Soundtrack: Trine 2: Complete Story — from a forest lullaby to a battlefield of drums

How a harp in a night forest slowly turns into drums

Trine 2: Complete Story is Frozenbyte's physics puzzle-platformer, built around freely switching between a wizard, a knight, and a thief. As Komugi's review notes, the design asks you to combine all three sets of abilities to clear each puzzle — but the first thing I actually listened to wasn't the puzzle-solving. It was the theme that opens the game.

The score comes from Finnish composer Ari Pulkkinen, also known for Angry Birds and Resogun. In the Trine series he shows a different side: a slow, unhurried tempo, harp and strings stroking the forest like a lullaby. It's an opening that earns the phrase "page one of a storybook."Trine 2: Complete Story opens on a quiet night in the forest

Why the sequel added drums to the first game's gentleness

Pulkkinen has said he deliberately wrote the two games differently. The first Trine aimed for "a softer and tender high-end fantasy theme," but with goblins invading and the story turning toward war, the sequel called for something "more massive and percussion heavy" (my translation, from a GameSpot interview). He added flutes, clarinet, piccolo, pizzicato strings, and a string section, then layered in rare ethnic instruments and singing voices on top.

When the story gets heavier, he doesn't rewrite the song — he adds to the instrumentation itself. That care reminds me of exactly the same idea behind this game's puzzle language.From a screenshot on the Steam store page

The knight's sword, the thief's grappling hook, the wizard's boxes and planks — three verbs stack on the same puzzle. In Pulkkinen's score, woodwinds, strings, percussion, and choir stack the same way on the same piece. Neither side narrows its verbs to sharpen one meaning; both add layers to widen the range. This game is built on the same idea, in its puzzles and in its music.

Switching between the three heroes feels like switching between instruments

I measure everything in BPM out of habit, but with this score, what I notice first isn't the tempo — it's the sense of "changing instruments." Low brass and drums suit the knight's swing, light pizzicato strings suit the thief's quickness, flute and sustained strings suit the wizard's floating touch. That's not something Pulkkinen said himself — it's an analogy I'm layering on as I listen.

The instant your solving hand switches from swinging a sword to firing a grappling hook, the instruments in your head switch too. It's the same feeling as a melody passing from woodwinds to strings inside one orchestral piece. Because switching never becomes "a different song" — only a different voice inside the same one — the score never loses its way as you move between the three heroes.

As for solving tempo, Trine 2 doesn't rush you. Stack an object and cross it, stretch a rope and reach it — there's a pause built into every move. So the score seems to choose the same approach: rather than hurrying you with single stingers, it holds you steady with sustained tones.

Tracks worth hearing

First, "Trine 2 Main Theme Orchestral Version." The melody carried over from the first game opens on harp and pizzicato strings, then a string section builds in weight through the back half. It's the track carrying the story's "gentleness."

The other is "Glory of Ancient Kingdom," from the Goblin Menace expansion. Drums and brass step forward, and a sense of "war" the first game never had rings out clearly. It's hard to believe the same composer wrote both.

Closing — what I'd steal for my own work

What I'd steal is the trick of changing a story's temperature by adding and subtracting instruments, instead of rewriting the song. Keep the melody's skeleton intact, and layer percussion or choir on top later. You can make a change big enough to feel like a different composer, without ever leaving the same theme.

If you're replaying anything, make it the seam where the quiet forest gives way to the goblin battlefield. Pour another cup of black coffee, and listen once more to the handful of bars where the harp hands things over to the drums.

Sources

・Steam: Trine 2 Soundtrack (official OST DLC for Trine 2 and The Goblin Menace)

・GameSpot: Sound Byte - Meet the Composer, Ari Pulkkinen

・Ari Pulkkinen's official YouTube channel

・Komugi's review: Trine 2: Complete Story