The Bridge is as much art as it is puzzle

Do you want to solve puzzles by manipulating perspective, gravity, and impossible architecture? The Bridge is the perfect game for your bizarrely specific set of interests. I can’t imagine how you’ve gotten by until now. This interesting little indie game is an aesthetically well designed title by  Ty Taylor (designer, programmer) and Mario Castañeda (artist). I was drawn in by the sketchbook style black and white art direction of the game and I remained intrigued by the puzzles that range from simple to maddening. That said, this is definitely a game for people with a certain temperament and a love for sometimes slow paced puzzle solving. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone I know, but to the certain ones that love to solve mazes, Rubik’s cubes, and other logic puzzles that most people give up on after a few minutes of frustration I would leave them an intricately folded note inside of a puzzle box suggesting that they try it. Trust me, they’ll appreciate the gesture.

 The art

I mentioned that the art style is what initially grabbed my interest. The game is presented in the way that a friend (one with real talent and not just one you humor) would present their recently sketched ideas on a pad. It lends itself superbly to the weird M.C. Escher inspired puzzles that make up the body of the game. It’s beautifully done, and I appreciate the feeling and detail of each level with their impossible designs. Each puzzle is a work of art that is both brilliant and devious.

Turning the world upside down

Beautiful and impossible architecture.

The Bridge allows for two basics controls: moving your character left or right on screen and rotating the entire world to change what up and down mean. Solving the puzzles in a game where the door you want to reach is on the ceiling is all about changing your perspective and throwing off the restraints of your own physical reality. The one thing to cope with is that no matter how you turn the world, gravity still pulls you and the objects in the world with you to the bottom of the screen. Well, until you start getting to levels where you can adjust the direction of gravity for certain other objects in the levels. Did I mention that this get can a tad complex? Then there’s also the artwork to consider as you follow paths based on how they’re drawn without regard to other physical constraints. This is a 2D platformer that uses the depth of the level art to determine where you go. Loops can easily move you from the foreground to the background and can do the same with the threats you face. It’s a puzzle just figuring out how to describe this game.

I’m no art critic

I have, however, gotten rather accustomed to criticizing games. While the majority of my feelings about The Bridge are undeniably positive, I do have a few small reservations about it. The music, for example, serves only the purpose of creating background noise while you’re trying to figure out how to roll an orb of death following a different gravitational rule than yourself passed a vortex for which you can’t currently reach the off switch. I’m saying the music isn’t great and doesn’t really enhance the mood of the game. While we’re there, the game itself has no particular mood to it, at least for me. While I felt a sense of accomplishment after working on certain puzzles, the game itself didn’t really feel like anything to me. Which brings me to my final criticism: the game has no kind of hint mechanism. Some of these puzzles are far from intuitive and we live in a world where we wouldn’t likely think of the solution. It might be nice to have some kind of resource for “what do I do now” that isn’t YouTube.

Overall, I think this game is great and a refreshing change of pace from my cavalcade of shooters and MMORPG titles. It’s available on Steam for a relatively low price and should provide a good deal of entertainment for the puzzle minded gamer. That said, you can probably work through the game over a weekend or less if you’re the sort that is particularly good at these sorts of challenges. If you’re more like me, you’ll find several puzzles to stump you for a time until you see (or stumble upon) the solution and immediately feel very smug and proud of yourself. Exercise your poor brain and pick up The Bridge.