The Gardens Between (PC, PS4, Switch) from The Voxel Agents is a very brief, but endearing, journey through the memories of two friends. The levels take the form of diorama-like, mountainous islands that the two protagonists must scale to activate the beacon at the top of each peak. Instead of controlling the characters, players control the flow of time. Moving time forward causes the characters to automatically walk forward on a predetermined path, toward the top of the mountain. Reversing time causes the characters to retrace their steps, potentially back to the very beginning of the level.
Using this time warping power is key to removing the various obstacles that impede the characters from ascending the mountain and reaching the beacon. The female character carries a little lantern that she can light to activate certain objects that are not affected by your time warping power, and the boy can activate a device that provides lantern charges that can clear some obstacles and activate portions of the puzzle. For example, if you see something fall down in front of the characters, you can walk them to where it fell, place the lantern on it, and then reverse time and the lantern travels on the object, back up to wherever the object fell from. This allows you to move the lantern through the puzzle in ways the characters would be unable to, activating portions of the puzzle that the two kids would not be able to otherwise.
If you’re having trouble following along, don’t worry, the The Gardens Between’s mechanics may sound complicated, but when you get your hands on it, everything clicks and it takes only a few seconds to acclimate to how each mechanic functions. I am not even a big fan of puzzle games and I had no problem comprehending the game’s mechanics. Which, honestly, speaks volumes to how easy The Gardens Between was.
I beat the entire game in two brief sittings. The game was very easy and very short. I expected much more actual game than what I ended up with. For a $20 price tag, I expected more than a dozen or so levels that take around three to five minutes to get through. For a game where the levels are small and the mechanics open up a lot of potential, I felt like the game was half as big as it should be. A quarter as big as it could be.
The Garden Between does some neat things with the time warping mechanic, but it never really grows. Partly because there isn’t much room to grow in the game’s brief lifespan. I wanted more time to fiddle with the neat effects of time-shifting, and explore more cool set pieces but time, it seemed, was not in my favor.
It’s honestly best to not put too much thought into how time travel works in this game. For some reason, the game is very inconsistent with what moves when you shift time, and what doesn’t. Water, for instance, is not consistent level to level. In one level, water drops fall or rise depending on if you’re moving forward in time, or reversing time. In another level, you can pause time and the water still flows. It’s confusing and makes solving some of the puzzles feel a little odd due to the inconsistency of elements.
The most unfortunate aspect of the game is that I can tell a lot of passion and love went into its creation. It is, at its core, a story about love and friendship, and it’s reflected in some truly beautiful moments. There are casual animations where the characters link hands and walk together, or where one patiently waits for the other to finish looking at something. There are some really nice moments, but there just are not enough moments as a whole.
Maybe that’s the point of the game. Time is fleeting, we want to hold onto the good times but they’re over before we know it and there’s no going back. That theory makes for some interesting thoughts, but unfortunately in the case of The Gardens Between, that did not translate as well into a gameplay experience worth the asking price.
A PC retail copy of the game was provided to Epic Brew for the purpose of this review.
