After a successful launch of the beautiful Trine 2 late last year, Finnish developer Frozenbyte began work on an expansion to their excellent physics based platformer. Announced just a few weeks ago Frozenbyte has worked fast into adding more to an already substantial game. The expansion titled Trine 2: Goblin Menace features a new story adding to the Trine world.

The original Trine was interesting, because it allowed a player to control three separate characters to solve puzzles. The player would switch between each as needed, or play with two others in co-operative multiplayer. The three characters  – a Knight, Wizard and Rogue, would each used their own skills to help each other move past areas. Trine 2: Goblin Menace adds six new abilities and skills to the player characters, which are useable in Trine 2 as well.

The new story of Trine 2: Goblin Menace focuses around, you guessed it, Goblins. The three protagonists will travel through heat, ice, and “the insides of a giant sand worm.” The expansion also features improved graphics, new enemies, puzzles and Steam achievements. All of the content included in Trine 2: Goblin Menace will also be available in the Trine 2 Director’s Cut when released on the Nintendo WiiU

To find out more about Trine 2, read the Indie Game Magazine review here.

You can purchase Trine 2: Goblin Menace on it’s Steam Store Page. Doing so before September 15th will earn you a 15% discount on the expansion pack. Trine 1 and 2 are also both on sale for a 75% discount. You can visit the developer’s website here, or tweet them here.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Trine 2: Goblin Menace’ Released

Just look at that screenshot above. Click it, so you can see it in full. Now, putting aside for a moment the fact that it looks more like a menacing dragon than a goblin, let it act as a reminder of just how astonishingly pretty Frozenbyte’s fairytale puzzle-platformer Trine 2 was, and still is. Let’s also remember that Trine 2 was one of the best indie releases in recent memory, offering a meaty, clever adventure under all those stunning graphics. Good, now we can be fittingly excited that it’s getting bigger – coming this Autumn is the official expansion, Goblin Menace. Here’s the also-lovely-looking trailer:

A new story arc, six new levels set across some very fresh-looking environments, and new abilities for all three of the playable characters. Interestingly, the new powers can also be used in the original campaign, which should add a little more replay value to the old content as well. Sounds like a fairly hefty bunch of new content. There’s no specific release date or price tag set on this one yet, but Frozenbyte have announced that the game will be re-launching under the banner of ‘Trine 2: Directors Cut‘ when Goblin Menace arrives.

You can find the official (and rather spartan) press-release here. Included with it is a large gallery of similarly beautiful screenshots – worth a look, I reckon.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Trine 2 Expands This Autumn With ‘Goblin Menace’

Technology and charm are not two things that naturally go hand-in-hand. This year has seen massive studios create technologically stunning new ways to render brown dirt roads and shattered concrete – there’s just no room for whimsy in triple-A development, it seems. That’s where the indie scene comes in. Frozenbyte’s Trine 2 is a great big cozy comfort-blanket of a game, but is charisma all this fairy-tale storybook has to offer? It takes more than graphics to make a complex platform-puzzle game sing, after all. Wrap up warm, grab yourself some hot cocoa and read on for our verdict.

Story-wise, it feels a fairytale, and that’s just fine. The narrator sets the scene at the beginning of each chapter, and the protagonist’s banter fills in the rest. The three heroes of the first game – Pontius the portly knight (who fights, smashes stuff and blocks/lifts stuff with his shield), Zoya the sassy thief (runs, jumps, shoots with her bow and swings from wooden objects with a grappling hook) and Amadeus the nervous wizard (who summons boxes and platforms out of thin air and can levitate physics objects, so long as he’s not standing on them) – have been called back into action by the Trine, the mystical artifact that bound them together and led them to save the kingdom in the first game. They don’t know quite what is wrong, yet, but that doesn’t stop them from setting off for adventure post-haste. There’s a lot of places to go, a few nice characters to meet, and a lot of charming back-and-forth dialogue between the mismatched heroes. While neither deep nor detailed, the story provides ample excuse to bound and run across the 13 quite lengthy levels.

