Review: Trism

Overview

From the iTunes' page: "TRISM is a casual game that could have never existed until now. TRISM features a fundamentally new type of tilt & touch gameplay, bringing you into the game like never before. In the spirit of smash hits like Tetris and Bejeweled, discover the next step in casual games: TRISM."

Gameplay

Hello. You have now entered the world of Trism. The patent - pending - bejeweled - on - steroids iPhone app (complete with accelerometer action!). Three choices are provided by the main screen: 'Options', 'My Account', and 'Play'. Tap 'Options' to enable colorblind mode (yes, you read that right) and turn off sound effects. Other features like wiping local data and viewing credits rounds out the functionality of the 'Options' tab. You can check out your scores and achievements under the 'Achievements' buttons, while tapping 'Play' brings you to a sub-menu with 4 choices (seen below).

I recommend (just like the pop-up you'll see if it's your first time launching Trism) that you start with 'Tutorials'. Each tutorial section runs through a series of progressive lessons where one builds upon the next. They're all accompanied by a pop-up with a stage that demonstrates the lesson (supposedly) learned. The basics:

• the game is similar in structure to other fall-down brick games, like Bejeweled (getting 3+ Trisms of the same color together);
• you can slide entire rows horizontally & diagonally to achieve this;
• and, depending on which way your iPhone is physically tilted, Trisms (triangle + prism) will fall 'downwards' when holes are created;
• 'Bonuses' introduces the gamer to secret Trisms and their uses (i.e. the rainbow);
• 'Obstacles' introduces bombs & locks and how to avoid them;
• and 'Free Play' is actually almost-free-play (since you paid nearly 5 bucks for this app).

From there, the game is divided into 3 types:

1. Infinism - "The original classic. study the board & take your time to score huge combos."
2. Terminism - "It's you against the clock! race to make matches, or suffer the consequences."
3. Syllogism - "This unique version of trism focuses entirely on tilting skills!"

You can also double-tap the screen during gameplay to pause, restart a level, or exit. Don't worry, even after all of that instruction I'm sure I still left out aplenty, a facade to make you believe I want to keep the suspense high, but really because I want to get back to playing.

Review

Okay, I have to give some disclosure here. I'm not a big fan of these sorta games, or 'casual games' according to the makers of Trism, though that makes them sound cheap and dirty like something you'd find on a Craigslist ad in the waning hours of a lonely Friday night...

But Trism - I LIKE. And why do i LIKE it? Because, god bless color blind mode, I can actually play it (see above)! Besides having 3 game types and an entire slew of 'achievements' you can collect (which is a game in itself), you can also register online and compete for high scores amongst the entire Trism Network, adding yet another layer of fun, complexity, and competitiveness to an already varied application. My lone qualm is that it's all just a little intimidating. The user is presented with so many possibilities -- in determining what to play and then in how to play it. Just tackling the breadth of knowledge required to get started was overwhelming, though hands-on (or is it fingers-on?) courses that combined instruction with lite-play made it a little easier to digest. Overall, it's this kind of well thought out complexity that will make Trism such a worthwhile play for some, but turn more of the ADD-inclined audience members away.

Summary

This version is much improved from the Jailbroken Demo version (i.e. sound effects) that's been out, and kudos to the creator who, while initially developing it, had 3 goals in mind:

1. make a casual game that you could play for a bit, put down, and come back to later
2. make a game that's playable with 1 hand (nah, too easy to make a joke here)
3. take full advantage of and showcase the iPhone platform by utilizing touch & tilt capabilities

My verdict, SUCCESS.

Related articles