When you look at the Nordic game development scene, filled with highlights such as Max Payne, Battlefield, Hitman, and Kane and Lynch, there seems to be a bit of a violent streak. In recent months, though, we're seeing that change. Danish developer IO is currently making a game about smaller-than-normal ninjas instead of another Hitman or Kane & Lynch, and now Frozenbyte (developer of the serious sci-fi shooter Shadowgrounds) is embracing the fantasy genre with Trine.

While it incorporates Terry Pratchett-style fantasy with certain gameplay elements from Little Big Planet, Trine is essentially a side-scrolling puzzle-based PSN and PC platformer, with most of the puzzles revolving around the games' physics engine and the use of three characters.

Click the image above to check out all Trine screens.

The premise starts with a thief, wizard, and knight finding themselves at something called Astral Academy, which houses an "ancient object" known as a trine. All three characters end up getting caught inside the trine, resulting in a situation where only one character can leave it at a given moment. It's a story built to provide gameplay, basically.

When playing, you can switch between the three characters at any time with a click of a shoulder button. As you would assume, each character has a different set of skills: The knight's sword and shield make him useful in combat. The thief can hit foes with a crossbow, move quickly, and use a hook to attach to objects and swing around.

The wizard ends up serving as the most interesting of the bunch, since he can conjure objects out of thin air. For example, if you draw a rectangular shape with a cursor, he will conjure a box that you can then use in the game.

The fun part comes from playing around with the physics properties of the box -- if you conjure it in the air, it will crash down onto the floor (a useful way to kill enemies). The wizard can also manipulate certain objects in the world with this cursor -- place it on top of objects, and it transforms into a hand to show that you can grab the object to move it around.


Early on, the game takes place in the vaults and cellars of Astral Academy (the whole game consists of about 15 levels with a variety of environments). These levels are littered with boxes (useful as stepping stones) and strange contraptions such as huge rotating wheels (which the thief can grab onto using his hook) and a two-wheeled platform on rails holding up a rock (you have to swing the rock around by moving the platform above it, and then use that momentum to smash the rock into a wooden door to make your way through).

The physics work quite well, and playing around with objects and experimenting is very entertaining. Even with our short hands-on time, it's clear that there are a lot of creative ways you can solve the puzzles.

A previously unannounced feature is a co-op mode, which allows each character to be controlled independently if you have three players available. This, combined with the physics engine, allows for a fair amount of experimentation. For example, the knight and the thief can stand on a box or a piece of rock -- which the wizard can manipulate to fly around the screen. One co-op puzzle I played started with a broken bridge, where one part was attached to a cliff, but the other end was hanging loose. With the wizard, I could either stack some boxes to prop up the loose end, or grab the loose end and keep it steady while the other characters crossed.

At the moment, while the controls work well for the most part, the swinging mechanic feels a bit too fiddly, and some of the timing with jumps needs some more polish work. Hopefully, these issues will be ironed out before the game's summer release on PSN and PC.