After Trine 3 was something of a disappointment, an experiment of sorts that went wrong you could say, Frozenbyte Games went back to the basics for Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince. The game was a success, we enjoyed it, and it seemed to get the franchise back on track by going back to its roots- and it’s not done just yet, as more story DLC is coming.

It was announced that a new DLC add-on would be coming to the game, entitled Melody of Mystery. It involves the cast going back to the Astral Academy to investigate why all the students have fallen into a mysterious enchanted sleep. It’ll have six new levels that will include new puzzles and abilities. Alongside the announcement came a brief teaser, which you can see below.

Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC. Melody of Mystery will release on all platforms in Spring of 2021.

I’ve somehow managed to avoid playing Trine despite owning several on the games and the positive word of mouth that surrounds the series, but you don’t have to be familiar with the previous games to understand what’s going on. The titular Trine – Amadeus the wizard, Zoya the Thief, and Pontius the Knight – have all split off on their own adventures, but they’re quickly reunited when they’re sent after Prince Selius, an arrogant royal who accessed forbidden magic and submerged the kingdom in his nightmares. The gang’s task is simple: find Selius and bring him back to the Astral Academy, who can help put things right.

"Trine’s characters are what makes it unique. You can switch between them at will, and each has different abilities. "

You manage to find Selius pretty early on, but he refuses to come with you, so you end up tailing him as he runs around, hoping that this is the time the kid will see reason. Of course, he always figures out some way to escape, and you have to track him down again. It’s like when you’re playing a fighting game and all the characters are fighting because the game really needs to give you something to do. There’s no real reason for it other than the game needing to justify getting you to the next thing, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense in context, but you’re not particularly upset about it. What I’m saying is that Trine 4’s story isn’t particularly compelling. It’s just there to give you a reason to do what you’re doing, and that’s fine. Pontius, Zoya, and Amadeus manage to stand out despite that. They’re fun characters with defined personalities, and the sense of shared history here makes their conversations and interplay feel genuine.

The real core of Trine 4’s appeal is its gameplay, and that’s where it delivers. The game is a 2.5D platformer with a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving. Anyone who’s played an indie game in the last decade knows that this isn’t a new or unique recipe, but Trine’s characters are what makes it interesting. You can switch between them at will, and each has different abilities. Pontius is your heavy hitter. He can use his sword to break boxes and attack enemies. He can also reflect attacks, light, and projectiles with his shield, and his charge ability allows him to dash across gaps and propel objects into breakable walls. The downside is that he’s rather slow and doesn’t jump very high (the man likes his pie).

Zoya can attack from long range with her bow, but she can also use her arrows to freeze platforms in place to make puzzles easier. She also has a grappling hook, which can move objects, allow her to access distant grapple points, and make rope bridges between objects. Amadeus doesn’t have much in the way of offense, but he can summon blocks and move heavy objects, allowing him to access switches or puzzles other characters couldn’t read. He can also blink (teleport) short distances, making him your best bet for platforming sections.

"A typical puzzle might ask you to use Zoya’s grappling hook to open a door, use Amadeus’s magic to summon a block that can be used to trigger and out of range switch, and use Pontius’s shield to reflect beams of light between mirrors to open a door."

How these characters interact is what makes Trine 4 fun. A typical puzzle might ask you to use Zoya’s grappling hook to open a door, use Amadeus’s magic to summon a block that can be used to trigger and out of range switch, and use Pontius’s shield to reflect beams of light between mirrors to open a door. None of these puzzles are particular head-scratchers, but they are a lot of fun. Between puzzles, you’ll traverse levels collecting experience, which is scattered throughout the environment in the form of collectibles. Usually, getting them means completing small platforming challenges hidden between the major puzzles. Some are simple, only requiring you to reach a higher platform or make a trickier jump, but the best ones are hidden and come with their own major puzzles. Collect enough, and you can upgrade the character’s major abilities. One allows Zoya to immediately come out of her roll with a fully charged bow, while another allow Amadeus to lift enemies and hold them in midair. These upgrades aren’t necessary – you are more then capable of beating the game without them – but they make the game more fun, and give you a lot more options, especially in combat.

