![]() As you change the direction in which gravity pulls, you change the hue of the world in general. ![]() Each gravitational plane also corresponds to a colour. This effectively makes that plane of existence the ground. ![]() Walk up to a wall, close enough to touch it with your target reticule, and press the R2 trigger and you’ll walk onto the wall. What complicates this further is that the player gets to dictate the direction in which gravity travels. See a platform above your head? It’s also somewhere below you too. Thankfully, it’s possible to move in the air so that you can guide your fall rather than plummeting forever. ![]() Walk off one platform and you’ll fall forever, passing the same platform you stepped off repeatedly. Primarily, the whole game is contained within looping worlds. That’s because the world of Manifold Garden follows a few unique rules. Actually achieving any of this is easier said than done however. Line up the world objects so that this line on the floor is connected. A result of expert iterative design, this game boils down its puzzles into simple to understand aims. Most of the objectives in Manifold Garden are self explanatory. While the core aims of the game are familiar in the puzzle genre, everything else about Manifold Garden is entirely unique, steeped in imaginative artwork. At one point in development, this game was titled Relativity after the Escher print it was inspired by. Escher’s work – impossible geometry, complex architectural mazes, portals and perspective based reality – and adapts them for game play mechanics. Manifold Garden is a game that takes the core principles of artist M.C. I’d go as far as to say that the PS5 version is the definitive way to play Manifold Garden. The PS5 version doesn’t see any huge design improvements but does improve the overall experience. The Xbox One version that I called “the best first person puzzle game since Portal 2” last year had been significantly tightened up over the original PC version I’d played a year prior. Each time I’ve had a chance to play it, it has been improved somewhat. You’d think I’d be tired of playing through Manifold Garden, having done so 3 times already. Now here I am in 2021, saying it again for the PlayStation 5 launch. ![]() I reiterated it when I reviewed the game for its Xbox One launch in 2020. I said that when the game first launched on PC back in 2019. In my estimation, Manifold Garden is one of the best puzzle games to release in the past 5 years. A slight speed increase there would help.Arriving on PS5, Manifold Garden is still one of the best and most though provoking puzzle games on the market. One critique would be that when falling between levels it can take a bit of time to get back onto a surface since it feels a bit slow when trying to move towards a platform. My only frustrations through the approximately 4 hour experience came in trying to figure out the solutions, though that obviously passes as a puzzle is solved and you see the intent of the developer. Manifold Garden is a generally smooth experience from start to finish. As the levels become more complex, new elements are introduced such as areas where you can change cube colours, cubes that are duotone, and even having to manipulate flowing water to spin waterwheels and create bridges. This is important as you can only, for example, pick up a blue cube while standing on a blue surface. Switching between perspectives and the direction of gravity is a simple click of the button with the reticule changing colours to indicate what colour the surface relates to. Early on these puzzles are contained in one room and the paths will lead you from one room to the next until you get to the end of the world, but as you make your way through Manifold Gardens the puzzles become more complex, spanning multiple rooms and multiple perspectives, shifting the direction of gravity to progress. Manifold Garden is split into worlds, each named after a colour. ![]()
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