We had an exclusive opportunity to speak to Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen, CEO of Frozenbyte and lead designer of Trine 2 (and Trine 1) about how the second iteration of Trine is shaping up and how different it’s going be compared to the original.
GamingBolt: What are your main goals for Trine 2?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: We look forward to bringing an even more enjoyable, solid experience for gamers. In particular we aim to improve on many features (some of which were indeed criticized by the press and gamers), and in general make a very fresh adventure for those who have played Trine and even for those who haven’t, and of course online co-op is perhaps the biggest addition. Finally! 🙂
GamingBolt: Will there be any new characters?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: Trine 2 will focus on the familiar trio from Trine, but the story will introduce a couple of new key characters.
GamingBolt: Puzzles in Trine tended to be solely targeted at the Wizard- will this change in Trine?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: Yes, we have paid a great deal of attention to make sure that every player (in co-op) and every character always has something to do, and every puzzle will feature multiple solutions for each character. To accomplish this, we will introduce new abilities for both the Knight and the Thief, so each character should be more versatile now.
GamingBolt: Trine was a brilliant game when it first came out. It was unique and charming- how do you plan make the game innovative this time?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: Well, I’m not going to spill all the beans yet! But there are some things I can share – first, we will perfect all the features that still were missing or unpolished in Trine 1, blend in online play and a good number of new abilities, new locations, new enemies and new gameplay features. I believe we are going to cause an even greater splash with Trine 2 than Trine 1 did. 🙂
GamingBolt: What are the multiplayer features planned for Trine 2?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: The live drop in-drop out Co-op will be both online and offline, and of course a combination of 3 players on two (same) systems is also possible. The co-op follows the same levels as the single player, but of course co-op allows some very clever solutions for puzzles which are unique for co-op. As the characters have totally different abilities, even changing characters in co-op changes the experience dramatically and allows a great deal of replay value.
GamingBolt: The graphics in Trine are already excellent; do you plan to excel on these in the sequel?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: We have improved Trine 2 graphics a lot! In fact, looking at Trine 1 now, in our eyes it looks like it’s getting a little old. And yet it’s still one of the most beautiful games out there! For Trine 2, we have basically done everything from scratch again – lots of new assets (each level will be new and unique), we have added many technology improvements including better shadows and lighting, and we basically rewrote the whole game engine (to allow online multiplayer but of course we made it a lot better in other ways too). For example all the vegetation is now moving in the wind, adding a great deal of life to our colorful environments.
GamingBolt: Will Trine 2 make use of 3D?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: It’s still too early to say, as 3D would require quite a lot more processing power. We have released a PC patch to Trine 1 so that it works with NVIDIA 3D Vision but we don’t know if this will be possible for Trine 2 for a multitude of reasons. We will have to see.
GamingBolt: How will the storyline of Trine 2 tie in with the original game?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: Trine 2 will continue a few years after the events of Trine 1. The familiar heroes make a return but their adventure takes them to a new location… I can’t go much deeper yet! 🙂
GamingBolt: Does Frozenbyte have any other projects for the future?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: Yes, we are working on another project at the same time, it’s a little bit smaller and very different, and I hope we could announce that project sometime during 2010. Very exciting times!
GamingBolt: Any further comments regarding Trine 2?
Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen: I hope everyone will find the improvements and new features as great as we do, and we still gladly listen to feedback on both Trine 1 and Trine 2! Also be sure to check our Community Forums at http://frozenbyte.com/board/ and our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/Frozenbyte/ to keep up to date with the latest news. Trine 2 will be released in spring 2011 so there’s still some waiting to do – but it’s worth the wait! 🙂
We thank the team at Frozenbyte and especially Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen for the interview.
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