N-Philes

Trioncube

Posted November 5th 2007 by DC Garcia.

Ever since Pajitnov introduced the world to puzzle gaming over 23 years ago with his standard-setting Tetris, people have always held a soft spot for games that really go nowhere. The fast-paced, cerebral action, and infinite score limit has made the puzzle genre a staple of the gaming library, and few new entries into the genre stray far from the template other than in presentation. Trioncube is no exception. From its cutesy art style, to its peppy, almost otherwordly music, the various forms of play can keep anyone interested for hours.

The main story mode gives you the best idea of just what it is that you're doing in Trioncube. You are sent on a mission through space to save a princess from the evil Hell Metal, a group led by a maniacally depressed yet comical devil king. As captain of the intergalactic ship Penko, you must travel around the Universe to save her through 45 missions. You power your ship by manipulating falling masses of tiles into 3x3 "cubes". It's entirely combo-based, so once one cube is made, the chain doesn't break until you find drop a new shape onto the pile that doesn't create a new -- although not necessarily dependant -- cube. For instance, dropping a straight column of 3 tiles next to an existing cube would produce a 3x4 shape, which would mean a new cube was successfully created and the combo chain continues.

Once you break the chain, the cubed blocks turn to gold, silver, or bronze coins (depending on the length of the combo) and are cleared of the screen. There are even highly coveted diamond coins that your blocks can turn into if you fill up the entire screen with cubes, save one or two spaces. The point is to get the best combos possible so you can travel faster and catch up with the Hell Metal ship, where the princess is being held captive. Each "mission" stage requires you to go a certain distance within a certain timeframe. Get a good score in a short amount of time and you quickly catch up to the evil ship.

The snippets of storyline in between each level are pretty amusing, but each mission is nearly identical: make cubes. You are timed, so the faster you can make it to the planet you are trying to reach, the better your score and the better your reward of getting closer to saving the princess. But each level is pretty much the same as the last. Make cubes. None of the stages really poses a challenge, although the further into the gameplay you go, the faster your blocks fall, so you have less time to determine where to place them to get the best squares for fuel.

In between stages, the devilishly depressing King Pluto pops up, spouting random phrases that makes you wonder if the king might suffer from manic depression. Upon defeating a level, he might say something to the effect of "No one ever loved me" or "I have no friends," sometimes more randomly stating "I need a new pair of socks" or "I could go for a spongebath". But because these quips are so left-field, they are quite amusing. After passing through one pretty boring and monotonous level, it's good to have some weird message pop up to throw you off guard.

The graphics are reminiscent of French children's character Madeline. The captain is a chibi character with a slight whip of blonde hair, all contained in a thick cartoonish outline. When you break the cube chain, he sheds a single tear. At first it's awwable, but after a few times you want to punch him in the neck because it's not like you can do anything about eventually breaking the chain.

Simplistic and cute without being too childish, the graphics are interesting as a backdrop. Each new unlocked world shows a brighter, more colorful and interesting world. The are worlds full of flowers filled with perky tingy music, worlds full of colorful geometric patterns playing a different song, a Japanese world of water color cherry blossoms and soft shamisan music, amongst others. There's even a black and white, seemingly hand-drawn world that takes a bit to get used to after having been through a dozen or so brightly colored worlds. The music is pretty jaunty. The variations in speed during the missions are the perfect compliment for flying a spaceship through very different worlds.

Arcade, story, endless and versus are all the differing modes you can choose to play in. We've discussed storymode, and arcade mode isn't that different. This time around you aren't really saving anyone, you're more or less just flying through space getting as much gas mileage as you can with your cubes. Endless is just that, you play for as long as you can to unlock varying worlds and items. Versus takes the confrontational angle of flooding opponents with grey blocks upon completing combos. It's nice to have it included, but it's nothing that hasn't been done in puzzle games for years and it doesn't altogether change the spirit of the game.

Steady Beat - Enough fuel for a bus ride

The game definitely has replayability if you're into just zoning out and playing with blocks. This is a good game to have if you're not looking for any sort of cerebral challenge to hinder the practice of mindlessly putting blocks together. Trioncube has the notable flaws of not having enough meat to it, but it's a good game to add to your collection for those days when you're stuck waiting for a train, or sitting in some doctor's office waiting area. The artwork alone is enough to appeal to your visual sense, the music is enjoyable, and its an easy game to go through pretty quickly when you have nothing else to do. It may not be an exotic dish, but its a good staple to keep around just in case.

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