Quick Look: Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

What I'm Trine to say is that... cmon now, the "Wii?"

Trine gameplay has never seemed compelling to me. Everything seems too fiddly.

I am glad it atleast looks miles better than Trine 3. I quite enjoyed Trine 1 and 2. It's a good time with friends too. Maybe I'll pick this up sometime.

OMG, is the studio HAUNTED???

Someone get Brad a Trine hat or shirt already.

I'm 19 minutes in, and I'm dying over here.

Is Trine really difficult to parse, visually, for anyone else? I'm pretty good at puzzle platformers and pattern recognition, but something about the art style in Trine is so difficult for me to get a handle on. Like at the start of the Quick Look, nothing about the visual design of that room even hinted that there might be a hidden key anywhere, let alone five. And when Brad was shooting the sun at the thingy, I had no idea what was happening or why you might even think to do that.

I think the intended solution of the swing-arm box and water wheel puzzle 2/5 through the quick look was to put the box on the far right, the swing-arm straight up, and a rope connecting the two, then stand on the rope. There's no other reason I can think of for the little loop on the swing-arm.

The problem with 3 wasn't that people hated the 3D.

The problem was the game sold at the same rate as other Trines, yet it cost them almost 4 times more to make then other Trines being 3D. So it was an EA game that was set to bankrupt the studio.

They had to stop working on the game and release it unfinished just to keep the company afloat. This isn't really Trine 4. It's Trine 3.5, and finishes off the storyline Trine 3 started.

I really like this one so far, but yeah. Trine 3 was a lot messier then that, heh.

Trine games always give me a headache for some reason. I think its because of the colors and framerate..

I thought the whole appeal of 1 was that it looked really, really beautiful for the time. This looks... ugly.

Hm, maybe, but I figured the intended solution was to put a box under the swing arm, freeze the swing arm, and then put the box on top of the frozen swing arm. Which is effectively about the same as Brad's solution, but without any janky physics timing.

@the_nubster: yes! i completely agree

A new Ari Pulkinnen ost!

These games are fun. It looks like it's back to what made these games fun. Trine 3 was a miss for me. I'll pick this one up.

@hobozero: probably a newer mac book. I had issues with my ps4 when one of my neighbors got one

I really liked Trine, thought Trine 2 was okay, and didn't know Trine 3 existed. I'm kind of shocked they keep coming out, they never seemed like they were all that popular or talked about, but I guess perhaps they sold better than I realized because getting to number 4 of any series is pretty impressive.

@sethmode: It's like the Yakuza of puzzle physics platformer The Lost Vikings rip-offs!

I know its been 8 years since the Trine 2 quick look, but a lot of the stuff Brad is saying is new was in 2. Elemental arrows were an unlock on the skill tree. Skill trees also being from 2, as well as the Knight's charge. Wizard's blink and thief's roll are new, rope bridges new too. 3 Might be causing some confusion they removed the skill tree for that. Online multiplayer has been in all of them, although it was post-release for 1 and 2. Levitating each other in multiplayer has been possible, it might be a gameplay toggle or a skill unlock as it brute forces a lot of puzzles.

timing puzzles in physics games, not even once

That music jingle is way to repetetive! I almost couldn't stand watching the quicklook because of it.

@cuuniyevo: they were brute forcing the solutions

@yummytreesap said:

This is the way I figured. I'm not sure if all the puzzles have a single intended solution, though. The developers probably thought of both as possible solutions. But yeah, the timing is probably not one of the solutions they intended.

I feel by Trine 2 i've had all the Trine i needed. That game was beautiful for the time, an aspect that they can't be at the forefront of any longer. I also think the visual language is off at times. Like that part with the 2 jail doors you have to freeze, i couldn't tell whether the arrow would freeze the door and had trouble seeing when it was open vs closed.