How to play
BRIDGE RACE is a race to the top of a floating pastel island. You play the pink figure. On each floor there are bricks scattered around in four colours, and your job is to pick up the pink ones. You carry them in a stack on your back.
From the far edge of each floor, three bridges lead up to the next one. When you walk up a bridge, each step you take lays one of your bricks down as a stair. Run out of bricks halfway and you cannot go higher, so you have to go back down and collect more. The first figure to reach the golden top floor wins. There are three rivals, Sky, Butter and Lilac, each building bridges of their own.
Move with W A S D or the arrow keys. On a phone, drag anywhere on the screen to use it as a joystick. Esc or the II button opens the menu and the hat shop, and M mutes. On the results panel, Enter or Space takes you to the next level.
Tips and strategy
- Count the steps. Every bridge is 14 steps long. If your stack is shorter than the steps still left to build, you will stall on the way up. Steps you have already laid stay yours, so a half-built bridge is not wasted.
- Steal a bridge. Walking up a step in a rival's colour paints it over with one of your bricks. A rival's half-built bridge is no shortcut, but it is not a wall either.
- Bump with care. When two figures on the same floor run into each other, the one carrying fewer bricks drops the whole stack. It scatters as white bricks, and the one who lost it is stunned for a second. Run into a rival only when your stack is bigger. Bumps do not happen on the bridges.
- White bricks are free. After a bump, scoop up the white bricks before the rivals do. They count towards your bridge just like pink ones.
- Bricks come back. A brick you pick up grows back in the same spot three to five seconds later, so you can loop the same corner of a floor.
- Use your speed. You move faster than every rival on every level. The rivals win by collecting steadily, so short, tidy trips beat long wandering ones.
What's in it
An endless run of levels. Levels 1 and 2 have two bridges to climb before the top floor, levels 3 and 4 have three, levels 5 and 6 have four, and from level 7 on there are five. The rivals also get a little faster each level until level 10. Each floor is laid out with 36 bricks, nine of each colour, in a new random pattern every race.
Each race pays out coins: a win pays 20 plus 5 for every level, and a loss still pays 5. The hat shop sells five hats to wear: a Party cone for 30 coins, a Bow for 60, Bunny ears for 90, a Crown for 130 and a Halo for 180. Bricks fly into your stack, steps pop into place, and the winner gets confetti.
The look is soft matte clay with rounded shapes, a gradient sky, drifting clouds and a gentle haze.
Behind the game
Each rival works the same simple loop you do. It picks a bridge, decides how many bricks it wants before it climbs, collects the nearest bricks of its own colour, and heads up. If it runs dry on the way, it turns back and starts collecting again. How many bricks a rival waits for is partly random and grows with the level, so on later levels they set off with bigger stacks and stall less. That is also what makes them good targets for a bump while they are still collecting.
You walk at a fixed speed, while the rivals start well below it and close the gap level by level, never quite catching up. The race is decided by how well you plan: which bridge you take, how big your stack is when you start up, and when you choose to bump.
The bump rule is simple on purpose: if two figures on one floor touch and their stacks differ, the smaller stack falls. There is a short wait before the same pair can bump again, so you cannot knock someone over twice in a row.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. Your level, coins and hats are saved in your browser, and the game picks up at the level you reached.
What happens if I lose?
You still get 5 coins, and you can retry the same level as many times as you like.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Put a finger anywhere on the screen and drag; a small joystick appears under it.
Is it multiplayer?
No. The three rivals are played by the computer.
Which one am I?
The pink figure, and you collect the pink bricks.
Is it violent?
No. Bumping just knocks bricks loose.
Does it flash?
No. There is confetti and a little camera shake.