Tricky Bridge: Learn & Play 9+

Bridging the Gap

There is a plethora of card games in the Apple Store from which to choose, many are efficient at killing time on your phone when you’re bored, but rarely do they move beyond the screen and into real life. Like many traditional card games of the last century (and beyond), Bridge has gone from niche to novelty to oddity. That’s where “Tricky Bridge” comes in. Players are introduced to the game of Bridge via the world of “Tricky Bot”, whose fellow characters embody the tension between the old and the new and yet help to bridge that gap in a very real way. By learning how to play the game virtually they are also learning how to play it in real life. All it takes is buying a deck of cards, gathering a group of friends together, and start bidding. And if those friends don’t know how to play Bridge, then it’s the perfect opportunity to share “Tricky Bridge” with them. The strength of this game is its well-developed narrative (storytelling sells, no matter what the curmudgeons say) and I would love to see where the story continues to go (albeit I just finished the Red Club competition). One request I do have is to compile a “Tricky Bridge Handbook” that has the definitions of key terms that are presented to us in the “Learn” mode. I would like to reference it while playing via the game as well as in real life. Thank you for composing such a lovely work of art which does such an effective job bridging the gap between teaching and entertaining.

Superb Bridge Experience

Tricky Bridge succeeds on several levels: beautiful interface, great competitive feedback and tournament modes, and a sure-footed bridge bot AI that makes few errors or head-scratching bids. For beginners, the lesson mode is a nice intro to basic concepts, more than sufficient to get someone into the shallow end of the pool. On the whole, the app is a joy to use as a single-player bridge experience. I’ve played daily for several weeks and was almost immediately persuaded to sign up for the one-year package.

A few quibbles that I hope will be ironed out over time: The “nice bid” signal, which I gather is supposed to signify a “correct” bid under SAYC, does not seem to trigger nearly often enough, which leads to extraordinarily slow progress in mastering the various bids on the cheat sheet. The Knockouts Tournament function, which I generally like, seems to auto-enroll me in first-round matches, leading to forfeit losses after 24 hours without my knowing that I am matched. And a profile badge exists for winning a Knockouts Tournament, but it hasn’t checked off even after a few four-win successes.

I would also love to see more complex lessons, and implementation of a puzzle mode offering a challenging “deal of the day” that could be run through repeatedly. But none of these wish-list items detract from a much-deserved five-star review.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the very thoughtful review. All your feedback makes sense -- we can expand "Nice Bid" to more bids, and we definitely need to fix that weird Knockouts bug. We would love to add more lessons and a daily challenge of some sort (I was thinking of a daily bidding poll first, where players could debate which bid to make)

Not finished?

I downloaded this app in the hopes of learning how to play bridge and then be able to play with people online. At first, I was not disappointed. There was a wonderfully easy to use and understand tutorial/campaign. It began to lay the foundation for a campaign of five sections, each ending in a tournament, teaching the subtleties of bridge the whole way. If it had delivered, or even said the rest would come out in a future update, this would be a five star rating. I may have even paid to unlock the rest of the campaign. However, after the second segment, the campaign just... Ended. No conclusion, no “to be continued”, just nothing. There are many aspects of bridge that it claimed it would teach me later, and just didn’t. What is doubling? It said not to worry, it would teach me later. What is that thing one of the characters mentioned toward the beginning? Again, later. I find myself lost in the freeplay mode as bots exploit mechanics I had no idea existed. Please either finish the campaign, or add some explanation to why it ends so abruptly.

Also, I would love to see an online matchmaking system and a way to play with friends. These are not necessary though - It would just be nice.

Edit: I have received a response I am satisfied with. The review has been changed from three to five stars.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your review -- yes, we have written additional lessons and storyline but not coded them in to the game yet. We will look at the end-of-lessons flow as it exists now and adjust it so it's not so abrupt! Good idea.