The trailer really says more about the graphics – and, in turn, the first impressions the game makes – than I ever could. The world of Trine 2 is a lush, bright, colorful fairytale world full of witches, goblins, giant animals, dragons and spectacular magic. Even the darkest of caves is colorfully lit, and sunlight dazzles as it reflects off anything even vaguely shiny. The devil is in the details, though, and this game is devillishly detailed. It seems that almost everything in the game-world is affected by the physics engine in some way, from grass to leafy platforms that bend convincingly as you jump on them, to creaking mechanisms and even random bits of debris. So consistent and coherent is this fine detailing that you don’t notice it after a while – it just feels right. It’s also unquestionably prettier than a great many higher-budget games, with only the hand-drawn artistry of Rayman Origins providing any recent competition. Audio-wise, the game is a class act, too. The soundtrack is rousing, the sound effects are convincing and the voice acting – while not up to the glowing highs of Bastion’s narrator – is never less than good.

As good as it might sound or look, it’s computational power that steals the show. Extending far beyond background details, the physics, of course, are the cornerstone of the majority of puzzles in this game. While there’s plenty of running and jumping, and a smattering of combat (which is weakest element, although not bad), the core of this game is stopping, thinking and puzzling your way past complex arrangements of obstacles. Sometimes it’s as simple as navigating a spike-pit by lining it with boxes that are safe to stand on. Sometimes it’s more complicated, like assembling a series of pipes to divert wind to somewhere you need it to be. Sometimes it’s more situational, with control levers moving around magical portals that translocate moving objects or even fire from one side of a room to the other. There’s plenty of variety in the challenges that are presented, but none of them are excessively difficult.

‘Cozy’ springs back to mind as the adjective of choice. Unless you specifically bump up the difficulty (leading to tougher combat and more fragile health-bars) there’s nothing massively challenging to be found here. Oh, you’ll occasionally be stumped on a puzzle for a few minutes, or even have to give a boss fight a couple of extra shots, but the experience is seldom – if ever- frustrating. The platforming is forgiving, the puzzles often have alternative solutions stemming from the abilities your characters will gain through collecting enough magical experience orbs around the levels, and the combat is largely a matter of keeping Pontius’ shield up until you can safely counter with a few solid sword swings.

‘Forgiving’ is another word that applies well. If a single character dies, you just have to wander back to the last checkpoint in the level to revive them at no cost. If you get thoroughly stuck on a puzzle, the game will offer you a hint after a few minutes. Adding additional players for co-operative play (allowing all three heroes to be on screen at once, rather than switching between them – the game also supports both local and online co-op) makes less difference to the difficulty than you’d think, too. While having more players does make combat easier, it introduces new problems, like how to get all three characters across an obstacle that only one of them can cross easily, forcing them to use their abilities in new ways that just don’t apply to single-player mode. Amadeus can levitate friends across gaps on his flying platforms, but can’t perform this trick on himself. In return, Pontius can raise his shield to act as a makeshift platform, for instance.

It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, of course (although the game contains both in ample quantities), but most complaints that can be levelled at the game are minor grumbles at worst. As mentioned, the combat is relatively simplistic, and the combat-oriented upgrades for Zoya and Pontius just speed up the process. Enemy AI isn’t amazing either, with them getting lost behind obstacles as simple as crates, sometimes, or even just glitching out and spinning on the spot. Nothing a quick arrow to the head can’t fix, but a minor blemish on the overall presentation. Perhaps it’s just my ham-handed nature, but I also found the limited recovery-clamber (in case you almost miss a jump) a little inconsistent on when it would work, but that’s maybe just my fault. In an interesting decision, some things have been simplified over the original Trine, with character abilities now being unlimited and inherent, rather than limited by a skill energy bar. The magic artifacts from the first game are gone, too, replaced with a basic skill tree, meaning less emphasis on exploration and bonus puzzles, unless you want to track down all the bonus experience orbs, hidden paintings and poems scattered in the less obvious corners of the levels.

