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Trism Review
Written by Chris Buffa on Friday, August 8, 2008
Excellent premise, great use of the iPhone's accelerometer, achievements to unlock, online score boards, costs $4.99.
Touch screen controls aren't as responsive as we'd like them to be.
Although Bejeweled 2 is great, we're much more interested in puzzle games built specifically for the iPhone. Developed from the ground up and affordably priced at $4.99, Trism is not only immensely entertaining but also a showpiece for Apple's hardware, a simple looking but technologically sound brain teaser that is a shining example of great things to come.
Like most puzzlers these days, Trism is all about matching things to make them disappear. In this case, you must line up three or more triangles of the same color (called trisms) to wrack up points, but it's not as easy as simply grouping them together. To get rid of these triangles, you must attach them by their sides and not at their points.
Joining these triangles is what makes the game unique. You have the option of moving whole rows in one of six different directions by touching the screen, including up, down, left, right and diagonally. Furthermore, you can tilt the phone and play vertically or horizontally, and doing so will allow your eye to spot potential matches that you missed while holding the iPhone in the opposite position. But what really makes Trism sweet is the ability to direct falling triangles by tilting the phone. After you match trisms and make them disappear, more drop from the top of the screen to take their place. You can control their direction by holding the phone horizontally, vertically or diagonally, and this adds enormous amounts of strategy to the game that forces you (if you intend to score big points) to constantly remain a few steps ahead. We have some issues with the touch screen controls, where occasionally tapping a trism doesn't yield a response, but the aforementioned accelerometer controls are excellent.
To mess you up, the game's designers toss bombs and locks onto the playfield, and you can get rid of them by lining their respective colors up with other trisms of the same hue. The only catch is you have a limited number of turns to destroy bombs, and a locked trism prevents you from moving any row that it occupies.
Trism comes with a helpful tutorial and three addictive modes. Infinism (the game's Infinite Mode) lets you play as long as you want; actually, we think it's impossible to lose. Terminism forces you to score as many matches as possible before time runs out; it's both challenging and intense. Finally, Syllogism tests your tilting skills by dropping a few trisms onto the playfield and asking you to line them up by moving the phone; not only is it difficult, but lots of fun.
In addition, you'll unlock achievements the more you play, and to sweeten the deal, the developers let you upload your scores to online leaderboards. In fact, you can register via your iPhone and confirm the account by logging onto your email.
Unlike Diamond Twister, Trism doesn't need flashy graphics to make an impact. Its simple looking triangles and subpar graphics take a backseat to the super addictive gameplay. At $4.99, you get a lot of content and multiple hours of triangle busting bliss. Download it immediately.
