Trine+(Arredondo)

= TRINE =

**Brief description of the game**
Trine is a fantasy action game. The game follows the journey of three very different characters. The player takes on the virtual identity of a wizard, a knight, and a thief. They are not presented as characters who are amazing at what they do. Each one of them has challenges to overcome. As our book author would say it, the characters have damaged identities. However, when the three work together, they create a feeling of one great superhero. It is as if Superman, Batman, and Spiderman were all options in one video game, but with lesser abilities and powers. The game environment is stunning, I had no idea my computer could display such graphics.

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**Learning involved**
The most important thing I learned from playing this game is that all three characters must be used in order to be successful. When I first started playing, I wanted to use the thief for everything. I soon realized that the best way to fight was to use the knight. As the game got more complicated, I learned to slow down and use my surroundings as clues to which character would be more successful. I had to transfer my early learning to solve more complex problems. Here is a picture of how I began using the wizard, who can create boxes, to jump beyond my abilities.





Often, I had to stop and find my way out of a puzzle. I had to use the probe, hypothesize, re-probe, and rethink cycle. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to get beyond the wall. I looked around to see if I needed to touch a mushroom, I tried to climb up and go above the wall, nothing worked. Then, I realized that I had to use the big hand fist and create momentum by swing int back and forth. As it created momentum, the cart above started moving forward until the hand and the wall met and I could get through. The big hand may have been an obvious clue to those who play these types of games, but for some reason it took me a while to get beyond this. The following are picture of this process. Even after I figured it out, it still took time to perfect the timing to create the right swing and momentum. This complicated puzzle taught me to not take anything in the game for granted and that there is always a way. Games work like that, the developer never has a task without having a way out of it.







**Teaching involved**
The game started by having the learner play in a subdomain with each character. In each subdomain, you learn what abilities that character has and how you can use them. The real domain begins when all the characters meet. The following is a picture of how I was able to transfer the early knowledge of using my shield go get through fire balls. Unfortunately I could not get a picture of my going through the fire ball because it is very difficult to do a screen capture and shield yourself from burning fireballs. The game also provided continuous “just in time” information at the bottom of the screen and trough voice narration. This can be seen at the bottom of the previous picture.



Principles of Learning Unitized:

 * 1) **Subset Principle**: Learning takes place in a simplified form of the real domain.
 * 2) **Meta-level Thinking about Semitonic Domain Principle**: Involves learning and mastering skills for later use.
 * 3) **Identity Principle**: Taking new identities such as three virtual identities of the characters in the game.
 * 4) **Achievement Principle**: Learner is rewarded with new stages of the game as the learner grows in mastery.
 * 5) **Practice Principle**: Because each character has limited capabilities. A lot of practice is required to master the few capabilities.
 * 6) **Ongoing Learning Principle**: Learning is ongoing and what is learned is be adapted to new challenges and conditions.
 * 7) **Probing Principle**: Learner has to experiment by forming hypothesis and testing them.
 * 8) **Multiple Routes Principle**: Each character provides a new route to surpass the game challenges.
 * 9) **Multimodal Principle**: Knowledge is gained through multimedia such as text, sounds, and symbols.
 * 10) **Intuitive Knowledge Principle**: Knowledge is built by repeated practice.
 * 11) **Incremental Principle**: Difficulty increases but there are patterns to earlier knowledge.
 * 12) **Bottom-Up Basic Level Skills & Transfer Principle**: Knowledge of skills is not isolated but continues to grow as leaner moves through different domains.
 * 13) **Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle**: Information is given as the learner needs it trough voice narration and continuous text feedback.
 * 14) **Discovery Principle**: There are many opportunities for experimentation and making new discoveries in the game.

**Online sites, forums, wikis, etc.**
It was difficult to find sites devoted to cheats about the game. Like most games, Trine has its own website, but I was not able to access it, perhaps it has been discontinued or overwhelmed. I did find a lot of sites that reviewed the game and it got positive reviews from the sites I visited. It is a couple of years old and this might be the reason for the lack of online activity.

Online Reviews:

 * 1) []
 * 2) []
 * 3) []

**Overall reflection**
I enjoyed playing Trine. It is very different from my usual sports game, but it is fun to try something else once in a while. In the end my addiction to FIFA will prevail as it takes too much time to play Trine. At this point in my life my time is very limited. I hope to have more opportunities to play it later on. I had not seen the trailer for the game until I was writing my review. The trailer made me realize that I had only scratched the surface of what is possible.