app review: Bridge Odyssey

As a fan of the World of Goo, I was intrigued when I first picked up Bridge Odyssey for the iPhone and iTouch. The cute cartoon graphics, catchy tunes, and simple game play got me hooked. The premise is similar to the other bridge building games like Tiki Tower and World of Goo. Build a structure with a limited number of pieces and get the characters across to the other side. There are nine characters in this game including a cat, squirrel, bison, mammoth, dodo, fox, parrot, walrus, and a giraffe. The lighter the character, the less strain they put on the bridge. The mammoth and bison require extra structural consideration when making the bridge. The thing they brought to the genre is that the characters make funny expressions when you fail to get them across.

I found the game play to be very easy. One piece of the bridge is added to the bridge at a time. Double tap to delete the piece. There are also vines you can connect to the bridge for added strength. Bonuses are given if you collect all the gold pieces in the level and develop the bridge with minimal pieces. After completing the bridge, click on the bridge button to get the animals to cross. The physics are quite realistic with each of the animals putting strain across different points of the bridge. Sometimes the game is random with the same bridge failing in different areas, which keeps the game interesting. I’m guessing this has to do with how each animal crosses the bridge.

48 levels provide hours of challenging bridge building. The first two thirds of the game were easy to complete, while the later levels often took 15-20 minutes to complete. It gets really challenging when you only have a limited number of bamboo and only one connecting point to work off of. I’m thinking there should have been a difficulty mode that allocates more or fewer pieces. After beating the game, there is limited replay value since there is only one playing mode. You are able to repeat any of the levels that you have completed, but that’s about it. One thing I would have liked is to have been able to save the bridge you designed.

Overall, Bridge Odyssey is a very good bridge building game. Its highly polished cartoon graphics and easy-to-learn game play makes it a fun game to pick up one level at a time.

Pros:

• Cute cartoon graphics

• Easy game play

• Realistic physics

• Funny fail sequences

• Supports multiple languages (English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese)

Cons:

• Limited replay value (only one game mode)

• Difficulty ranges from easy to extreme

Learn more about the Bridge Odyssey in the App Store