![]() ![]() Later into the game some smaller brain-teasers feed into an overarching puzzle like veins to an artery, and these are always rewarding and impressive in this regard of design literacy. For example, there might be a bridge that needs to materialise, or just one junction in a repeating loop will be slightly different from the rest, which will then guide towards the next door or "goal." Elsewhere, and more clearly, there is a defined visual spectacle making it clear that something significant has been achieved. No goals are specifically laid out, no real text boxes, hints, or context is given as to what needs to be done, and yet the path is led via subtle way-pointing, and clever level design. If attention is paid, Manifold Garden is a master at delivering a show-don't-tell experience. It is possible to get lost if, like this reviewer, a chunk of time is left between play sessions, but this isn't a fault of the game design. Alternating between these open, more geographically confusing areas with smaller linear sections, offering moments of scenic or visual-eye-candy interlude, deftly paces the game. Shapes overlap, and grid, and intersect, and form stimulating patterns constantly, even if occasionally the wide field of view can get a little jarring. Expanses range from small rooms, to grandiose cathedral-like buildings and, well, gardens. What this hook ultimately does is create puzzles that are about disorientation more than they are about anything else.Ī minimal but pleasing geometric aesthetic embellishes the presentation, quite gloriously, as one navigates through the labyrinthine, maze-like maps. Escher's Relativity, not knowing which way is up and which way is down. Manifold Garden uses this looped hook often in open, multi-tiered areas in conjunction with one other key feature: the ability to rotate the world toward any axis. If not otherwise closed off to a corridor for whatever design or pacing reason, individual puzzle maps are infinite, and pushing forward on the control stick into anywhere other than a wall will always bring the camera back to the point at which it began, and again, and again. Sounds simple enough? The catch here, and brace for impact, is that every environment in Manifold Garden is essentially a repeating, multi-dimensional infinite loop. Doing so requires the fetching of one or multiple colour-coded keys, reified as cubes, which also grow off of cube-trees, to be matched to their corresponding locks, then to open doors and progress. It is although perhaps becoming of a puzzle game that is a more direct and immediate exercise in philosophy because of this.Įight years in development, Manifold Garden's core experience manifests, rather simply, as getting from A to B. It shares much of the DNA and many of the tropes of the aforementioned titles, but defines itself more so like a person who has done a lot more green tea than its contemporaries. Whether or not that is the case can be debated, but the question stands: is it possible to elude the long shadow cast by Valve's Portal? It's here that one can find Manifold Garden, developed by William Chyr Studio. ![]() ![]() One wonders if the emphasis on philosophy was a key component for their successes, making them, and the player, feel smarter than they actually are, and thus making these titles worthy of remark in this intro right now and elsewhere. ![]() Entries in the genre since then, such as The Witness, and The Talos Principle, are noted for garnering accolades each within their promotion windows, and did well at creating an identity for themselves, presumably on smaller budgets, outside of Aperture Science's cake-promising behemoth. There has been a smattering of first-person puzzlers released since Portal and its sequel, Portal 2 "won" the mantle back in 20 respectively. ![]()
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