Review: The Bridge

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The Bridge is a puzzle game that involves moving a character while altering the orientation of the world. The developers state that the challenges are inspired by Escher’s lithographs and Newton’s understanding of gravity. The gameplay is challenging and apart from the transversal puzzles, the prominent visual style that resembles one of Escher’s works grabs you immediately. The graphics feature impossible constructions that you must successfully navigate to proceed to the next level.

Gameplay usually revolves around obtaining a key to open a door or avoiding a giant boulder that crushes you upon impact. While understanding where objects will roll when you rotate the world is important due to the impossible design of each level, the core mechanic is about using gravity to avoid obstacles and acquire items. The usual controls are simple. You move forward or backwards using the left stick and rotate the map using the triggers.

The Bridge does a great job of introducing new traps into the mix. As mentioned earlier, there are locked doors and boulders, but later on in the game you also encounter holes that suck you out of the page. Understanding the level and the speed at which you want to rotate the map are the two factors that predominantly determine success. The title also introduces new devices later on that allow you to alter the levels on a smaller scale. You get an item that allows you to alter gravity for some objects.

Not only is The Bridge a visually complex game, it is also quite difficult. You will have to just sit there and inspect some of the levels for a long time in order to figure out what needs to be done. For example, early on in the game there is a map where you have rotate it in a particular way or the keys fall out of their holding areas forcing you to restart. It took me so much time to figure that one out. The solution was actually quite simple. While The Bridge is hard, some of the answers are as quite simple. I was just overthinking everything. You have to keep an open mind as to not dismiss the solution when experiencing this title.

You will die a lot and accidentally lose keys often. Luckily, there is a rewind button. I cannot thank the developers enough for including this feature. It makes going back immediately after making an obvious mistake easy. Sometimes you really do not want to start the level from scratch because you accidentally fell on a boulder.

My only real compliant would be how some challenges felt like you had to time everything to a millisecond. I know I am not the only one who thought so because other members of our staff had issues too. It was not about figuring out how to rotate the map or use your brains, but rather about how fast and where you landed. This detracts from the elegance of the title and can lead to frustrating and confusing moments. You will get confused while playing The Bridge but mostly due to the fact that the puzzles are really hard. You should not get frustrated because you timed falling incorrectly and cannot seem to get it right no matter how many times you try.

The Bridge does not really offer much replayability because once you figure out the solution to a puzzle you are done. Fortunately, the game requires a lot of thinking and you will probably spend hours on this game. I would recommend playing it a few levels at a time as to avoid the frustration you experience when you cannot figure out the solution to one of the levels.

Overall, aside from the quality of some of the puzzles, namely the ones that require precise timing, The Bridge is a great game and a lot of fun. It forces you to think in unique ways and really understand what impossible constructions are. Try to experiment when you are playing this title because sometimes impossible moves can lead to the solution. I cannot recommend this title enough and that is why it gets one of our highest scores ever.

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