Manifold Garden is one of the more unique games we’ve played to date as it’s a third-person puzzle game. Much like the puzzle room inside Yugi Muto’s Millennium Puzzle it’s compromised of dimensions upon dimensions of unique puzzles. You have to walk around the walls, and even the ceiling picking up items to solve various problems along the way.
Manifold Garden’s unique approach to puzzle solving is truly one of a kind as you’re spending your time trying to come up with solutions to problems that aren’t as simple as getting from point A to point B. Where the core focus of the gameplay is trying to solve the puzzle as you’re walking around a three-dimensional space walking upside down and moving through open doorways that don’t appear until you’re facing the right way up.
Despite Manifold Garden being reminiscent of M. C. Escher it’s not a very complicated game. There are no enemies, and no major obstacles it is simply very unique problems, requiring very unique solutions, and the players need to challenge themselves mentally to solve a fair amount of the problems the game presents them with.
Manifold Garden is a truly unique puzzle game with an interesting and intrinsic art style and design that could not work any other way and it even has hidden achievements and a secret ending. The game itself at least in this reviewer’s opinion is a work of art with its very unique concept of changing perspective to solve a puzzle.
The only other game I could even remotely compare it to with its unique design about perspective would be Superliminal but Manifold Garden lacks any and all narrative to draw from. Manifold Garden is solely focused on its gameplay element adding no commentary and only relaxing background audio to help the player focus as they try to solve the various puzzles they’re presented with.
Over the years there have been a variety of puzzle games have come out such as Portal, Superliminal, Amnesia, and even Edge. Manifold Garden changes what it means to be a puzzle game completely and challenges the concept of what it could be going forward due to how truly unique it is.
My only issue with Manifold Garden was that for me at least it was a short game I beat it, but only in a few hours for me it wasn’t as challenging as it could be. But that’s alright sometimes a game doesn’t need to be challenging to be fun and even though I had this experience someone else’s experience might differ from my own.
What matters was that I had fun playing Manifold Garden solving these unique puzzles while walking up the walls, down the steps, and coming out walking on the ceiling it was truly a great time. If you’re into Puzzle games and want a decent challenge or you just need to play something relaxing after a stressful week. Please, I hope you take the time to consider Manifold Garden it was an absolutely wonderful game.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!