impressively employed as puzzle and gameplay devices. Some things float in water, others don't, the wizard's conjured planks will apply force to stacked boxes, your weight will affect balanced items and it's all as you'd expect, which means you can - and have to - act instinctively at times. Once you've mastered the controls, Trine flows as beautifully as it looks, carrying you along in a most rewarding and pleasing fashion. 
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