A few days ago I wrote about a time waster called Cargo Bridge, a physics-based bridge building game. While certainly fun, Cargo Bridge had a few frustrating elements, one of which being the fact that the pieces you build with do not snap to a grid. As it turns out, there is another, very similar game called BridgeCraft which does snap its pieces to a grid.

BridgeCraft won't be for all of you; it has a very cartoony feel, and would probably be a fantastic game for kids. But don't discount it as merely a kid's game; while BridgeCraft is certainly easier than Cargo Bridge, it still has that element of challenge that we all look for in a good time waster.

One word of warning: choose Normal difficulty when given the choice between Normal and Easy. Easy is ridiculously easy, which would be great for introducing children to the game, but it's completely unnecessary for adults.

In Cargo Bridge, your goal is to build a bridge that will support the weight of your workers, and the cargo they need to go and bring back to the hut. You have a limited amount of money with which to build the bridge, and limited materials - walks and connectors. Walks are the only surface your workers and their cargo can travel on, while connectors are beams that allow you to reinforce your bridge.

Bridge building games are not new, but the implementation in Cargo Bridge is well done; the graphics are fun and smooth, and the actual bridge-building part of the game is relatively easy to use. This is the best kind of physics game, where playing the game actually helps you to learn about how various shapes affect the strength of objects.

Unfortunately the game tells you what the cost is of each beam as you are placing it, but not the length, while in planning mode you are given distances between objects. It would be much easier to make symmetrical bridges if you knew the lengths of the pieces you are placing. Also, it would be nice to have a "speed up" function for when you run into a particularly difficult level and are making small changes and re-running tests.

Even including those downsides, Cargo Bridge is a very fun time waster, worthy of your coffee break.

CS3 pricing is out, and it looks a bit high! Amazon might have let the cat out of the bag a little early when it comes to the not yet released Adobe CS3 applications. Officially CS3 is due out on March 27th, but Amazon accidentally flipped the switch to show the pricing of the newly designed creative suite a day earlier.

The pricing structure looks like this:

• Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium - $1599
• Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Master Collection - $2499
• Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Production Premium - $1199
• Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Design Premium - $1599

We know we weren't the only users grinding our teeth hoping that Adobe might bring the pricing down slightly, but that looks like that's out of the question for now.

DLS wants to know - If you are dishing out and buying into the new CS3, which version do you have your sights set on?

Check out a chart that displays what applications are bundled with which version in the new CS3 here.

[via Gizmodo]

One slick new feature of Adobe Bridge in the CS2 suite is its ability to browse images with a film strip view, similar to what Windows XP (and I think ME?) can do: a large preview sitting above a line of thumbnails at the bottom of the window. It's a slick way to browse images that offers the best of both worlds, and ultimately a faster thumbnail browsing experience.

[via Jan at the Unofficial Apple Weblog]