The Gardens Between (Review)

The Gardens Between is a surreal time-bending puzzle adventure that revolves around a pare of best friends as they fall into a mysterious world of beautiful garden islands. Developed and published by The Voxel Agents.

The Gardens Between has a very simple story about two friends (Arina and Frendt) who grew up together and were very close, but drifted apart as time went on. That's about as far as the story goes and even the little bits and pieces we get are just quick glimpses with no real context, other than the fact that they had fun as kids. To me the ending felt a little undeserving as the only thing up until the final part of the game is happy, and therefore makes the protagonists seem a little too much on the side of one note characters without any real personality. Which makes it impossible to actually care or get attached to them, in hindsight if you're looking for a story driven experience you're going to be pretty disappointed.

The game takes place in these surreal dreamlike memory islands, each island is comprised of things that relate to the protagonists childhoods like old game systems and tire swings. Most of which are used as obstacles to get over and puzzles to solve, like for example in one level a model dinosaur fossil is knocked down and used to reach multiple pathways. The puzzles in the first twelve levels were very simple and didn't cause me any trouble or stump me, some of the puzzles in the last few levels get a bit more difficult but there really isn't a lot of challenge throughout the game. So if you're a hardcore puzzle fan you might feel a little disappointed, but as for the casual puzzle fans this is probably up their ally.

Everything revolves around one simple mechanic that drives all of the puzzle solving gameplay, and that one simple mechanic is time bending. You can control time to an extent by walking back and forth, Walking forward continues time and walking backwards rewinds it. in fact besides for the interact button (which is used to pick things up as well as activate these little time lamp things) the only thing you can do is walk back and forth. It's a simple way of creating time control mechanics, but some will probably feel the urge to call it a walking simulator. The main objective of each level is to carry an orb of light (using your lantern) to the top of the island, Easier said than done as there's not only many obstacles in your way but also occasionally flowers that will suck up your orb. These are the main obstacles in the game and are usually dealt with by using Gardenlings to your benefit.

Gardenlings (not sure if that's their real name) are these little stone cubed things with legs that jump around certain spots of the island and are most commonly used to carry the orb of light around, but can also be used in other puzzle aspects. The level design and just the overall design in general is pretty great, specifically the visuals and animations of some of the objects. The sound design is also well done, most notably when something Is falling like jenga blocks or the previously mentioned model dinosaur fossil. The game does feel a bit overpriced, it feels more like a $12 game rather than a $20 game.

The Gardens Between is a beautiful yet simple puzzle game with a vague unfulfilling story though it does have some great moments, some clever puzzles and a nice atmosphere that will find itself right at home with casual puzzle fans and walking simulator enthusiasts alike. The Gardens Between is available for $19.99 on Pc/Steam, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch.