Puzzle & escape games make up a good portion of my Top Ten Indie Games. Therefore when the Manifold Garden console release trailer came out a couple months ago, I knew I’d play it eventually. It turned out out to be the perfect Weekend Play clocking in at around 5 hours of gameplay.
Manifold Garden is a first-person indie game developed by William Chyr Studio. It has simple yet clever mechanics. With one button press you can change the orientation of gravity, using colored blocks to solve gravity-based 3D puzzles. You match the blocks to their corresponding color pad in order to activate doors to new areas. The game feels like the perfect combination of The Witness and Gravity Rush. There are a few other mechanics I found really intriguing, but telling you about them would spoil the fun.
Things I love about the game:
- Challenging puzzles with good difficulty progression, even for seasoned puzzle players.
- Clever level designs. Like many good games, there are moments you return to an earlier location to progress further.
- Beautiful and minimalistic art style. I found myself stopping frequently to appreciate a scene and snap pictures in Photo Mode.
- Ambient sound. It’s just enough that the game doesn’t feel eerie, but it’s also ambient enough that you can focus your full brainpower on the puzzles.
- Short and sweet! I’m a big fan of games you can wrap up in a day or two.
The game features tons of gorgeous (and trippy) environments. 
Shift your perspective by re-orienting gravity. 
Solve puzzles to activate towers that power special cubes.
Overall I highly enjoyed Manifold Garden. It’s rated E for Everyone and available on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC if you’d like to check it out for yourself. I’m looking forward to seeing what William Chyr Studio does next!
Weekend Play is a weekly Monday post sharing about what I played over the weekend. Each post is a 5-minute read that covers one game. Follow me on Twitter or Subscribe to this blog (Home page) to receive notifications of new posts!
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