In the end, Trine 2 is a fine sequel to a very good game. The highs are higher and the lows aren’t quite as low and the difficulty no longer spikes in strange places, offering a more steady learning curve and a more accessible game overall. The environments are dazzling, the puzzles are satisfying and the atmosphere is utterly enchanting. Even the seemingly odd disappearance of all the magic artifacts in the game is laughed off in a little bit of dialogue during an early level, as Amadeus pauses to question where all their earlier loot had gone. While not a huge game – 6-8 hours for a single playthrough, depending on how thoroughly you want to scour the levels – it doesn’t feel short or truncated, either, making the $15 price-tag feel very reasonable, especially considering the AAA-demolishing production values on show. While the PC version was reviewed here, the PS3 and 360 versions of the first game were fine ports, and there’s no reason to doubt in their quality this time round. Frozenbyte have done a fine job here, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

[Trine 2]

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DIYGamer Holiday Give Away! For each and every article we post we’re giving away an indie game.

This article’s game is Trine 2 for the PC/Steam, by Frozenbyte!

Leave a meaningful comment below to enter into the drawing.

Gaming is a pretty divisive hobby, but as of late there’s been two things that gamers have universally agreed on: That Frozen Synapse is an amazing game, and the Humble Indie Bundles are amazing value for money. Those two universal statements have somehow crashed headlong into each other. Now – and for the next two weeks – you can get Frozen Synapse (plus an additional five games by Frozenbyte, if you want to pay a bit more) for a price of your own choosing.

Plucky indie startup Mode 7 Games have apparently teamed up with more established, prolific Finnish studio Frozenbyte to offer a huge pile of remarkably polished games in this ‘mid-season’ bundle. Frozen Synapse by itself is very new and normally worth $25, so being able to go as low as you want is downright shocking. If you choose to pay more than the going average (and that number looks to be rising quite rapidly, so get in early if you’re a cheapskate), you also get all the games by Frozenbyte to date, including the widely loved fantasy co-op platformer Trine, and the Alien Breed-esque Shadowgrounds series of top-down shooters, as well as a few others including a preorder on an upcoming title, and an unfinished prototype complete with source-code.

As great as the Frozenbyte games are, they’ve already had a turn in a past bundle. Frozen Synapse is what most people should be interested in here. A turn-based tactical combat game set in a cyberpunk world, and putting you in the shoes of an omniscient AI commander, giving bursts of orders to a squad of expendable, vat-grown soldiers. Both you and your opponent place your orders simultaneously, and each turn is a true battle of wits, as your plan is played out in parallel with the enemy. The winner is never down to luck – there’s not a single random variable in the game, other than map layout. It’s whether you had the better battle-plan. There’s an extensive and replayable (semi-randomly generated maps give it huge replay value) singleplayer campaign, and a very fleshed out online mode, letting you play multiple games simultaneously, as each match doesn’t advance until both players have submitted their orders.

It’s a fantastic game. And the Bundle version includes the wonderful soundtrack, too. You shouldn’t let this opportunity pass you by.

The Humble Frozen Synapse bundle is available now (and for the next two weeks) and all games support Windows, Mac and Linux. You can opt to have the games in DRM-free, Steam or Desura formats, too.

The previous two Humble Indie Bundles have been unprecedented successes, launching otherwise lesser-known independently developed games into the big leagues through a single almighty ‘pay what you want’ sale, and all while helping charity along the way, too. Today, the announcement went out of a ‘bonus’ bundle being organized by Wolfire, featuring three games by graphically adept studio Frozenbyte, one unfinished prototype game (with source-code) and one preorder, all for whatever price you’re willing to offer.

While not quite as broad an offering as the previous bundles, these are some seriously great games and you’d be a fool to miss out on them. Trine in particular is widely agreed on as being excellent, effectively a modern update of the buddy-puzzle platformer The Lost Vikings. While good with a single player, the game doesn’t really shine until you’ve got two buddies with you (local-only, bring gamepads) and are having to help each other past every obstacle, rather than just switching character at will.

Shadowgrounds & Shadowgrounds Survivor are pure, simple, beautiful-looking fun. Probably a closer update of the spirit of the classic Alien Breed games than the modern Team 17 updates. Isometric third-person shooters, it’s just you (or some buddies in same-system co-op), a dark planet full of slavering alien monsters, and a clear goal: Get out of there without getting chewed into kibble.