Unfortunately, combat happens to be the area where Trine 4 falters. None of the enemies outside of the bosses are doing anything particularly interesting, and it’s easy to just switch to Pontius for most fights and mash away because the game doesn’t require you to do anything else. Trine 4 occasionally livens things up with elemental enemies and hitting them with arrows of the opposite element from Zoya’s bow will wipe them out in a single shot, but you mostly fight the same enemies in the same areas, and battles feel pretty repetitive. Yes, you can mix things up a bit by using each character’s special abilities, but there’s often no reason to when Pontius can just stand next to enemies and spam attacks with his sword. Combat is easily one of the weakest aspects in Trine 4, which is a shame because the game does provide you with cool options. There’s just no reason to use them. Thankfully, combat encounters are rare, occurring only a few times a level, and then it’s back to platforming and puzzle solving. Trine 4 knows what you’re here for, and it wants to make sure you have a good time.

If combat is the game’s weakest point, the strong co-op support is its best. Trine 4 supports both local (hallelujah!) and online co-op, and there are multiple ways to play. Classic mode gives you one of each character at will and allows you to switch between them, while Unlimited mode gives player their own set of wizard, thief, and knight to play with, which means you can have several of the same character running around at any given point. Best of all, the game’s puzzles change depending on which mode you play. That meant that many of the puzzles I encountered while playing in Unlimited mode were meant to be solved with two wizards, or two thieves, which wouldn’t be the case in Classic mode or playing alone.  The basis for each puzzle is the same, but even the most subtle of operations, like a new switch behind a locked door, mean that you’ll approach them completely differently. The game also doesn’t force you into a single solution, and my partner and I always felt like the solutions we can up with were just one of many possibilities. Your solution feels unique, and that encourages experimentation. It’s Trine 4’s best aspect, and one that is only enhanced by its co-op mode.

"Trine 4 understands that the best solutions and the ones you make yourself, and the best co-op modes are the ones that build themselves around the options having more players brings to the table."

Of course, the game isn’t perfect. The character models look fine at a distance, but up close you can see that they lack detail. I also ran into a bug that required me to exit and restart the game because a gate that was supposed to unlock when my partner and I solved a puzzle simply refused to. Still, the game’s production values are largely very impressive and I only ran into a single bug, which seems a small price to pay given the amount of freedom the game allows you.

Trine 4 may not boast the most compelling of stories, but it does everything else well. From beautiful music and visual design to free-form puzzles that allow you to solve them your own way and some of the most impressive co-op design I’ve seen in a while, Trine 4 nails the important stuff. It’s a game I want to go back to, especially with a friend, just to see what changes when we try something else or play another mode. Trine 4 understands that the best solutions are the ones you make yourself, and the best co-op modes are the ones that build themselves around the options having more players brings to the table. The yarn it tries to spin may not be the most memorable, but the best stories are the ones we make ourselves, and as fun as Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius are, they’re just along for the ride.

This game was reviewed on the PS4.

Later this year, Sony are anticipated to release the PlayStation 4 NEO, a mid cycle revision for the PlayStation 4 in the vein of Nintendo’s New Nintendo 3DS- this new console revision will basically have expanded power compared to the base PS4 model, with higher and better specs, causing better performance on games, and better rumored VR functionality.

However, a lot of people are having concerns – validly, it may be added – that a more powerful PS4 could lead to their current model getting the shaft, with the baseline PS4 models getting poorer performing games as a result of developers targeting higher specs. This was a concern that we brought up with Kai Tuovinen from FrozenByte games in an exclusive interview we had with him, and he he does seem to be pondering the question himself- his answer does seem to suggest that developers are still trying to come to terms with the new upgraded console.

