Poly Bridge – Review
Follow Genre: Puzzle, Simulation
Developer: Dry Cactus
Publisher: Dry Cactus
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Poly Bridge – Review

Site Score
8.3
Good: Amusing style, Easy to learn...
Bad: ...very hard to master at times
User Score
9.6
(8 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.6/10 (8 votes cast)

The life of a bridge builder must be a heavy one, where those in charge of designing the structure must have loads of responsibilities, as they are the ones who have to guarantee safe passage to those who wish to cross the dangerous waters. Every choice has to be justified and well calculated. Will the foundation hold? Will it withstand the tests of time? All important questions. Then again, you can just aim for shits-and-giggles and wing the entire designing process. Poly Bridge proves to be the latter, as you will probably more than once aim for spectacular crashes, instead of a functional structure. Hopefully you took those swimming lessons as a child!

Note: At the time of this review, the game was still in Early Access and thus unfinished. Nonetheless, we felt the game and the principles were already great for its unfinished condition. Whilst this may seem as if we judged the game too soon, we were also able to discuss the features that would be added in the future, with the developer, as well as test the basics of said features.

PolyBridge_Title_transparent

Story

Leonardo da Vinci was your mentor from a long forgotten age and whilst he focused on making pretty much everything, your passion lies with the construction of making majestic bridges like no living person has even had the chance to behold. You will spend many sleepless nights drawing up plans for your future contraptions, which will allow the masses to pass the many gaps this world has to offer. If you fail, these poor peasants will fall into the blue liquid pits of doom.

Hopefully you’ll realize by now the game has no actual story value and that’s actually quite alright. The game focuses around solving puzzles, namely drawing plans to create bridges across the lakes. That is all you need to know and the game would not have had that much ‘extra’ even if it had an actual plot.

Graphics

Poly Bridge has two different appearances, namely the design mode and the actual simulation mode. Whilst the first looks like you’re drawing an actual blueprint, the latter is more of a comical style, which will certainly lighten up the many failures to come.

The slapstick-ish design proves to be one of the greatest assets of the game, even though it might remind some of many of the mobile games that we are getting bombarded with nowadays. Same can be said for the level selection screen(s), as they might seem as a polished up select screen from games like Angry Birds, Candy Crush, … . Nonetheless, the cute art style can still be found in the menu’s as well.

Poly Bridge 1

Sound

As building bridges is serious business, the soundtrack is quite calm, as if you’re taking a very long trip down a hotel elevator. The soothing music will make your failures even more funny, as the music keeps flowing as if nothing has happened. Then again, a few floating corpses should not be allowed to ruin the relaxing bridge-building-mood.

Other than that, the game provides some sound effects for placing objects on your blueprint, the inevitable destruction of many of your creations and the vehicles that will test your contraptions. Simple, yet adequate.

Gameplay

Poly Bridge is a fairly difficult puzzle game, where you will have to create bridges, in order to ferry one or more vehicles across. You’ll spend most of your time carefully placing the right materials (wood, steel, cables, …) in order to create a design, sturdy enough to support the weight of the vehicles which wish to reach the other side.

When plotting out your design, you’ll have to stick to a budget, as your (imagined) contractors want to create a solution for their clients, albeit the cheapest one possible. You’ll notice that some preset budgets are a bit tighter than others and that certain materials cost more than others. Even if you’re allowed to use steel as a building materials, you might just want to alternate with wood from time to time as well.

Poly Bridge 2

The game does not have that many materials that you can choose from, but even with the limited arsenal of crafting supplies, you’ll still have to consider all options. You’ll start by clicking and dragging your road pieces on the blueprint, in order to start reinforcing them with other materials later on. Keep in mind, that most maps have connecting points for the road (beginning and ending) and sometimes you’ll find other fixed points on the map, to allow for some reinforcement, as the level would otherwise be impossible to complete. This also means you won’t be able to start building from locations you’d like to build from, but from those fixed points. This allows for less solutions yet harder puzzles to solve.

You’re not always limited to simply making a connection between two different landmasses, but you’ll sometimes have to create jumps in order for the vehicles to make a spectacular jump to the other side. Other times you’ll have to create bridges on top of each other, as several cars are in different situations. Whilst you’ll constantly be building bridges, there’s enough diversity to keep things interesting.

As you progress in the campaign mode, you’ll unlock a free drawing option (you simply turn the gridded overlay off) which allows for more freedom. Nonetheless, this also makes it harder to create symmetrical design, which might sometimes cause your construction to collapse.

If the many beloved travelers keep crashing in the water because your bridge is not stable enough, you can also toggle the ‘stress’ option, in order to be able to view the weak links, during the simulation process. This often helps in making the right choices after (several) failures.

Poly Bridge 3

An amusing feature Poly Bridge throws into the equation is having the option of making a GIF out of each and every one of your successes or (hilarious) failures. Not only can you get your own memento stored locally on your hard drive, you will also be able to upload it to the user gallery online, to aid those who are in need or simply to share a few laughs or fun creations.

If you’re ready to ‘build’ with the big boys, you’ll be able to emerge yourself in the Sandbox mode. This mode allows for your own set of rules and creations, allowing other players to try their hand at fixing the puzzle you present them with. Of course, this mode will only allow maps you were able to solve yourself. A great way to prevent trolling.

Conclusion

Even though Poly Bridge is still in Early Access, it’s actually quite close to its finishing point. Not only does this puzzle game present you with a lighthearted theme, the actual mechanics prove to be astonishingly good, even though everything is quite ‘basic’. Become a bridge master or an architectural disaster and get the masses to either cross or drown faster.

Poly Bridge 4

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.6/10 (8 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
Poly Bridge - Review, 9.6 out of 10 based on 8 ratings

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