The two bonus games look rather neat, too. Jack Claw is an unfinished prototype game where you play as Doctor Octopus, minus a few limbs. You’ve still got one big wobbly death-claw with which to pick up and throw cars and generally cause some chaos. While unfinished, the source-code is included, meaning that any well-meaning souls could probably polish it up into a more finished product if they so wished. There’s also a preorder on a mysterious new game called Splot, which (as the trailer above rightly points out) looks adorable. Not sure what it is, but given the pedigree of the studio, I doubt it’ll be anything less than fun.

No word yet on exactly when this bundle will be available to buy yet, but the current word is ‘later today’. So keep checking!

In cases such as this, where a publisher’s name is tagged to a game we feel might fall under our admittedly amorphous coverage blanket, it’s simply our duty to exercise due diligence and figure out where the funding for the game came from. If we conclude the finances came from the developer itself, then we’re free to write on it. There’s still a ton of grey area and this certainly doesn’t explain or justify every game that’s been included/omitted from these pages, but it gives us a floor to walk on so to speak.

We’re a young and ambitious site, some of our golden rules are set and some are still evolving on the subject. In the end we’re human, and many times we’ll error on the side of inclusion if there’s no readily available information stating that the game has received funding outside of the developer’s pocket. If it’s found out at anytime that it proves to be otherwise, we’ll be the first to admit fault and correct our mistake–including full omission of the title in question if need be.

Let’s use developer The Behemoth as an example. Microsoft is considered the publisher of Castle Crashers while The Behemoth is listed as both the developer and publisher for their previous title Alien Hominid. For both games–and presumably their upcoming third effort BattleBlock Theater–the dev claims on their website “Our development is 100% self-funded with support from fans who support our cause!” with a link to their games and merchandise. Taking them at their word that indicates that Microsoft only puts funding toward the exposure of Crashers, not the development.

In that case, I consider the game to fall on the right side of our line. Some wouldn’t, and they’d be tough to argue against, but I don’t feel that if one game receives more marketing support than another it should be forced to give up its indie badge and gun.

It’s undeniable that indie games are as popular as they’ve ever been. More than ever before, the indie scene has been brought closer to the typical gamer’s foremost interests. This has been accomplished through all walks of effort and perseverance from more individuals than we may ever know our give credit to. It leads me to beg the question: Why should an indie game lose its tag when the mainstream shows interest in it?

A notable point of contention in what I’ve written above is that we still cover partially-funded games that come from developer’s who were previously indie/independent such as Runic Games (Torchlight), Frozenbyte (Trine) and ACE Team (Zeno Clash, Rock of Ages.) All three developers have been picked up by publishers to develop sequels (or in ACE’s case a completely new IP) of their successful independent predecessors. Must our coverage halt right then and there because of this? Honestly, the jury is still largely out on the point, but let me explain why I personally feel compelled to write on it for both myself and our readers.

We like these games, and we like the people who developed them. We’re interested in what they’re cooking up next. For me it comes back to questioning why we must stop following a developer’s path simply because a publisher has picked them up based on their past independent success. That success is what enabled them to make their next game one way or another, if they look to a publisher to relieve some of the stresses they had to deal with during independent release (outside of development of course) should we then turn a blind eye?

Obviously, if the developer is ever wholly absorbed by their respective publisher and ceases to be some form of individual entity then there’s simply no argument, it can’t and shouldn’t be posted here.

All that said, and there’s still hundreds if not thousands of individual cases that could be argued either for or against in this never ending debate. There isn’t a single authority who correctly and absolutely categorizes what is considered indie in the vast sea of games and projects out there. So instead we research facts and rely on what are gut says a lot of the time. Not an exact science, but no one has ever claimed it to be.

Again, this is just one man’s (still developing) opinion on a very, very complex subject.

Clover: A Curious Tale for $5 (50% Off) — Originally an Xbox Live Indie darling, the enhanced PC version offers 50% more puzzles than the original, multiple endings, full voice acting and more.

Emberwind for $4.78 (60% Off) — A fantasy platformer with RPG elements sprinkled on top. Geoff gave it a sparkling review and also had the pleasure of interviewing Erik Möller, one of the game’s creators.

