Quick Review: Tiny Bridge: Ratventure

I don’t think I’ll be able to cheese through that one.

Tiny Bridge: Ratventure was developed by Estelion, published by Senpai Studios and released on May 8th, 2015. This game is a puzzle game in which you have to use the physics engine to build bridges across gaps. There are obstacles in the way and your number of moves is limited.

I would never cross a bridge I don't trust. But when you're
a mouse, I guess you don't always have a choice.

You also control two mice, known as Mr. RatMan and Party Mouse, who have to gather cheese. These puzzles are thus split in two parts: You build your bridge, then you make these two mice walk across it. The goal is to collect the wedges of cheese on the screen, with the biggest one being the level's end goal. You switch between both modes as you wish, either constructing or walking. When in walking mode, you have to pick a node and the mice will walk towards it, and their added weight will have an effect on your construction. You thus often need to adjust and balance, and can even build while the mice walk.

There are stage hazards as well; little yet heavy creatures called minions (no relation to the Illumination thingies) will jump on the node you create nearest to them. Seems bothersome, yet their weight can be what you need to keep a node in place. Then, there’s the circular saws, which will instantly tear through the wooden connections between nodes and break your path. More elements are introduced in the first world, like hooks that are attached to a ceiling, and which you can connect to nodes.

Two more catches:
1. The mice can't get onto the bridge unless it's close enough,
so sometimes you'll have to make extra connections just
because goddamn Party Mouse couldn't get on.
2. You need BOTH mice to reach the big cheese.

I call this one "The Pit and the Pendulum".
...what? Too high-brow?

The game is split into six worlds of 12 levels, for a total of 72. When beating a level, you’re awarded up to three stars. One for completion, then two more based on other factors, such as the time you took to get to the solution and the number of moves you spent adding pieces to the bridge. Each level has a number of moves you can use: It’s the white number on the right. If you go past the white number limit in a stage, you’re allowed to go overboard, but then you dip into the green number next to it. The catch is that the green number represents “extra moves”. Be careful if you dip into those, as while they do replenish, they don’t do so every time you start a level over. There are hints you can use, but you start at 3 max and they then take a while to refill.

Beware of sawblades!

Most achievements for the game are "beat world X" or "get
three stars on all stages of world X". Not a lot of special
achievements. There is one example in this stage: Beat it
without building anything. I did it. It's a clever solution.

This is the sort of game that I could see as a part of a STEM class. The concept isn’t unique (other games similar to this exist), but it puts its own unique spin on the idea with the walking mice. In some levels, the problem isn’t so much to figure out how to build the bridge towards the wedges of cheese; it’s how that bridge will stay in place, either on its own or when the mice start walking on it. The puzzles get devious quickly, with some requiring excellent precision in how you build and when/where you walk, especially if you want those three stars. Hell, getting three stars is borderline impossible unless you know the absolute perfect sequence of building/walking, and good luck figuring it out. Especially with the hitboxes and how being even barely close to a saw will kill one of your mice. The game looks just okay, and has okay music, not much memorable there. Long story short, even in the minuscule “bridge builder” puzzle genre, while not outright terrible and with its extra mechanics, this game is likely to get eclipsed by better-known titles, with World of Goo being mentioned a lot as a better option.

Tiny Bridge: Ratventure is available on Steam for 1.99$ USD.