“I believe that’s a valid concern and what a lot of people are fearing. If the rumors are true about mandatory support for the “old PS4”, then it’s a bit puzzling what the purpose of NEO really is from a developer perspective,” he said. ” Of course as developers we’d want to support both platforms, but if we were making a game that could only run on the higher spec device, we’d have to consider our options on what to do with the version that’s coming to the older hardware to make it work. Naturally we’d look for a solution that would be great for both,” he finished.

Essentially, then, it sounds like the PS4 NEO is a bit of a splinter without cause- it seems to be puzzling developers, because while they are being given more power, they are also apparently being forbidden from using it. Things may be clearer when we have Sony’s final, official, formal announcement of the console, and how it will work, in hand- but until then, I guess we are all feeling a bit confused.

Frozenbyte Games has announced a new entry in the Trine series and it’s thankfully not another re-release of Trine 2. Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power is pegged for release later this year and will be coming to PC and “other formats”. We’ll assume that means Xbox One and PS4 but check out the debut trailer in the meantime and ogle over the visuals.

The Trine games have sold more than 7 million copies in their lifetime which is pretty notable for a side-scrolling, fantasy action game. It’s notable for its unconventional three member group with one player capable of switching between the different characters. Alternatively, you can have three players working together, each players commanding a different class and solving puzzles along the way.

What are your thoughts on the announcement of Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming months.

Frozenbyte Studios’ marketing manager Kai Tuovinen offered his thoughts on PlayStation 4 version, documenting the changes from the game’s initial inception to the final stretch, how the new content fundamentally changes the game overall and the process behind the level design.

Overall development from the concept stage to code:

The concept process for Trine 2 started already during the development of the original Trine; We had learned from our experiences on the aftermath of our first game, Shadowgrounds, that we should immediately have a follow-up project after a game was complete. So the decision to make Trine 2 was made quickly, and from early on we began planning the improvements and new features – many which were left out from the original Trine (sometimes due to time constraints and sometimes because they would have clashed with other existing features/design).

Since Trine 2 was a sequel and the gameplay was very similar, we didn’t use any grand design documents to cover the entire game. Instead, the design team focused on doing documentation for different core elements of the game: The new skills and abilities, enemies, interactable objects and puzzles – basically everything gameplay related was thought out.

"A lot of the things you see in Trine 2 are custom animated and the famous frog scene is a good example. It was originally modeled and animated for use with our Trine 1 engine back in 2009/2010, but broke completely when transferred over to the new engine. It took over two weeks to get it working and that seemed like time wasted – but the frog became one of the most iconical scenes in the game, so it was definitely worth it!"

There were a lot of things to consider, since all the puzzles in Trine 2 are pretty open ended and can be solved in a number of ways. Adding a new skill can drastically change how certain things interact with each other, and with physics involved a lot can happen with very minor changes, so balancing was important!

For example, it was important to limit the amount of wood used, so the Thief character couldn’t grapple onto everything (her grappling hook attaches only to wooden surfaces, and can easily become overpowered).

Once designs for different features had been finalized, our programmers began work on them, and in the meantime they had done a lot of work on rewriting our game engine. In fact, the programmers spent more or less the entire year from summer 2009 to summer 2010 and even beyond to rewrite the whole game engine, aiming for a modern engine with multiplayer features and other improvements over the original (including ”save anywhere” save system and a million other things that had bugged us throughout the early years).

We had a concept artist who painted a lot of environments and enemies to help with envisioning the different levels and the story created by our writer.

Also a lot of the concept art was used in the game itself as assets in the background, some could be found in secret chests and they were also used in the storytelling screens in between maps.

Here the Dwarven Caverns concept art comes to life in the actual game: 

The different levels in Trine 2 were first mapped out by our level designers, who place and design all the gameplay assets to begin with. They start with a basic pathing for the map and add collision detection to limit where the players can move around and interact. Different types of puzzles are then built into the levels, and physics-based properties are defined to make the different parts work as intended. We use a lot of different elements to the puzzles such as fire, water, weights, ropes and levers, and creating puzzles with good variety for 20 levels takes some time.

