Wonderful little puzzle game with a sad story and interesting mechanics.



These days, I'm into relaxing, sad games and The Gardens Between is an excellent addition to the sad old person genre, I guess. A puzzle-platformer of sorts, the game stars two young folk who live near each other in the same town and have a little treehouse hangout that, on a stormy night, appears to drop out of time and space and enter a watery world of memories of shared experiences. The two characters must be navigated wordlessly through these memories by you, but your only means of getting them to their goal is to change the direction and flow of time (and prompting the kids to grab a thing or put down a thing). Without spoiling the story, it is very touching and sad and I liked it a lot. Some might say the game is a bit short, but I think they included just the right number of puzzles to fit the story without becoming tedious or introducing more complex gameplay just for the sake of making more puzzles.

I loved the simple and interesting controls, the touching story, the ambient music, the pretty graphics, but would I go back and play this game through again? I don't know.

I might rewind time to experience for the first time again, though...

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