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When I started playing this, I thought, "Holy crap, this is like a love letter to either
Isaac Newton or M.C. Escher." And then I kept playing. And I found out, "Holy crap, that's
actually what it is."
The Bridge is one of the coolest game concepts I've seen in a long time.
And it doesn't hurt that, you know...it's a pretty good game, too.
So, uh...history lesson, for those of us who didn't pay attention in science and art. Newton
discovered gravity, Escher discovered that steps look really cool when you paint them
on the ceiling. This game is about those two, and it bridges them together into a puzzle
game that's simultaneously beautiful and brilliant and baffling...
Also, black and white.
Maybe boring, if you want to be a *** about it.
The Bridge starts things off with a pretty obvious homage to Newton. You're sitting under
an apple tree, gravity happens. The man wakes up and walks into his home, but not without
your help. Along the way, we're introduced to the game's single mechanic—you push the
shoulder buttons to rotate the world in either direction, thus letting gravity work its magic.
So really, all you can do is walk and rotate. But it's precisely that simplicity that allows
the game's magnificent complexity to shine. The brilliance of each puzzle is that...I
mean, you can only do a few things. Walk, rotate and rewind time. So the solutions are
right in front of you. Yet there you are, just...staring these puzzles, formulating
hypotheses and predicting gravity and doing all kinds of geometry and math...
It's an ingenious game. And all with a few buttons and an analog stick.
And as you'd expect, The Bridge throws in plenty of twists and turns along the way.
There are only about 50 puzzles, but each series introduces new concepts. At first,
you're just dealing with basic gravity and momentum. But then, the game introduces these
vortexes, which can only be turned off when the level is turned at a certain angle. So
you're avoiding those, right?
But then you realize...maybe those hideous vortexes are actually useful.
And you start to use them, and manipulate them. And that's just the beginning.
So the gameplay is great. This is a genuinely challenging and immensely satisfying puzzle
game. But The Bridge's style is half the story, and the cool thing is...it's as functional
as it is pretty. The game just screams M.C. Escher. With the black-and-white drawings,
and those trademark stairs all over the place...it's like you're actually playing one of his lithographs,
somehow. And again, it's not just that it looks awesome.
That style is also what defines the level designs. So it's form and function.
So what about smudge marks, right? What does the game get wrong? Well, there are some occasional
difficulty spikes, when the puzzles seem to jump from obvious to "alright, how the hell
is anyone supposed to do this?" That kinda sucks. And of course, trial and error plays
a huge role, which turns some people off. If you can't visualize the solution, your
only option is to start experimenting and dying, and figuring out what works and what
doesn't.
And usually, I'm not big on trial and error, either. But for some reason, I actually think
it works here. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm doodling on a sheet of paper, and I can
just erase things and try again. Maybe it's the mathematic nature of it all, that makes
me feel like I'm working on homework or something. I don't know, but...being wrong is okay in
The Bridge.
It's just part of the process that leads to being right.
I think it's a sad commentary on the state of video games that...you know, publishers
are spending millions and millions trying to make these big Hollywood productions with
realistic graphics...but they're completely outclassed—in both style and substance—by
this simple, colorless puzzle game. Big budgets don't make great games.
Big ideas do.
And as small as this bridge may be, it's built with some seriously big ideas.