Manifold Garden

The game’s creator, William Chyr, identifies primarily as an artist. And it takes an artist’s touch to so masterfully combine gameplay, art direction, architecture, logic puzzles, spacial subversion and audio-visual elements into such a coherent package. I’ve a feeling Chyr’s next project might manifest as an art installation rather than a game. If so, I’ll be holding my breath for a fall as I step tentatively through the doorway.

Manifold Garden builds a compelling, meditative world, and easily stands on its own merit as a highly recommended first person puzzle. It is short but sweet, as they say, and paced excellently. Jumping off into the abyss, and thinking about how to solve the next puzzle will never fail to reward - it makes one feel clever and always fits within the framework of rules which were previously set.

Manifold Garden is a striking and hugely impressive puzzler – but it’s certainly not for everyone. But perhaps that’s part of the appeal. Scratch that – it definitely is.

Although the game has taken inspiration from titles such as Portal and The Witness, the ingenuity of design sets it apart from its predecessors. The combination of exploration and puzzles in the vast interconnected world is a joy to experience. Despite the relatively short playtime and little replay value, Manifold Garden is worth exploring. Just be prepared for an existential trip into the world of William Chyr.

Overall, Manifold Garden is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has mesmerizing visuals, good puzzles, and a calming atmosphere. But there are a few negatives, like headaches, and music which lulls you to sleep. Priced at $19.99, I would recommend picking it up only if it’s interesting to you and on sale.

The sublime power of Manifold Garden’s visuals is never matched by its puzzles. Rather, the puzzles skitter across the surface of every new idea, dipping into each one just enough to suggest fascinating interactions and then move on at a brisk pace. Manifold Garden never dives into its concepts, or, perhaps, it only dives far enough to end up back where it started.

Manifold Garden is a peculiar and attractive experience. In many ways, the game feels more like an audiovisual experience than as an interactive work and its art style and soundtrack definitely stand out as indispensable elements. At the same time, some of its puzzles turn out to be less enjoyable than they should, and the game's short lifespan and little motivation to pick up again after completed mean that even though it has outstanding qualities, Manifold Garden falls short of its potential.

It almost feels like Manifold Garden might have fared better as a "walking simulator" at times; its infinitely-folding environments are works of art from any angle, and it's a little difficult to appreciate them when you're solving yet another samey block puzzle. Still, it'd be churlish to mark it down for being a game when solving its riddles isn't unenjoyable by any stretch of the imagination. We just found ourselves a little impatient to be done with them so we could hurry into the next astonishing panorama of abstract, impossible imagery. Manifold Garden is a lovely game, but sometimes the "game" bit gets a little in the way.