The Bridge Review

There's something about The Bridge and it's hard to place. The puzzle game from Ty Taylor and Mario Castañeda is a curious title. It starts off with an opening that should be familiar to anyone, simply with an apple falling from a tree. It has no story to tell you directly, it challenges you to think instead of brashly acting, yet doesn't punish you for said brash actions and it's all wrapped in a beautifully drawn black and white style. It'll make your head spin along with the stages and you'll push forward, not knowing what kind of gravity bending puzzle the game will throw at you next.

There are six levels to a stage; with four stages overall and even entering the stages can be a small puzzle; there are four doors in the protagonist's house, each leading to a stages hub. The game starts off with simple puzzles to get you into the swing of things, with everything revolving around... well, revolving the level. The idea is generally that you are started in the stage, shown a key and a door. Your objective is to collect the key, then make your way to the now unlocked door. In a simple stage this can involve getting a key chained to the roof, where you would simply use the Q and E keys, or left and right arrows, to turn the level around completely, so you would land on the ceiling, collect the key, turn the world the right way again and enter the door. Later, however, things get much more complex.

The controls are extremely simple: as mentioned, Q and E or the left and right arrow keys tilt the stage, the A and D keys move your character left and right respectively and much like Braid, there's a rewind time key bound to shift and spacebar should you mess up beyond repair. That's it. There's no jumping, no sprinting, no climbing, nothing. Simplicity at its best to comfort you before it throws you into something where you might think you'll need the above mentioned skills.

As you progress, you'll be introduced to newer and more challenging concepts; initially it's simple gravity, then you have to contend with vortexes and rolling boulders that would terrify Indiana Jones on his best day, all the way to complete inversion of the world; your greyscale character becomes the purest of whites and you're on the opposite side of where you just were. Everything will confuse you; it's intended and it works a treat. The game even allows you to use a progressingly helpful hint system; while initially just giving you the smallest of clues about how to proceed, it'll end up telling you, out of pity, how to finish the level should you require it.

The Bridge is also a bit of a looker, with everything from your character to the stages themselves boasting the hand-drawn look. Your character even gets pencilled in at the beginning of each level. To accompany this, you're treated to a different loop of music quietly playing in the background in each stage. Each piece of music seems to fit the environment perfectly, and together with the stylistic look makes it appear a lot more relaxing than the game actually is.

Depending on your resolve to use the hint system or not, or how flat-out good at solving the puzzles you are, it will take you anywhere from two minutes to ten-plus to complete a single level, putting the overall time at a rather healthy two-to-three hours. This is an ample amount of time to enjoy the experience and while the length may be short, it ensures the game doesn't outstay its welcome; something common when a somewhat unique idea is implemented into a game. Replayability is high for those who want it, when finishing the game reveals a 'mirrored' mode after the ending, where levels take an entirely different approach to solve.

The appreciable length, the aesthetic appeal and the puzzle content all combine to make this an easy to recommend title for any puzzlers out there. It shares some common mechanics with other gravity-based puzzle games, but has enough unique elements to make it worth your time. Just don't expect to breeze through it without the hint system; there are times it will make you want to tear your hair out strand by strand, but if you complete that grief-giving puzzle, it's all the more satisfying. Definitely one to try.