Bridget feels like a timeless classic
Heading into the Christmas holidays, everyone seems to get a little bit nostalgic.
We watch old Christmas movies. We think about the fun of Christmas in our childhood. We reminisce about years gone by with family members. And we often think back to “simpler” times.
Well, for some reason, playing Bridget, by ET Games, is a lot like that.
Perhaps it’s the wooden blocks. Or perhaps it’s the simple rules.
Either way, playing Bridget feels like hearkening back to simpler times. And I love that respite.
How to play Bridget
The objective in Bridget is super simple: create a continuous path from one side of the board to the other in your color.
But since the pieces you’re placing are three dimensional, the path won’t be limited to just a line. Instead, it will meander and climb — and yes, build bridges. Thus, the view from above is what matters for there to be a continuous path.
The rules are likewise very simple:
- Players take turns playing a piece of their color on the board.
- The piece may be placed anywhere on the board but it must touch the game board and line up with the grid.
- It also can not leave an empty space underneath it.
The first player to connect opposite sides of the board with a path made by pieces of their color, as viewed from above, is the winner.
Can the whole family enjoy Bridget?
Bridget is such an approachable abstract strategy game, that everyone in the family can enjoy playing.
Since it’s a spacial placement game, it’s a fantastic game for mental development in players of any age.
Even though anyone can enjoy the game, the best games of Bridget are those played by players of equal skill level. The beauty is that like chess, as players play more games, they’ll improve their skill level.
In playing, you’ll quickly find that figuring out how to play both offensively and defensively at the same time takes a bit of work.
Sure you’ll want to line up your pieces so they create a path from one side to the other, but you also have to keep an eye on where your opponent is trying to connect their path. As the board fills in, you’ll have to keep your mind open for many possibilities of how to both connect your pieces and thwart your opponent. And if you can do both with one placement, even better.
We love games with Tetris-like game pieces. Whether those pieces are 2D (Blokus, Ubongo) or 3D (Rumis, Pueblo), it’s fun connecting playing pieces of various shapes.
We also love 2-player abstract strategy games that give a mental face-off between players and are quick to play.
And we love games that offer many options for trying different strategies.
Bridget hits the mark on all three.
Plus, the wooden pieces are fantastic!
They just feel nice when playing. And that nice, tactile feel is one of the reasons we enjoy playing physical board games.
We also think it’s cool that the game comes in a bag rather than a box. It makes it really easy to grab and go. It’s an easy game to grab to take on a trip as well because you don’t have to worry about stuffing a game box in your bag. The Bridget game bag can fit in a travel bag very nicely.
On the flip side, it also means it doesn’t fit nicely with all our game boxes on our game selves. Of course, that could also be the publisher’s plan because that means it stands out among all the other games. When we take a quick look at our game closet to choose what to play, Bridget will be hard to overlook.
And let’s not forget that the compact game also comes with its own puzzle-like game board. This is another element that makes the game so travel friendly. The game board is double-sided and can be set up almost anywhere. Simply choose which side you want to play on and put the 4-piece game board puzzle together and you’re ready to go!
All in all, Bridget feels like a timeless classic board game.
How does Bridget score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Bridget scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter because it’s a head-to-head game that delivers a mental challenge in a quick play. Granted that with very competitive and thoughtful players it may take a bit longer for someone to win. But it’s still relatively quick.
In fact, it’s hard to play only one game of Bridget.
Since there’s really no set up to worry about (just take all your pieces back), it’s super easy to dive into another game back to back.
But the real reason is that the mental challenge in Bridget is catchy. Playing one game just won’t be enough.
If you can’t guess, we definitely recommend adding Bridget to your family board game stash.
Sounds like another fun one worth giving a try. My wife and I have been playing Tak recently. It similarly has you placing and manipulating pieces to try and build a path from one side of the board to another. I like seeing the way so many games tackle the same objective in numerous unique ways.
Okester – It is cool to seem the many different ways designers can take the same objective but make the game play feel different. I really like Tak too.
Abstract games with beautiful and simple designs are right up our alley. Thanks for the recommendation!