Developer/Publisher: William Chyr Studio
Genre: Experimental Puzzle-Platformer
PlayStation 5
Manifold Garden is part of an emergent genre of puzzle-platforming games that take advantage of modern computational capacity to create mind-bending scenarios that would fit right in with any of the great surrealists. Set in a world of infinitely recurring structures floating among a vast and extraordinary nothingness, the player’s goal is as simple as can be: find a way forward. No story or dialogue of any kind is present, so in a sense, Manifold Garden is a puzzle game in its purest form, and an oddly refreshing experience because of it.
There are two main mechanics in Manifold Garden, the first of which is shifting gravity with the caveat that the player can only do this when directly transitioning to a surface that they would then be standing on. The second key ingredient is small cubes of various colors, each of which corresponds to one of six gravitational orientations that dictate how they move and when they can be moved. For example, a blue cube can only be moved when the player’s “floor” is blue and will fall to that floor when not held. The cubes are mostly used as keys for buttons that open exit doors, and while these buttons start in simple, easy-to-reach locations, the player must quickly shift to using more and more creative thinking to be able to transport and hold cubes where they need to be.
If all that sounds confusing from my explanation, don’t worry; it’s one of those things that makes perfect sense if you’re actually doing it yourself even though it might not from someone trying to tell you about it. Manifold Garden’s ideas get introduced at enough of a trickle that your understanding of your environment builds naturally and the grand scale of everything never feels too overwhelming. The difficulty curve is similarly well balanced… for the most part. There were a few times when I felt a puzzle was unusually cryptic compared to what immediately preceded it only for the difficulty of the next area to drop again, but fortunately, the PS5 version comes with a hint feature where you can bring up the system overlay and watch a video provided by the developers to help you over a bit if you’re truly stumped. I personally only had to use it once, very late in the game, but it’s still nice for games to have that kind of accessibility feature. The only real complaint I have is that I’d occasionally have cubes just disappear when they got caught on something, thereby forcing me to do whatever I’d done to get it that far all over again, but those instances were very obviously a glitch rather than an intentional design choice, and it was never an enormous setback anyway.
One of the biggest draws Manifold Garden has going for it is how genuinely twisted and awe-inspiring the world’s geometry is. Enormous structures of smooth surfaces and sharp corners with creative and mostly illogical constructions fill the player’s vision in any direction, and stepping off one to fall through the space surrounding eventually them puts you right back on top of the next one just like it. It’s an impressive coding trick that every so often made me stop just to take it all in, even towards the end when I was getting antsy and wanted to hurry up and finish. The musical design is also effective at creating the game’s vibes, though in a way that’s much less memorable while not actively playing.
I will say that even though I enjoyed Manifold Garden it can be very disorienting. I’m not normally the type to get motion sick from playing games, but there were multiple occasions where I had to walk away for a bit because the endless falling or perspective shifts were making me queasy. This isn’t exactly a point against the game, but it is definitely something to be aware of if your constitution isn’t the best.
Manifold Garden may not be a game consisting of as many moving parts as some, but it definitely manages to be more than the sum of those parts. There is an elegance to its simplicity which endears it to me despite the total lack of story and makes it stand out amongst other games like it. If you’re big on the puzzle-platformer genre, and especially if you like experimental games, Manifold Garden is well worth checking out.
If M.C. Escher had had any concept of what a video game is, Manifold Garden would probably have made him proud.Manifold Garden