![]() ![]() Say you need the yellow block to stay on a pressure plate, but the plate is on a wall sideways to the block's gravity. Getting the blocks to where you need them to be requires a lot of thinking and experimentation. You can't reach up and pick up a blue block above your head, for example, because its floor is your cieling. These blocks have their own gravity, indicated by an arrow, which you can't change, and you can only interact with them if you're on the same plane as them. There are also different coloured pads or keys that need you to plop correspondingly coloured blocks on them. This is quite fiddly (you can do it on tiny surfaces, like steps, and it's annoying if you ever do it accidentally) and quite disorientating. ![]() Think of it as being able to change which direction the floor is in, at will. You can walk up to any wall that intersects with the surface you're standing on, and decide to walk up it. The two key themes for Manifold Garden are perspective and colour. There were a few times that I was stymied because I assumed I was running down identical staircases, and doubled back on myself to find the puzzle that would free me, only to eventually discover that I was just. You can hurl yourself off a ledge and land right back where you were standing. And to the left, and to the right, and below. When you look up into the sky you see the building you're on above you. Escher temples, which repeat forever and forever and forever. The eponymous gardens you're running through are strange M.C. You, alone, run around weird architecture, accompanied only by the slapping of your feet. Manifold Garden frightens me in a similar way to Fugue In Void. It has special doors and pressure pads, and you manoeuvre the right coloured blocks onto the right coloured things by walking up walls and changing the gravity and what have you. Oh, it might be in disguise as a puzzle game. With that being said, since everything is pretty much an outline and has sharp edges there are some weird visual pop ins at distances.Manifold Garden has been described as a 3D puzzle game, but everyone who says that is wrong, because it is actually a horror game. There is always a lot going on within each area, and figuring out where to go can be cool. It doesn’t sound impressive, but the overall art design is very reminiscent of an M.C. When you switch to a direction the floor will turn the color of that direction. So you’re really only seeing these six colors throughout the game. The visuals are purposefully minimalist, as I said each of the six cardinal directions are color coded. It’s much simpler and easier to understand when seeing or playing it yourself. If you’re confused, I apologize as it’s not the easiest to explain through words, but I’ll have a gameplay video below. All of these systems not only create some brain teasing puzzles, but it forces you to really think outside the box. This creates a entirely new dynamic to puzzle solving where you’ll often have to jump off the map in a different direction to access a location you couldn’t get to normally. ![]() Which means if you fall off the map, you can easily aim yourself to fall exactly where you dropped from. As you walk out into open areas, you will notice that in every direction there is an exact copy of the landmass you’re in. What adds to the gameplay even more is the idea of a never ending universe. New gameplay mechanics are introduced at a nice pace. It sounds a whole lot more complex than it actually is, but everything in motion is impressive. The blocks are color coded to a specific cardinal direction and you can’t move them unless you’re within that direction. However, you need to directly touch a wall before you can switch to walking on it. You have the ability to completely alter gravity to walk on any surface and each cardinal direction has a specific color code. The main theme is manipulating gravity to eventually use color coded blocks to unlock paths. Luckily, the gameplay is pretty dang addictive and it does some new things that left me very impressed. This often left me kind of bored going from puzzle to puzzle as there wasn’t much of a reason to continue other than the gameplay itself. There aren’t hidden things to find that help you infer what is going on, and even the ending itself offers no closure. ![]() You’re plopped into the world and that’s that. Manifold Garden doesn’t have any of that. I absolutely love the Souls series which doesn’t guide you through a main story narrative, but there is one if you want to dig deep. I’m not really one who needs a direct narrative or any hand holding. This actually brings me to my main issue with Manifold Garden. Restoring beacons allows you to wipe out the corruption. ![]()
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