Game Journal: Trine 2

For this week's mechanic review I have chosen to look at one of my all time favourite game series, in particular, Trine 2: Complete Story. Besides its beautiful character and environment design, the Trine trilogy includes a very interesting base mechanic which the whole game revolves around: the ability for the player to change between three different characters. This is an interesting aspect as you are faced with playing through the game, solving puzzles and defeating enemies along with way with essentially three different classes of character types. The catch with this is that each character has each their own set of exclusive skills which are needed with different types of obstacles. Alongside with their own skills, each character also has their own health bar which depletes with damage as guessed. Upon the health bar running out, the player is unable to change into that character anymore, forcing them to either restart the level, reach a checkpoint or deal with the level with their remaining characters which provide a bit of a challenge. Often in games players are given the choice to play solely as one character so it is very interesting to see a game embrace the ability to change characters mid-game to play. This ability also makes multiplayer games all the more challenging as players have to take turns to change into the free character (if there are only two players) or work together with each player set of abilities to proceed. It is not until playing multiplayer do you really appreciate the ability to change into all 3 characters by yourself, especially when playing with others that are uncooperative or simply not as good at the gameplay. 

Amadeus the wizard: activated by pressing (1)
Abilities: Creating boxes, levitation of objects 

Zoya the thief: activated by pressing (2)
Abilities: Archery, grappling hook 

Pontius the knight: activated by pressing (3)
Abilities: Sword/Melee combat, Shield (can be used to glide and block), Charging, Hammer (can be thrown)