Enemies and their AI are added next, often scene by scene. The main recurring enemies in the game are goblins of different varieties, but we also have environment specific enemies such as flesh-eating plants or wyverns, and the boss fights vary more: They’re often puzzles of some sort.

The grey and brown-colored areas are collision indicators – usually placed early on during level development.

Different components of a lighting / electricity related puzzle at the end of the Cloudy Isles level. You need to redirect the lightning to hit the water, and balance something on the device to connect it to the electric current.

When the levels are completed from a gameplay perspective, one of our senior artists starts adding art assets (modeled and textured by other artists) that really make the scenes come to life. A lot of the things you see in Trine 2 are custom animated and the famous frog scene is a good example. It was originally modeled and animated for use with our Trine 1 engine back in 2009/2010, but broke completely when transferred over to the new engine. It took over two weeks to get it working and that seemed like time wasted – but the frog became one of the most iconical scenes in the game, so it was definitely worth it!

We were quite happy with Trine 2 when it was released during the end of 2011, but at the same time we again knew that we had left a lot of cool ideas on the drawing board and it would be cool to implement some of those into the game. At the time of Trine 2’s release we were toying with a couple of interesting game concepts, but we decided that those weren’t yet ready for full-blown production, and set to work on the Goblin Menace DLC for Trine 2.

We really felt that this would be the definitive version of Trine 2, and the team was very happy with the quality and detail of the 6 new levels and the new skills for the characters. We combined the original campaign and the Goblin Menace campaign, along with the new level Dwarven Caverns, for the Director’s Cut version (2012, Wii U) and also to the game Complete Story version (2013, PC, PS4) – both versions are basically the same in content.

Decision to bring Trine 2: Complete Story to PS4

"For the PS4, prior to the launch much of the documentation was incomplete and some times not translated to English. But in the future these should get filtered out when more development is done for the console, and there's not such a rush as there was during launch time."

The decision to bring Trine 2: Complete Story for the PS4 was made fairly early on after the console’s announcement. The success we had on the Wii U with Director’s Cut made us work hard on getting the game ready for the PS4’s launch, since being available from the get go of a new console taught us the benefits, and we really wanted to be there for the PS4 launch. We didn’t actually get the devkits for the PS4 until around half a year ago, so the porting process was started very quickly and we wanted to make it to launch.

Another reason to bring Trine 2: Complete Story to the PS4, was that finally another console (besides the Wii U) was powerful enough to run the new levels from the Goblin Menace expansion without optimizations, and those were integrated into the game for Complete Story. For the PS4 we quickly learned that we could even increase the resolution and framerate and run the game steadily, and even add 3D support (which had been working magnificently on PC already).

Engine development and how the engine was ported over to PS4

Our game engine has been running on the same tech (although constantly modified and improved) ever since it was rewritten after Trine 1 – so it was made with Trine 2 in mind specifically. After Trine was finished, our programmers re-wrote the entire engine from scratch, which took over a year, but that allowed us to bring many wanted features such as online multiplayer to the game.

Generally speaking the PS4 port was easy and required little work. The Wii U port was somewhat harder, but that was mainly due to the required work on a lot of input support, as there were many different controllers and of course the touch controls of the Wii U GamePad. Our engine has typically behaved well when ported to different platforms, and we have quite a bit of experience of ports now (Trine 2 is on PC/Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U and PS4), so that has certainly helped with new platforms.

In the past three years, there’s been tremendous development on our engine, and one of the big new features we are aiming for now after multiple ports is to further streamline our code to be transferrable to all the relevant future platforms that we decide to bring our games to.

Each port has typically the same things that need to be done specifically for each platform: input support, multiplayer game support, profile & save file support, achievements, getting SDK’s for physics (e.g. PhysX), audio (e.g. Wwise) and videos (e.g. Bink). Also every console platform has their own set of requirements (PS4 TRC, Xbox TCR, Wii U Guidelines) that need to be adhered to as well. In theory they are quite similar on each platform, but all of them do have some specific ones as well. These were a bit of extra work (implementation + testing + fixing). For PC and Steam we can pretty much publish anything we want without requirements.

