Drei Teaches You About Friendship Through Physics! [Review]

I’m a big fan of physics-based puzzles, but the trouble is most of them relate to altering an object’s trajectory as it falls rather than manipulating things.

Drei by Etter Studio GmbH does away with falling oranges and rolling balls and offers instead increasingly difficult building block puzzles that require you to balance objects, shapes, and negotiate with other players.

In a distant way, Drei is similar to Thatgamecompany’s Journey: you play as an anonymous floating character that communicates in beeps and chimes. Occasionally, other players will drift into your game and offer assistance. You can chime hello to them, and they may help you finish your task, but they can disappear as quickly as they arrived. Help is crucial in Drei as many levels require precise manipulation of the cubes, spheres, and triangles littered across the screen.

You have no control over when a helper might appear, as they are other people in the world playing through the levels as you are. One guy grew so incredibly tired of me failing to balance spheres that he backed out of the level, leaving me stranded with a bunch of shifted blocks and no direction. I was alone and confused until another, more patient, player hopped in and helped me carefully stack pieces. I was so excited to have a friend again, but sadly they vanished as we moved on to the next puzzle.

If you’ve wanted to relieve the same thrill of making friends and suddenly losing them again like you do in Journey–and make precarious stacks of shapes at the same time–Drei is your game. It’s a very crisp take on physics puzzles with the surprise addition of 3-player co-op.

Game Name: : Drei The Good: Clever puzzles and anonymous co-op make Drei a game about experimentation and teamwork without hassling players to assemble friends lists or do more than flick shapes around. The Bad: The game is sometimes a bit too reliant on you playing with other people and some puzzles can only be completed online. The Verdict Drei’s use of physics to solve problems is deceptively simple and well worth investigating. This game also works brilliantly on iPad Air. Buy from: App Store

[rating=game4]