The Bridge was created by Ty Taylor and Mario Castañeda. It was started as a project requirement for Ty Taylor’s Master of Science degree in Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University, and shortly after the game was started, Mario Castañeda took the role as the sole artist for his Art minor capstone project at Case Western. The production of The Bridge has continued even after Ty and Mario have graduated to turn the school project into a professional-quality indie game.
The Bridge has been in development for nearly 3 years, and has received international attention after receiving nominations in contests such as the IGF, PAX 10, Indie Game Challenge, and IndieCade. The game is a 2D logic puzzle game that forces the player to reevaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective. It is Isaac Newton meets M. C. Escher.
“I originally knew I wanted to do something with gravity manipulation. I remember walking down an incredibly long straight hallway once thinking to myself how much easier it would be if I could just sit down on the floor and rotate gravity 45-degrees to slide down to get to the other side. In the end, the concept of gravity control probably came from that, but after nearly 3 years of development, the core concepts and mechanics have morphed quite a bit”, said Ty Taylor in an interview.
After a two year wait The Bridge was released on Steam. If you are wondering if this game is worth your money time you can find the answer in the following pages.
Sound and Vision
Visually, the game looks like a series of M.C. Escher sketches give that give the Bridge a distinctly indie, almost artsy atmosphere. The world is in grayscale, the rooms are often impossibly shaped, with surfaces looping back around on themselves however the lack of any sort of colour does become monotonous, You will be walking on walls and ceilings as if they were normal floors, and allowing gravity to bring the vital keys to you.
The soundtrack is basically one soft, slightly eerie instrumental soundtrack that keeps repeating throughout the game. The varied, but again limited in number, sound effects do nothing to alleviate the monotony.