Also the game’s menus always need some customization, and tool tips that match the platform’s controller.
For the PS4, prior to the launch much of the documentation was incomplete and some times not translated to English. But in the future these should get filtered out when more development is done for the console, and there’s not such a rush as there was during launch time.

The PS3 port was a lot of help for the PS4 porting process, a great deal of miscellaneous code was ported almost directly through that one. Probably the biggest job was the renderer, where we had to remake some things slightly, such as shaders.

Of course when we aimed for launch we knew that we were making a port/game for a device that wasn’t on the market yet, and the consoles we had at our office were practically prototypes, so some unexpected problems were natural. Sony was helpful throughout the development process and we got all the problems (which were very minor things) sorted out quickly, even though many of the issues we experienced were entirely new to them as well. So being a launch title for PS4 did require a bit of extra work, but it was nevertheless the easiest of our ports so far.

Controller input for the console

On the PS4, input was straightforward to work with and we had no special issues. The touchpad is similar to a touch screen, so making the controls work based on our Wii U touch screen controls was fairly easy.

There was little to no new things needed, only some adjustments and applying those to previous controls which we took from our Wii U port. On a low level, the API on the PS4 is very simple (even easier than PS3, but nothing majorly different from most platforms) and there was enough documentation to help us through.

Even up to the launch, we did not have any final version of the new PS4 controller (DualShock 4) which had some impact on the touchpad support, although this did not necessarily change anything. The protytype controller had slightly different material, which felt a bit weird, but on the final released controller the material felt much better and nice.

Asset creation along with optimization for 1080p resolution

The art assets that you see in Trine 2: Complete Story are all 3D-rendered objects, even everything in the background. We have several 3D-modelers who create those objects, some animators, and one very busy texture artist.

The famous frog scene – a normal screenshot and the another from our editor, with wireframes and a different angle, that show the 3D objects that make up the scene.

We haven’t done anything specific for the PS4 to optimize the assets for 1080p, because the console was able to run the game without any problems at a solid 60fps. The only difference is that the PS4 version had a rewritten renderer which does some very minor visual changes almost unspottable to the naked eye.

Sound development

We worked together with AriTunes for the sound design in Trine 2. Most of the sound effects came from AriTunes, but their implementation was handled in-house. For the sound engine, we used Wwise by Audiokinetic, which enabled us to do many audio design tasks without requiring code.

"We haven't done anything specific for the PS4 to optimize the assets for 1080p, because the console was able to run the game without any problems at a solid 60fps."

In the Trine 2 editor, we made general components for the most typical situations such as point audio, collisions and movement sounds. If making a general component for a situation is not possible or reasonable, sound playback can be controlled with communication between different game object components inside our editor – sound components send events and parameters to Wwise, and Wwise plays back the sounds based on those determined properties.

The workflow for sound design inside the level editor was roughly as follows: First we add the areas controlling the playback of background ambience sounds and non-interactive point audio. Then we set up interactive sounds that can be made with single components, such as sounds for different types of rotating and moving objects. At last we add sounds to the more complex puzzles, where the conditions for sound playback are determined by the state of components in the game objects.

A few examples:

Rotating and moving objects are very common. For those, we have designed a sound component that sends data to Wwise about linear and rotating movement speed in parameters. For example, a platform made out of wood and metal that rotates gets this component added to it in the editor; we determine it to play a certain sound event and to send the rotating speed as parameters to Wwise. In Wwise, for the rotating sound we set curves with a samplerate and we set the sound volume, and determine them to use the rotating speed receieved from our game engine.

A sound event call from our game engine can also do more complex things in Wwise. For example the damage sound from the Mummy Goblins is a set of multiple sounds combined – mostly different hits and vocal incoherent rumblings. When the event is called, the hits and incoherent rumblings are played, in such a way that sounds from both sets are played in a random order, and we avoid playing the same sound effect consecutively.

