Thank you Rising Star Games for sending us this game to review!

TRI: Of Friendship and Madness is a unique adventure puzzle game where you have to create your own path to successfully complete the sixteen mind bending levels.  After you complete the basic tutorial, you will obtain the power of the TRI.  The TRI lets you draw and place triangles into the world.  This power allows you to create stairs and paths to climb up towers that would have been otherwise inaccessible.

Later in the game you will earn the ability to climb up walls using the triangles you create.  The possibilities are practically endless!  Not only are the triangles crucial in moving forward, they can also be used for defense against deadly laser beams.

To clear a level you must locate the three fox idols scattered throughout the map and place them on their proper pedestals to create a portal to the next place.  There are many optional statues that can be collected as well.  Finding all the possible idols unlocks various Steam achievements.  Another benefit to using Steam is the cloud save feature.

There’s a lot to like in TRI; the graphics are colorful and have a unique style to them.  I like the how the tree leaves are shaped like triangles.  The level designs are complex and twist you around in many ways.  Unfortunately, the twisting around made me nauseous with motion sickness.  I’ve been gaming for over twenty-five years and only a couple of games have done this to me.  It’s a shame since I was enjoying this game until it hurt to play it.  IndieDB has demo available on PC, Mac, and Linux if you want to make sure you can handle it.  

I spent most of my time playing a beta build of the game which ran fine without any issues.  When the retail version was installed I noticed more sound effects when climbing and jumping through the labyrinths.   Until I heard the sound effects, I assumed the main character was male.  While it’s cool to have a female protagonist, I enjoyed the game better without the feminine grunts and groans.  The background didgeridoo-style music is fitting and pleasant to listen to.  For an extra $5 you can buy the game with the soundtrack.

The $15-20 price tag is reasonable and after beating the game you can challenge yourself to find all of the hidden idols in every level.  Given the complex level design and replay-abily you can easily get ten or more hours of game time in TRI.    

The violence is minimal; I was surprised that I was able to survive long falls without injury.  There are no enemies, just mind bending labyrinths to get lost in and the occasional laser beam to avoid.  One of the early levels gave me arrows to find my way out; I wish those were available later in the game too!  

While TRI is family friendly, it does have references to fox deities and your goal is to collect idols.  If you don’t mind that and enjoy puzzle adventures, TRI will not disappoint.  I wouldn't recommend It for those who have a tendency to get nauseous from first-person perspective games.