The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between is delightful, its soundtrack is beautiful and calming, its art style is pleasing, its characters are charming and expressive, and its story is touching and melancholic, and I found myself truly amazed by the consistently great level design. After initially thinking the time-warping mechanic would get dull after time, I was delighted to be proven wrong by The Voxel Agents, who kept reinventing themselves and providing clever new ways to solve puzzles to keep me on my toes, as well as having a perfect duration of the experience, and ending with a simple, beautiful, and touching moment I won’t forget for a long time.

The Gardens Between is one of the bigger surprises I've played on Nintendo Switch. The title proved to be a smartly designed puzzler that anyone quickly can understand. Solutions are found by using logic in tandem with the rules of the world. The flow of time plays a major role in all of this and a keen eye can help you all the way through. The only error I can see here is that The Gardens Between ends on a weird note. This is something that could've been expanded upon, but the developers left us guessing. The complaint is rather minor in the grand scheme of it all as the experience is one that shouldn't be missed.

As an experience, The Gardens Between is a journey that's well worth embarking on. Its puzzles are gratifying, and its world is gorgeous and filled with personality. Its price may be too step for those looking for a meatier experience, and veteran fans of the genre might wish for tougher puzzles, but those hankering for a small game with a big heart will find plenty to love in The Gardens Between.

A beautiful narrative-driven puzzle game which pays tribute to friendship in childhood and the importance of shared memories.

A nostalgic adventure that will leave you sighing wistfully more than growling at brain-teasing puzzles. [Nov 2018, p.85]

An elegant and expressive new puzzle experience. [Issue#206, p.84]

Though it's a tad short, The Gardens Between is a beautiful puzzler with some wonderfully clever ideas.

With simple yet inventive time manipulation puzzles and charming, evocative art, The Gardens Between is a short and sweet meditation on youthful memories and friendships. By abstracting the personal, relatable story of neighbours Arina and Frendt into a procession of colourful, nostalgia-inducing scenes to unpick, it delivers plenty to reflect on even if it will only take you a few hours.

Beautifully designed and painfully creative, The Gardens Between is an absolute delight. It's a shame that the lack of levels and short runtime prevent it from reaching true classic status.

The Voxel Agents have made a really touching game with The Gardens Between. Without any words you get a glimpse into a childhood friendship that may hit close to home, remembering friendships from your own childhood. If the narrative doesn’t interest you so much, there just so happens to be a fun puzzle game that allows you to mess with time in a non-catastrophic way.

The Gardens Between is a great example of a puzzle game with the most simple of mechanics, showcasing how much can be stretched out of so little. Its light story of friendship is sweet (if not a bit too saccharine). It complements the core mechanic of controlling the passage of time, and well, the inevitability of how no matter how much you'd like time to stand still sometimes, it'll move along regardless.

Relaxing as it is taxing, The Gardens Between offers a poignant coalescence of charming visuals, a relaxing soundtrack and a bittersweet story. The simplicity of its control scheme hides an incredibly clever and frighteningly intricate puzzle formula that sees you rewinding and playing time like an omnipresent director. Its unique setup makes it one of the most unusual puzzlers on Nintendo Switch, and we can’t wait to see what Australian indie studio The Voxel Agents does next.

It may only take two to three hours to see everything The Gardens Between has to offer, but the warm and fuzzy feelings from start to finish ensure that your memories of playing it will live on.

The Gardens Between's story certainly does not shine but the game features a brilliant concept and artistic design and delivers a truly enjoyable experience.

I was impressed with the concept. I just craved more of it and was left with a melancholy feeling myself once the memories ceased. [Issue #37 – January/February 2019, p. 19]

Clever time manipulation puzzles with too much trial-and-error.

Exceptionally beautiful, with an original proposal that not only seeks to move forward or backward in time, but also to pause the story. It's a pity that having so much potential seems to have stayed like the first chapter of an unfinished game.

There are fleeting moments of brilliance to the puzzle design in The Gardens Between, but, between them, the pace meanders to the point where my interest started to wane. There can be no doubt that it’s unlike anything else that you will have played before, but, in turn, the wondrous idea that lies at its core never feels like it blossoms into something that manages to enter its stride. The potential and talent is clear, though, and I greatly look forward to seeing what The Voxel Agents create next.

The Gardens Between is a marvelous work that will immerse the players with its unspoken, unwritten plot, gorgeous art style and innovative gameplay mechanics, all in a game that is certain to appeal to the player's physical and emotional perceptions.

The main strength of The Gardens Between is the deeper meaning found within. It utilises a largely voiceless and textless narrative to great effect. Not only is this an impressive feat on its own, it showcases the brilliance of the medium. This game eschews tradition to draw players into a fascinating world. As they witness the memories shared by Arina and Frendt, they may find themselves recalling their own childhood. While those memories aren't always the kind one can look back on with fondness, their significance can't be understated or forgotten. They are what shape us.

The Gardens Between lets you play with the time and helps you make levels out of memories. The puzzles are great, but thanks to the simple gameplay principles it is a nostalgic game to rush through.