This week’s cheap game combines a classic puzzle concept and independent flavor. Also, it’s free!
The game this week is a puzzle game by the name of Tripline. It was independently developed and distributed by one Joakim Sandberg. You may have seen him recently on the 1UP Show during a segment about his most recent game, Noitu Love 2. If you didn’t, you should probably go check that out; it’s a very nice interview and Noitu Love 2 looks incredible. We’ll leave talk of that for another time.
I decided to show you guys Tripline because small games like these are just wonderful, but easily missed. The concept is very simple and easy to get the hang of, but a bit tricky to describe. Joakim does it well on his own site:
Remember lightcycles from Tron? Can’t cross over your own trail? Yeah, it’s kinda like that!
In lieu of a text description in my own words I have assembled a video demonstration. It shows the first 3 of 30 puzzles, so don’t watch if you’d rather not know a solution for them, even though they are pretty easy. The game starts to get tougher after these. Also, so that you know: every move is made with the arrow keys. No other keys except for Enter to start a puzzle, Space to reset a puzzle, and Esc to exit the game are used.
Now, bear with me. I couldn’t get Fraps to detect this game as something that it can capture from, so I had to use Wink to capture a portion of my desktop and take screenshots every time I pressed a key. Due to this, the video looks a bit like a slideshow and lacks sound, but I’m sure you’ll get the idea.
Tripline is available for free from Joakim Sandberg’s website, konjak.org (DoSu mirror). Give it a whirl.