Manifold Garden Reviews

Manifold Garden is ranked in the 89th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
7.6 / 10.0
Aug 18, 2020

Part of my love for indies is that the best of them dare to be different and then unapologetically deliver something new that challenges and defies your normal expectations...

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4 / 5.0
Oct 1, 2021

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.

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9 / 10.0
May 20, 2021

Manifold Garden is a puzzle game that’ll blow your mind, challenge you, and please both your eyes and ears. Despite looking very simplistic in still images, the game is stunning with its perfect use of subtle colours and non-textured design, delivering a unique-looking experience that will stick with you for a long time. The infinite nature of the game will leave you in awe as you fall into the never-ending depths, forcing you to think outside of the box in order to discover the solutions to the many, many increasingly difficult and tricky puzzles. If you consider video games to be art, Manifold Garden is a masterpiece.

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FingerGuns
Sean Davies
9 / 10
May 17, 2021

Excellent use of the DualSense haptics, improved visuals and 4K resolution @ 60 frames per second mean that the PS5 version of Manifold Garden is the definitive version of a truly excellent game. Transforming the tenets of M.C. Escher’s artwork into a fascinating and enigmatic puzzle game, this title is still one of the best in the genre to release in recent times. If you’ve yet to play it, this is the best way to do so. If you’ve already got it on PS4, you’ll get this upgrade for free and it’s worth another look.

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7 / 10.0
Feb 9, 2021

I’m happy to say that Manifold Garden is one of the few first person games I found myself enjoying immensely with little fiddling required. The puzzles are tricky and the lack of hints is definitely not for everyone, but the gorgeous world, tight controls and ease of access make for a fun experience worth playing to the end if you can.

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Geeks Under Grace
Wesley Lantz
7.5 / 10.0
Sep 23, 2020

Manifold Garden achieves its goal of being a beautiful and unique experience, but at the cost of navigable environments and user experience.

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8 / 10.0
Oct 22, 2020

in the end, it can be said that Manifold Garden is a very worthy puzzle title. Although the game environments are designed to be very simple, they often find a special beauty during the gameplay, especially in Photo Mode, and the puzzles in them are also cleverly designed and challenge your mind. However, this particular identity of the game will not be to the liking of a number of players, especially those who have problems with the special and three-dimensional nature of the puzzles.

Review in Persian | Read full review

Sep 30, 2020

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.

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85 / 100
Sep 23, 2020

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

8 / 10.0
Aug 31, 2020

Manifold Garden challenges our intuition and gets its inspiration on impossible geometry and at the same time inviting us to think of impossible solutions.

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9 / 10.0
Sep 1, 2020

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

Liked
Aug 30, 2020

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.

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9 / 10
Aug 29, 2020

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.

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9 / 10.0
Aug 24, 2020

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

9 / 10.0
Aug 21, 2020

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.

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Oct 25, 2019

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.

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Dec 20, 2019

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.

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Nov 14, 2019

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.

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Lee Mehr
Top Critic
8 / 10
Nov 25, 2019

William Chyr’s passion project is among my favorite first-person puzzlers for its ambitious scope, entrancing visuals, and brain-breaking conundrums.

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8 / 10
Dec 3, 2020

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.

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