New indie games developer Tendi hits the Xbox Live Indie Games scene with TriLinea ReAct, a new puzzle/battle game packed full of awesome levels, and tons of different game play modes and in-game unlockables to sate even the most feral appetites of some puzzle gamers.
TriLinea ReAct is a very simple game in terms of how it’s played. You’re pitted against an opponent on a shared grid and tasked to place two-toned rectangles down and match the colors in chains of three or more. Each chain that you make is wiped from the board and so is a little bit of your opponent’s health. The more blocks you chain together or more combos that you create, the more health you steal from your opponent. Furthermore, you can use your blocks to interfere with combos and chains that your opponent is creating to prevent them from doing the same to you. The first one to run their opponent’s health bar to zero wins the match.
Depending on the mode you select, you can also have available a set of special powers. These powers range from having shields to protect you from a devastating combo, to slowing your opponent’s movements on the board so you can blaze ahead in creating your own mega-combo before they can react.
In single player you can choose from a quick match, allowing you to jump right into a game against an AI opponent, or go for something a bit more stimulating with the challenge, score attack, or time attack modes. Challenge mode is essentially a tutorial mode that allows you to work on your skills on the game board, while Score Attack and Time Attack challenge you to quickly attain certain goals. Each level in all three game modes are unlocked by obtaining a minimum number of stars which are acquired based on your performance on previous challenges.
If you find playing against the AI a little too droll, then you can head over to multiplayer to either best your friends in the living room or play online through Xbox Live. The same battle modes are available online and the mechanics are pretty much the same.
It’s always a bonus when an indie developer has unlockable awards in their games, and TriLinea ReAct has plenty. Awards are given to you for accomplishing certain tasks such as getting a 4x combo or destroying a certain number of blocks. Altogether there are twenty awards that you can unlock and some require a good amount of work to acquire. This adds plenty of replay value to the game.
Tendi has certainly worked very hard to create a well-polished game. They’ve added in some phenomenal animated backgrounds and music in different themes to truly give TriLinea ReAct a top notch look and feel to a game that can keep you playing for hours on end. If you enjoy a good puzzle game, then the 400 Microsoft Points to get it is a worthy investment.
