Manifold Garden Reviews
Manifold Garden is a wonderful, mind-bending puzzle experience. After 7 years of development, the five or so hours of the game are unique yet familiar. There is nothing else quite like it, and is one of the best puzzle games ever created.
Manifold Garden proves that a game doesn’t need a narrative to be enjoyable!
I want to love this game, but I don't. It's an exquisite piece of design with a beautiful aesthetic that just needs a little more sense of direction in my honest opinion. Explorers and puzzlers will grow to love this game, but casual players looking for a coffee time headscratcher will probably grow tired of the scale and endless searching around for something to do quickly.
I have never encountered a more beautiful, entrancing and sublime gaming experience
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's unique aesthetic and creative puzzles result in a memorable journey that is well worth the price of admission.
Manifold Garden is probably one of the best and most daring puzzle games of the past two decades. Referring to the greatest classics of the genre, it manages to present an absolutely simple concept both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, with the right rhythm in beautiful and ingenious challenges.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Whether it's the influence of all the shapes and all the colours, or the enjoyable "clack" sound of cubes tapping along staircases, Manifold Garden is totally hypnotic. It's easy to get lost in a flow state while traversing between cubes to switches and other cubes, imbibing in the phenomenal, ever building soundtrack. It has none of the script or context of a title like Portal, but one would easily suspect that that would conflict with the undiluted audio-visual treat that this experience proffers. 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.
William Chyr’s passion project is among my favorite first-person puzzlers for its ambitious scope, entrancing visuals, and brain-breaking conundrums.
There are plenty of titles that share some common DNA with Manifold Garden but when it really gets into the zone, there's nothing else on the market like it. It brought out feelings in me I've never felt from a video game. I demanded others I know experience it in a way I haven't since the first time I tried VR. At its best, I forgot I was playing a video game, surrendering completely to the audio and visual experience while taking on challenging but not overwhelming puzzles.
Manifold Garden delivers a unique, exciting world to explore with some mind-bending environments that tightly integrate with its puzzles and play systems. While it doesn’t reinvent the genre, it experiments in some exciting and playful ways that make it a memorable experience you’ll hang onto long after you’ve finished.
At its worst, Manifold Garden is great. At its best, it is transcendent. It is easily one of the best puzzle games of the past few years, and I can’t even imagine how much effort must have gone into designing the majority of its unique, multi-layered areas. While its flaws definitely detract from the overall experience, it is still a game which is absolutely worth experiencing. It will challenge you, leave you saying “wow” aloud, and consistently surprise you.
Manifold Garden is a really special game, with its beautifully hypnotic world and enjoyable puzzle design making for a truly unique experience. Admittedly, some of the puzzles themselves can be pretty simple in design and there aren’t too many intricate mechanics involved, but you won’t mind too much given how mind-blowing the game world is to explore.
Manifold Garden offers an experience both challenging and stunning, in equal measures. With absolutely beautiful visuals and a set of simple mechanics it cleverly takes to its limits, it is not an exaggeration to affirm we are before one of this genre’s best and most creative games. Above all, Manifold Garden is memorable and easily recommendable, even to those less used to puzzle games.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Manifold Garden is the best first person puzzle game since Portal 2. Unique spatial mechanics, a world that brings to life M.C. Escher’s work, a winsome art style and masterfully designed puzzles make this one of the easiest recommendations of 2020 so far.
I wanted to love Manifold Garden. It has a gorgeous design, thoroughly unique concept, and is wonderfully challenging despite being frustrating at times. Unfortunately, it just makes me too ill to play in the type of bursts I’d like to. If you’re unaffected by motion sickness then there’s a real gem of a puzzler here, but I’d recommend watching some gameplay first to make sure that you’ll be ok – I’ve heard multiple counts of it negatively affecting people who normally have no issues.
Manifold Garden is an experience that mixes physics with puzzle solving. For anyone interested in the absurd ambience of Escher's illustrations or surrealist art, the game offers a sense of closeness. But this setting is sometimes confusing (on purpose) and can cause some discomfort. Considering that the developer’s intention is to make players feel lost and out of place, the game does its job well, forcing us to relearn how to look at the world around us.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Manifold Garden challenges our intuition and gets its inspiration on impossible geometry and at the same time inviting us to think of impossible solutions.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Manifold Garden is excellent visual poetry with different perspectives. It will make us think deeply at certain times and even get confused. It is short but it is compensated by its elaborate development and precious audiovisual section.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
After finishing my play-though of Manifold Garden, I’ve been left with a strange mix of elation and melancholy; a longing for just one more of those beautifully crafted, wonderfully challenging and intensely peaceful levels. Yes, it’s fair to say that I loved playing this game. Everything about Manifold Garden is right up my street; it has a unique concept, a compelling soundtrack and it’s full of intriguing puzzles and impressive visuals. It fills your mind with the experience it creates so that it’s easy to lose yourself in the game without feeling time pass. All of this combined is my equivalent of gaming catnip.