Manifold Garden

Manifold Garden is a serotonin-inducing triumph of a puzzle game that will captivate anyone who loves abstract aesthetics. Every single frame of this game is a screenshot, and every puzzle one that challenges the brain to think of the world in a more incorporeal manner. If M.C. Escher is your favorite MC, Manifold Garden is an absolute must-play, and I cannot envision a better platform for this geometric garden than PC.

Coming to a conclusion, I think Manifold Garden is a genuinely incredible and unique game that should be experienced by everyone. Puzzle games were never my forte, and I had my share of trepidations of going into this game, but as I played more and more, all of them vanished, and soon I was on the other side of the credits filled with genuine awe and restarted the journey to experience all of it once again.

Manifold Garden sure took its time to reach us, but the wait has been worth it. This is a beautiful puzzle game that stretches your spatial reasoning, but not immensely so. The difficulty could have been increased, but designing and then developing these complex spaces that loop forever was no doubt a huge challenge on its own.

Absolutely brilliant visuals make way for genuinely engaging levels that had me scratching my head and pumping my fist in victory. Sure, there are a few minor setbacks, the main one being problems with the pacing. But all-in-all, Manifold Garden is fantastic.

The only negative I could give is that the game often clips between sound files quite abruptly when you transition between rooms, opting to go without a cross-fade between tracks. This stands out in a game that is otherwise highly polished towards its very focused experience. Though it is brief, with my playthrough taking 3 hours, Manifold Garden has taken root as one of my favourite game experiences this year.

Manifold Garden is as unique as games come and its presentation really shows off the creator’s artistic eye. The gameplay may seem simplistic - moving blocks around is hardly a genre-defining activity - but the style and technical proficiency that comes from interacting with these cubes makes it so engaging.