[Originally published on Apr. 4, 2013, we’re bumping up this review because The Bridge is being released on a bunch of new platforms on Aug. 18-20]
Developer: Ty Taylor and Mario Castañeda
Publisher: The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
Players: 1
Console Reviewed: PC
Also On: PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita, Ouya
ESRB Rating: Not Rated
Progress: Completed the game’s 48 levels
I was surprised to receive a review code via email a couple of weeks ago from Ty Taylor, the programmer and creator of The Bridge, an indie puzzle platformer that had intrigued me with its M.C. Escher-style levels and unique gameplay that seemed to take hints from the likes of Braid and echochrome. As most gamers should know by now, though, the realm of indie gaming is a minefield where for every Bastion there are a bunch of games like Costal Defence. So, does The Bridge rank among the indie gaming elite or does it fall by the wayside in spite of its impressive visuals? Read on to see what we thought of our playthrough of The Bridge.
The Bridge begins with the player’s character sleeping under an apple tree and the game’s primary mechanic of using the LT/RT triggers on the Xbox 360 controller to tilt the world around is introduced to knock apples out of the tree to wake him up Newton-style. The only other two parts of the controller that are used in The Bridge are the left stick for character movement and your friend the B-button that is used to rewind time when you inevitably die or irreparably mess up a puzzle in much the same way that the mechanic is used in Braid. Unlike Braid, though, your character plods along quite slowly even at his fastest and I can’t help but feel that some of the game’s roughly 5-6 hours of play are padded by his lethargic gait.
The game’s puzzles, that involve walking your character through Escher-inspired levels, ramp up smoothly in difficulty and complexity, but become really intensely frustrating and solvable only through lengthy trial-and-error sessions near the end of both halves of the game. Once you finish the first set of 24 levels, there are 24 “mirrored” levels to complete whose similarity to the first 24 levels stops at basic level design. There are many more proverbial wrenches thrown into the works in the mirrored levels and virtually none of them play similarly to their visual counterparts.
The lack of a hint system can be a bit frustrating at times making the player almost certainly turn to YouTube or GameFAQs to even begin to comprehend the solution to the game’s more difficult puzzles as there is usually a certain “trick” to each level that once grasped quickly brings its solution. If you can’t get the trick you’re out of luck without some extraneous assistance and this can either be a great boon for gamers looking for mind-bending puzzle challenges or a bit of a pain for those of us more interested in the game’s cryptic story than spending more than an hour stuck in the same place.
Overall, visually and in spite of the lack of “ah-ha” moments yielded by particularly finely crafted and balanced puzzle games, The Bridge stands above the crowd of exceedingly average indie games that now seem to constantly bombard our PCs. For the conception and coding work of one person and the visual design of only a single other, The Bridge provides a very competent and professional gaming experience. If you’re a fan of puzzle-platformers, The Bridge is a well-crafted and interesting experience, particularly for those with good spatial reasoning and who aren’t afraid of getting stuck for a while.
- Visually appealing with interesting level design
- Simple controls similar to Braid‘s time-rewinding mechanic
- Provides 48 levels of varying challenge and about 5-6 hours of gameplay
- The hardest puzzles can be very frustrating as they boil down to a lot of trial and error
- Impressively well-made for the work of two people, better than the average indie game
A review code for the game was provided to us by the game’s developers.