Adjusting and fine-tuning the gameplay

In the past two years, there’s been a number of changes to Trine 2. Most notable ones came to fruition when we released the Goblin Menace DLC, where a number of new skills were added to the characters. For example we added magnetism-related skills to the Wizard and Knight characters, and all the 13 original levels had to be reworked to include new properties for metal surfaces, so the skills would be useful in all the levels and not just the 6 new ones.

We’ve also done an extensive number of bug fixes over the few years. Porting the game to different consoles has the benefit of revealing issues that might not have otherwise been found. QA teams from different companies tend to find different types of bugs, but most often though they are console-specific. Our own internal QA has done a good job of ironing out the majority of gameplay bugs, and there’s a notable difference between the 2011-released Trine 2 and Complete Story.

Adjustments and changes to extra content such as Dwarven Caverns and Goblin Menace

For the Goblin Menace, our artists had a more lenient schedule for completing the assets and levels, and they produced some of their best work. The Goblin Menace and Dwarven Caverns levels had entirely new and different looking environments and we also added more frequent cutscenes, which helped a lot with the story – we think the Goblin Menace campaign is our best storytelling work so far.

Content-wise Trine 2: Complete Story is nearly identical to the Director’s Cut that we have for the Wii U, with the exception of one secret Nintendo-themed room in the Dwarven Caverns level, which can only be found on the Wii U version – a small tribute to Nintendo who we loved working with! The Complete Story on PC and on the PS4 are identical in their content.

Finnish game developer Frozenbyte has announced that Trine 2: Complete Story will be available alongside the launch of PlayStation 4. The game will also support full HD, running at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second.

Frozenbyte CEO Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen commented that the power of PS4 is amazing and this has helped them to run the game with all its beauty. “The PS4 has been a joy to develop on, and the power of the console is amazing. Trine 2: Complete Story even with all its graphical splendor runs in full 1080p with steady 60 fps.”

“We also support stereoscopic 3D and it’s just amazing to see the beautiful world come alive in such great detail on displays that support 3D, we definitely recommend everyone to check it out if given the chance,” he further added.

Trine 2: Complete Story includes 20 levels along with the Goblin Menace expansion campaign. It also includes a secret unlockable level called the Dwarven Caverns.

Source: Press Release

Trine 2 for the Wii U has received a new updated on the Nintendo eShop. It includes the pro controller, voice chat for online multiplayer, german vocals, improved graphics rendering and a bunch of minor gameplay features and fixes.

Lauri Hyvärinen, CEO of Frozenbyte said: “We’re happy that the update is finally out, and I apologize for the delays we put gamers through during these past few weeks. Hopefully the new features make up for it!”

The game has also passed all the steps required for release in Australia and New Zealand and will be released there on January 31. Further information, including the launch discount details, will be made available in the next few days.

The game features a total of 20 exciting levels full of adventure, including the recently released Goblin Menace expansion campaign and a Wii U exclusive level called the Dwarven Caverns. It is priced at 16.99 Euros in the Europe.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

“None whatsoever,” they said, when asked whether Wii U’s slower clock speed had an effect on porting. “The whole architecture is running very well and we were able to ramp the Trine 2 art to a higher degree than with the other consoles.

“So for porting no issues at all and there is a nice base for future original development too. Maybe some were looking for a larger leap in terms of pure power, but in the end I believe most developers will be quite comfortable with the system.”

They also believe the Wii U has a lot of potential but they mentioned that Nintendo mostly designs a console based on what their first-party games offer, and have their own standards.

“Absolutely, but again in a very different direction that Nintendo has always been known for. They create their own standards and have huge IPs to fall back on. As for untapping the hidden power of new consoles.. I think Nintendo personifies that in all of their first party titles, regardless of the actual CPU or GPU performance.”

Trine 2 video.

Several developers have been pretty critical about the Wii U’s memory speed and some even called it horrible. We had also reported that the Wii U’s GPU clock speed is slower than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. You can check that report over here. Our full interview will be posted soon. Let us know in the comments section below.