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10/10, unless you fear heights. Fortunately there's no fall damage.
Manifold Garden is visually stunning first-person puzzle game with simple ideas that come together to form some really interesting puzzles. The game is estimated to take about 6 hours, and that number seems about right. I am about 3 hours in and have about half of the achievements. (EDIT: Game completed after about 7.5 hours of play. A couple of puzzles really had me confused for a long time.)
The game mechanics are really neat but not hard to understand. You get to change the gravitational orientation and the world is infinitely linked. Because of this, you will be falling down to the tops of buildings, seeing water flowing in odd direction, and walking on sideways oriented stairs that will still get you where you need to go.
Undoubtedly, this game will pull your mind to the works of M. C. Escher. I also thought of the short stories The Library of Babel as well as The Garden of Branching Paths by Jorge Luis Borges. The visual and mental aesthetics within the game's vastly interconnected world of actually a finite space tread on the sublime.
There is no story. Playing on, you can definitely fashion one in your mind as you clear the first sets of puzzles and come to terms with the world and in general, what you have to do. The game does not need a story either.
The puzzles are not hard to figure out, but there are some different things you have to consider while doing them. Primarily you will be focusing on the gravitational shift as you change. By stumbling around a bit and getting completely disoriented, you will often stumble across the answers. There are some visually tricky situations as well. Once again, the puzzles are neat and fun, but not too hard.
Anyway, I hope that everyone who is not fearful of heights can experience this game. For those people, this could be a potential trigger, and I would not want to have a game set off a panic attack. There's no time limits on the puzzles, you can move around as much as you need to figure things out. There's such pleasing visuals and music accompanying the game that it's worthwhile for almost everyone to take a look.
Controls
Works well with Keyboard + Mouse. Controller also works fine. I used KB+M for this game.
Graphics
Absolutely stunning. If you look at the trailer, you will see right away why the game is so difficult for the mind to accept, because are are used to a different set of rules in the world. I will include a few screenshots here as well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274255051
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274254909
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2273815341
Music & Sounds
The soundtrack sounds really good. The sound effects are nice too. There are places when you move from one room to the next that the music abruptly cuts out without a smooth transition. This is the only bad thing I noticed about the music.
Audience
I have already stated, the game may cause problems for people who fear heights. Aside from that, I do not do well with games in first-person perspective, because I get nauseated and often an accompanying headache. This game did that for me as well, but I kept on restarting to try to tackle it a bit farther as soon as I could rest a little and feel better. It was pulling on me that much to keep going.
Pricing
Base price is $19.99, the launch sale has a 20% discount. Even though the game may be shorter than most for the price in general, it's worth your time and your money.
Conclusion
Manifold Garden treads on sublime, on the part of my mind that can do nothing but drop my jaws in wonder.
10/10, unless you fear heights. Fortunately there's no fall damage.
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I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.
