Bridge Builder

[MidKnight Lament]

Found this cool little freeware game at http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?id=2472 .

Here's some copied text from the site as a description:

One of the most original puzzle games ever designed, Bridge Builder is an intriguing blend of real-world physics, puzzle, and economics. Your job is simple: build a structurally sound bridge across the river, over which trains should be able to go safely. With limited funds, you will buy various parts, then assemble them into a working bridge. What make the game a lot of fun are the excellent physics engine, and the wide variety of parts that allows you to build many different types of bridges. The further along you get with your particular project, the wider the rivers get, and thus completion becomes more and more difficult. Because you only have limited funds for each level, you have to be frugal and can’t waste the different components.

After you get a hang of how the game works, Bridge Builder becomes a highly addictive game. So far, only the demo version has been released, and the programmers seem to have stopped working on it after finding out that the name of the game is already trademarked. Still, 15 levels in the demo (levels 8-15 appear after you beat the first 7) should keep you hooked for quite some time. After you beat the game, check out the Related Links below for hundreds of bridge designs made by fans, as well as extra bridges and levels. Overall, a very unique and entertaining game that deserves much more notice than it did. Two thumbs up, way up!

This really is an addictive little game. And no, I'm not an engineer

[Eternal]

It's fun to see how anarchic you can make the bridges and still having them hold. The 15th level is impossible btw

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Eternal
It's fun to see how anarchic you can make the bridges and still having them hold. The 15th level is impossible btw

No it isn't!

[Dauphin]

The 15th level is impossible btw

Just put a large counterbalance on the left to raise the right like a drawbridge.

[Zkribbler]

Ahhh, it's good to see this ol' thread pop up again.

I was up to Level 8 or 9, when my original copy of Bridge Builder started crashing. I've been procrasting about looking the the link, but here it is so...downloading.

[CapTVK]

There's also a german site which has extra level packs. It also has a level editor.

http://www.bridgebuilder.de

Some of the winning designs for the orginal bridges are so simple , they'll make you cry....

note: My cheapest bridge on level 15 was $3400, there they are under $2000!

[CivPatriot]

This game is addictive!

Does anyone know how to delele a section of the bridge? I keep on having to delete the whole bloody bridge becuase of misplaced sections.

I reccomend this game as well!

[Zkribbler]

Right click on one of the joints. This usually results in a section of the bridge being deleted, but it's far better than deleting the entire bridge.

[CivPatriot]

Thanks. Sure works better than losing the enitre bridge, which inevitably happened just as I almost finished.

Hey, I just made Warlord!! Yay!

[MidKnight Lament]

I haven't played it for a couple of weeks now. I'll admit I'm only on Level 7.

The funniest thing was watching my brother and his mate (both studying flavours of Engineering) initially come up with some designs that were never going to work. Of course, they started talking about all the important things that weren't in the game that meant half of the theories they'd learnt in Structural Engineering didn't work. But I laughed nontheless.

Oh, btw, I think you'll find that if you right-click on a strut, it will delete just that strut. But if you right click on a joint, it'll delete that joint, and all the struts attached to it.

[Chowlett]

I showed it to my brother and his friends, who are all engineers - they discovered that at least on the earlier levels a simple Warren Truss method worked quite well - you could span gaps of 4 full length girders with only 1 level of trussing.