The Firing Line: 5 questions for Grow App on Bridgy Jones
Did you keep a diary?
We love building bridges here at Pocket Gamer.
AND we've got a soft spot for comedy cartoon dogs.
This is why we really like Grow App's Bridgy Jones.
We like it so much, in fact, that we gave it a much-coveted Gold Award, and described it as "challenging, surprising, and even quite funny" in our review.
We got a chance to catch up with Greg Gut - one of the five members of the development team that worked on the game - to find out more about Bridgy, his dog Bonner, and how difficult it was to create a funny bridge-building simulator.
Pocket Gamer: First up, could you tell us what Bridgy Jones is all about?Greg Gut: Bridgy Jones is a unique mixture of three popular game genres: bridge builder, arcade, and platform.
It's not enough to build a strong and solid bridge using various building materials such as wood, rails, ropes, stones, and pulleys, though.
After you've built a bridge in Bridgy Jones, you'll need to personally drive the train and solve some logical riddles on the way. You will collect additional packages; push stone blocks; try not to lose cargo; manage an icy surface; and find ways to open drawbridges and gates.
The game stars two memorable characters: Bridgy Jones and his loyal companion, Bonner. They're the complete opposite of the sweet heroes of so many games nowadays. They are snappish, mean, and - most of all - don't care about anything. At all.
There's an anarchic sense of humour running through the game, which has been evident since the first trailer. Was that humour something that came about organically?The whole point was to create a unique world with funny and humorous characters. And, like I said, that's why Bridgy Jones is a whining, grumpy old man and Bonner is a kind of crazy and loud little dog. Together, they form a duo which (we hope) people will love.
Our goal was to not only provide an entertaining game to the players, but to also make them laugh.
What was the hardest challenge you faced when building the game?Level design and game balance took a lot of time. A few times we've fallen into our own trap. We've been balancing levels to adjust them to our expectations, you see. But after tests with other users, we came to the conclusion that this or that section was too hard to pass.
After some more changes, we found that the gameplay was too simple. And so on. Again and again and again.
We think that we have found the right balance, so right now we're waiting for the first comments from the Bridgy Jones players.
What were your main influences during the development of this game?None, really. We couldn't find any other bridge-building game out there that met our expectations, so we decided to make our own.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone setting out on his first bridge-building adventure in the game, what would it be?Complete the whole tutorial!
But seriously, it's worth collecting all the coins in the level missions to unlock "awesome adventures" (the cool mini-game bonus levels).
