![]() ![]() Manifold Garden is such a beautiful illusion so it’s a shame that it can’t always keep up the façade. Moving too fast can catch the game off-guard areas beyond doors won’t appear until you’re close and long falls can be paused mid-air to load the levels below. Hall of mirrors – Due to the finite constraints of hardware a game obviously cannot generate infinity, and the game buckles under the pressure of making you believe it can. ![]() ![]() The game fully relies on its world and level design to keep players engaged, and those aspects are easily strong enough to support the entire experience. Everything you need to know is clearly presented in the environment there’s no dialogue, writing or story of any sort. The sharp, minimalist direction also makes levels incredibly easy to read, with sparse coloring only used to highlight important information. The game is rendered with crisp cel-shading and a mostly grey palette, beautifully evoking its artistic inspiration. Infinity and beyond – The game’s ideas would mean nothing if not paired with the unique art direction. Between the infinite loop and gravity switching, there are so many unique avenues of navigation that you’ll need to completely rethink your approach to seemingly basic platforming challenges. The game lacks a jump button, but any gap can be crossed with careful aim and a long fall in moments where you’re locked into one gravitational plane this skill is vital in getting around. Walk off the edge of the world, and you’ll fall right back where you started. The very ground you stand on also exists above, below, in front of, behind, and beside you ad infinitum. Recursion – As if being able to walk on every inch of a level wasn’t enough, there’s also an infinitely repeating void to explore. Puzzle design is varied and compelling, capable enough to keep things engaging throughout a surprisingly meaty runtime. Some puzzles are in huge open areas that focus more on navigation, while those that require more complex tinkering are contained in rooms just big enough to fit the idea it’s going for. Juggling so much freedom at all times can be daunting, but the learning curve is gradual enough that you’re never left at a loss. While the type of puzzle tasks are familiar, from putting boxes on buttons to forging new pathways, having the solutions spread among six interconnected yet discrete floors really mixes up that formula. ![]() Objects will become grayed out the moment you switch gravity, freezing them in place. The coloring also highlights what you can currently interact with, as only objects on the same plane as you are available for use. Every plane has its own color, easing the confusion you might get while navigating the topsy-turvy hallways. Since everything in the game is at a right angle, that makes six planes of gravity that can be traversed. Just walk up to any wall and you can step right on it, flipping the entire world 90 degrees. If anyone were to look at the iconic image and think “but how are those people actually getting around?”, they’d probably be the person responsible for Manifold Garden.Ĭlimbing the alls – Manifold Garden lets you walk all over it, and I mean that literally. For most, the work is simply something to be admired, or an easy referential shorthand for a distorted reality. The iconic image image was created in 1953, depicting gravity-defying pedestrians traversing an intersection of staircases coming from above, below and sideways. The most iconic work of MC Escher is Relativity, or as Stewie Griffin calls it, “Crazy Stairs”. ![]()
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