The Bridge

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

The Bridge is a Puzzle-Platformer that the official game page describes as “Isaac Newton Meets M.C. Escher, and I feel this is a clever way to describe the game’s basic concept – You move around the game’s puzzles by rotating the world clockwise or counter-clockwise, changing the gravity of everything within it. In addition, the game’s visuals are designed in an M.C. Escher-esque way so that the level’s layout acts differently based on your perspective. Combining these two elements, players must get past obstacles to each level’s door.

It’s a decent gameplay concept, and it’s utilized pretty well here, with some pretty clever puzzles that will have you frequently thinking through what it is you need to do, often coming to realize the solution you need is also pretty creative too.

That said, there are some flaws here that keep the game from being quite as enjoyable as it could be. Your character moves agonizingly slowly and is pretty pathetic when it comes to his range of movement. The world rotation also can be slow at times. The result is a fair amount of tedium and frustration at having to put up with these limitations.

The other issue here is the presentation, which I feel is going to be a love it or hate it thing for most people. Don’t get me wrong, this game uses a pretty unique, well-designed, and I would even venture to say beautiful art style… but the decision to leave it completely in black and white makes it get tiresome to look at pretty quickly. What’s more, this is paired with some pretty somber, depressing music, and given that the game is already a bit too slow-paced, this presentation feels like it’s continually sapping away my enthusiasm to play the game.

In the end, The Bridge is still a good Puzzle-Platformer with some unique puzzles and a presentation that is technically very good, but the slow pacing and depressing nature of that presentation may put off some players. For those who don’t mind, it’s a solid entry in the genre that’s worth trying out.

tl;dr – The Bridge is a Puzzle-Platformer where players rotate the world around to change gravity and solve M.C. Escher-esque puzzles. It’s a good concept with good puzzles, but the gameplay can be slow-paced and tedious, which is made worse by the somber, depressing presentation. However, it’s still a good game if you’re patient enough to put up with these issues.

Grade: B-

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