Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead Switch Review

The world of Bridge Constructor is an interesting one, starting life as a simple, build a bridge and hope it doesn’t collapse physics puzzle game, the series hasn’t really progressed all that much gameplay-wise, but developers ClockStone have built a franchise from the simple template. Beginning with some of the earlier iterations like Medieval, which gave a middle-age sheen to the title, and then expanding to a crossover with the Portal series. ClockStone have been hard at work with another high-profile crossover, which you probably already know from the title of this article even if you haven’t seen any of the publisher Headup games promotional stuff. Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead marks the latest entry in a fairly well-received franchise.

Defying all common sense, ClockStone have combined their bridge building game with the long-running undead series The Walking Dead. How do the two franchises fit together? Well, honestly, not badly. The game plays out pretty much the same way that earlier titles have, in that you play through various scenarios that posit the player the question of the best way to build a bridge.

But this time the stakes are much higher, as you’ll need to find ways to build your bridges and protect the survivors from the hordes of Walkers desiring a quick hero snack.

All that being said, the stakes aren’t really that much higher seeing as the game allows you to reset the level and replay beaten levels as much as you want, but it does add a new aspect to the gameplay which is nice.

If you’ve played one of the other games, then you pretty much know how things will go, but if you haven’t it’s pretty straightforward. Each level has a section that you can build your bridge in, this is done by selecting an anchor point and dragging the cursor to create a bridge. However, it’s not as simple as dragging the cursor between the two points. There is a limit to the length of each piece, so you’ll need to connect a few to make a bridge.

But even if that isn’t done, you’ll also need to worry about support struts and other engineering principles to make sure your bridge can support not only its own weight but the weight of the people that need to use it. As the game progresses, you’ll unlock new material, learn basic engineering principles (such as the strength of triangles), and more. Each level also has a badge you can win for completing the level under budget, which means the efficient use of material will become paramount for people hoping to win them all.

In addition to the basic bridge building, this game also tasks you with killing (re-killing?) Walkers while you get your survivors out, this can be as simple as building a ramp to roll a giant cable spool onto their heads or as complex as programming the survivors to bait the Walkers, activate machinery, and drop a shipping container on their heads as the survivor flees to safety. You’ll mostly be finding ways to drop heavy things on the Walkers heads.

The “programming” aspect of the game, which allows you to control your survivors, is again fairly simple: select a hero and then you can assign various tasks to them that they will perform in the order you set for them. For instance, you can have a survivor run to the left, activate a piece of machinery, and then continue on to the safe zone, while another survivor runs to the right, baiting the Walkers to chase them so they get crushed by the shipping container the first survivor dropped, and then climb a ladder and escape to their safe zone.

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And that’s about it, really. The art is fairly low-poly, but it is stylized that way; the music is quite good and generally conveys a level of excitement that maybe exceeds building a bridge; the story is silly and fun, far more light-hearted than most of the TV series; and the gameplay is as solid as you’d expect from a company that has been working on the franchise since 2013.

In short, fans of the franchise have a new game with more bridges to build and puzzles to solve. Newcomers should be able to slide right in as the game eases you in with tutorial levels and contains some easily accessible hints in the pause menu. But fans of The Walking Dead may prefer to keep looking for a game with more bite.

Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead Review provided by NintendoLink
Publisher: ClockStone
Developer: Headup Games
Release Date: November 19, 2020
Price: $14.99 USD / €14,99 / £11.99 (10% launch discount)
Game Size: 244 MB