You've got to be kidding me. What fun is that? My friend was trying to get past one of those one-way levels the other day and you know what he said? "Now I know why bridges aren't dropped from planes." The first time we saw a level like that, we solved it, but the train actually fell down to the bridge and "jumped" back up onto the tracks and we were like "What? Surely, this can't be how this level was meant to be completed, because up until now, this has been a really cool game."
I've seen how people get flamed on game forums, whenever they bring up the word "realism". I know Pontifex isn't realistic, I really do, but it's (at least) a simulation of realism when you build a bridge that a train has to cross, even if very few things are like in the real world. That's why it's so totally uncool to build a bridge that has to "fall into place", or where the train actually has to jump on either side of the tracks. Come on people, what would be the fun of trying to "throw" your train across the river? The cool part is getting it to ride as smoothly as possible.
I love Pontifex, I really do. I play it all the time and I have been for some time. I LOVE building really cool bridges, that look somewhat realistic (this of course includes that the train can cross the bridge in either direction), that's why I also hate those one-way bridges so much. They're boring, unrealistic, ugly, stupid, time-consuming, pointless and generally annoying. Did I mention unrealistic?
I've gotten to somewhere in the map pack, playing on hard, but over and over again my experience is ruined when I get to another one of those levels, where there's just no way to build a proper bridge, and if you build one that "falls into place", there's no way you'll ever get a good bridge out of it, even if you complete the level.
Bottom line: Pontifex is the coolest game ever, realistic or not. Why ruin it with one-way bridges, that are no fun what-so-ever? If you read the thread "When is a clean bridge not a clean bridge?" you'll see that everybody seems to try and build bridges that are as realistic, cheap, beautiful and perfect as possible. People don't want broken links, they don't want a wet train and they definitely don't want the train cars to be lying on the side when the train has crossed the bridge, even if they still complete the level.
That's just how I feel about it, I would like to hear what everybody else thinks.
SpaceRain.