How to Build REALLY Cheap Bridges [LEADERBOARDS]

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Focus On The Objective!

Rather than thinking of every level as just "getting the car from one side to the other"- look at it at its most basic form. The car might not even have to touch the other side- but it does have to touch the checkpoint(s). Even if it just barely touches the star/flag, it still counts! No need to worry about the kids inside that school bus, they can fall off the edge of the cliff and drown- just make sure it touches the checkpoint first! Once you get into this mindset, building leaderboard-worthy bridges will become super easy!!!

Make sure it touches all checkpoints! It doesn't matter where the car goes after that!

Plagiarism Is Allowed!

No one is going to know if you stole your bridge design from someone else... so go for it! In fact- its super easy to find ideas for really cheap bridge designs. Whenever anyone selects to upload their bridge replay to the "gallery"[gallery.drycactus.com] the replay gets sent to this website: https://gallery.drycactus.com/

The gallery makes it super easy to find the cheapest designs with its searching abilities

The level drop-down allows you to search for any of the levels in the campaign, pick whichever you want to try to build!

Make sure you select "Wins Only" from the Type drop-down, this will make sure you only see the successful designs (otherwise you will see a bunch of failures- something that you're not)

Select "Lowest Budget" from the Order drop-down, this puts the designs in the gallery in ascending order based on price, showing you the cheapest ones (the ones we're looking for!) first.

Hit "filter"! The page will load and then you will see the cheapest bridges for that level that have been uploaded to the gallery!

Of course, you should always try to modify others bridges to make them better- plagiarism is allowed but try to make a few tweaks (you're not a copy+paste machine, you're a bridge builder!) In other words, getting ideas/inspiration is ok, but always try to make a few changes/improvements if you can!

Don't Build Bridges, Build Meteors

I know- its a bridge-building game, but for most levels, the fastest way to the leader boards has nothing to do with bridges and everything to do with Meteors (a.k.a Falling Roads/Falling Bridges) In order to make a "meteor" you have to put a road segment in the air, right above a ledge where a car is falling off. If you time it right, the road will hit the front of the car just as the car is leaving the land, forcing the car to be launched forward. Here's a quick demonstration of how you can make your own meteors (the meteor used in this example here doesn't actually work for this level, it's just a way to show the concept of how meteors work and give you a rough idea of how they are made)

First you're going to want to build a road segment as small as possible to keep the cost down

Next, select the road and "cut" it

You can now place your road really high up. You can keep cutting and pasting to go as high up as you want, allowing your meteor to gain more speed and launch your car further

Hit "play"! If you time it right, the road should hit the front of the car and send it flying forward. If you want the car to go further you can try to make the meteor go faster by attaching more pieces of road to the meteor. This will increase the weight of the meteor and make it go even faster (car will go further!)

⠀Here are some examples of some meteor bridges from the gallery.[gallery.drycactus.com] Watch closely, some of these meteors go really fast- if you blink- you'll miss it!

3-7 Swing Back - $860[gallery.drycactus.com]

The car is brought down by a small swinging mechanism. The meteor is used for the second part of the level, the bus. This meteor isn't just one piece of road- it's three. As you can see, the meteor isn't visible until a few seconds into the replay (it's REALLY high up) It's important to remember that you probably won't get this on your first try, this took me over 4 hours to get the right positioning and weight for my meteor, don't give up too early!

3-8 Swing Jumps - $322[gallery.drycactus.com]

This one is a little bit different from the last one. In the beginning, we see the car being stopped by two pieces of road segment- I call these stoppers. These stop the car to a point where it is dangling over the edge. This halt allows the meteor time to build up speed as it falls down onto the car. Stoppers can be built in a few ways, this one has the car resting on top of it, but others can be built as pieces of road hang off the edge of the cliff instead of on it- here's an example of that:

this also allows the car to hang off the edge, giving the meteor time to build up speed before it hits the car.

Have A Goal Price, Know Your Competition

Check the leaderboards to see where the current prices are at. If you know how much your bridge needs to cost, it's much easier to build.

Consistency Is... NOT Key!!!

Sometimes all you have to do to make your bridge work is to hit the "play" button a few more times! You could make NO changes to your bridge, but just by trying it out a few more times you can make it work. I don't know how many times I have had to hit the "play" button on some of my bridges to get them to work- especially with falling bridges- they're super inconsistent. Keep trying it, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of luck!

Trial And Error

Once you have made a functioning bridge, try cutting costs in different places. Getting a bridge on the leader boards takes a lot of trial and error. If removing something in one place doesn't work- don't worry, undo your change and try cutting costs somewhere else.

Trial and error is by far the most important part of making cheap bridges. You won't get a #1 bridge on your first attempt, or your tenth attempt... or even after a hundred attempts. If there is one thing that you should take from this guide is that you should never give up if you're attempting to get a leader-board worthy bridge. With enough time, creativity and perseverance, you'll be able to make some incredibly cost effective bridges. Have fun, don't give up and good luck!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2043188232					

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