The Lunar Pack: Wake and Lunnye Devitsy for $3.79 (60% Off) — If you missed the pay-what-you-want sale Boss Baddie ran a while back, here’s your chance to pick it up at a price you could easily see yourself wanting to pay. Our review of Wake and interview with the developer.

Max and the Magic Marker for $5 (75% Off) — The title, also out on WiiWare, offers a unique take at the platformer genre and is really a steal at just $5. Geoff’s review.

Saira for $5 (50% Off) — Another great title from Nifflas, the 2D side-scrolling platformer has players exploring seven star systems and solving puzzles. Our review.

Trine for $6.78 (66% Off) — We’ve written a multitude of pieces on the excellent puzzle platformer. If you haven’t yet picked it up based on that or the numerous times it’s been given this type of large discount, well, now’s your chance. Geoff’s review of the game and interview with Frozenbyte’s Lauri Hyvärinen.

The update also brings improvements for the game’s anti-aliasing support and fixes the final level so no new enemies appear on the Very Hard setting.

Steam owners should receive the patch automatically. If you’re unsure fire ‘er up and see if that doesn’t kick-start it.

From the change log:

Trine v1.08

- adds support for NVIDIA 3D Vision

- tweaks the antialiasing method, works better now (enabled in the Launcher or “/antialias_samples 8″ etc in the game console)

- tweaks the last level once again, now no enemies on Very Hard (for the Achievement)

- fixes minor item description text errors

Out of the many offerings available, Sacraboar at 90% off would seem to take the cake, the well received $20 tile is now $2. Altitude is 66% off at $3.40, AI War carries the same 66% discount as does its expansion. Chains is 75% off at just $1.24, Invent4′s Bad Rats: the Rats Revenge is $0.95 down from $5. Puzzle game Quantz is $2.50 down from $10, Super Laser Racer is $1.25, the list goes on.

Looking to save a bundle on a bundle? Steam’s offering several at big discounts including:

Introversion Complete Pack for $5 (87% off) – Packs Darwinia, Multiwinia, Uplink and Defcon.

Action Indie Pack for $6.24 (75% off) – Packs Larva Mortus, Penguins Arena: Sedna’s World, RIP – Trilogy, Space Trader: Merchant Marine and Tank Universal.

Puzzle Indie Pack for $3.74 (75% off) – Packs Chains, Gumboy – Crazy Adventures, Obulis and Vigil: Blood Bitterness.

Northern Lights Indies for $20 (64% off) – Packs Blueberry Garden, Bob Came in Pieces, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Plain Sight and Saira. That’s a quality bundle of games right there.

Summer Indie Action Pack for $20 (60% off) – Packs Aaaah! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, Gridrunner Revolution, Metal Drift, Starscape and Zombie Driver.

Maybe most importantly Steam also offers 50% off on almost every big indie title you can think of over the past couple of years with titles including (just to name a few): Machinarium, Zeno Clash, Trine, Cogs, Eufloria, Gratuitous Space Battles, Time Gentleman/Ben There, Dan That and much more. If you were waiting for any of the various titles we mention on this site to go down in price its more than worth your time to browse through the list and pick up some wonderful games at amazing prices.

Impulse carries a lone independent sale with Zoetrope Interactive’s Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage for $18 instead of its standard $30, a 40% discount.

Direct2Drive also gets in the mix with Kerberos Productions Fort Zombie for 75% off, bringing the title down to $2.50.

For those who haven’t played the original, I strongly suggest that you do. It is easily one of the best PSN games on the PS3 hardware, as well as one of the best indie PC games available.

The story follows three unlikely heroes: a selfish wizard, a greedy thief, and a clumsy warrior as they attempt to figure out what went wrong with the world and why they seem to be inextricably cursed by a magical device named the Trine.

Read my own review of the game.

The sequel will probably be picking up from where the first one left off, although the manner in which they do it will be interesting. Trine’s ending, without spoiling anything, didn’t really leave much to create a new game off of. Still though, with Frozenbyte’s incredible knack for creating a beautiful story, I’m sure they’ll be able to do it again for the game’s sequel.

We’ll have more information and, hopefully, a hands on experience of the game at E3 next week. Stay tuned!