The Gardens Between is a very simple game. You control two characters, a boy and a girl, who travel around a vast ocean plane in a treehouse, going from archipelago to archipelago. Each of these little clusters of two to three islands is based around some memory of their friendship and represents a playable level, each of which you go through in sequence. After competing all the islands in a memory that memory flies up into the sky and you view a short animations that shows you, for example, the pair of them playing video games and eating popcorn on the couch, or moving some items into the treehouse they’re sailing around in. Even though the game is Australian none of the memories show either child killing or being eaten by dangerous wildlife.

The playable levels all control the same way. You have three inputs. You can move forward or backward, and you can interact with a few objects in each level. That’s it. The characters travel on a linear path, even though that path generally wraps around the core of whatever island you’re on, and they each go at their own pace, meaning that sometimes one of them will lag behind to look at something or for some other reason and they can get separated, but you have no control over when this happens, though sometimes you can influence objects in the environment that will separate them or bring them together. The game’s big ‘hook’ is that time advances or rewinds for everything in the level as the characters move. Objects might get knocked over and fall, creating new paths, or moving other obstacles out of the way, and you can manipulate their position by advancing or rewinding time, though doing so also moves the children along their path. It’s from this interaction, and the ability to hit ‘chimes’ that function as switches and do a couple other things that the game’s puzzles are built. The ultimate goal of each level is to trap a light orb in the lantern the girl is carrying and bring it to the top of the island where there’s a receptacle. Only the girl can carry the lantern and only the boy can interact with objects that don’t require the lantern. Simple rules in a simple game.

Most of the time this set up works pretty well. You walk around these pretty little islands doing things like placing the lantern into receptacles that move around, which might allow you to trap a light sphere or avoid one of the dark spheres that suck up your light if you pass too close. You hit switches to open up plants that contain light spheres. Sometimes other switches allow you to manipulate objects in the environment independent of moving your characters and there are a few clever spins on things where objects might enter a videogame within the game to do something, but you have to plug in the TV first to make it work, that kind of thing. It’s very low impact, with charming visuals and calming music, and a deliberate pace that is pleasant and relaxing if you just want something to play before bed or while getting cozy on a rainy afternoon.

The biggest issue I had with the game was that sometimes the slow movement interacts with the puzzle game design in frustrating ways. I wouldn’t say that The Gardens Between is particularly difficult; it’s only a couple hours long and I finished it without looking at a guide or walkthrough, but like most puzzle games it has a few obstacles I would call unintuitive or cheap. Puzzle designers often think they’re clever by changing the rules in unexpected ways, but unless you’re very careful in communicating this to the player that can leave you with moments while you’re just combing through an area trying to figure out what your possible actions are instead of trying to figure out how to accomplish some task with the known tools at hand. The Gardens Between does help you out by creating one way gates you can’t pass back through in certain levels, which means you at least know the area of the level you’re supposed to interact with (as far as I can tell it’s impossible to actually get stuck in an unwinnable position), but the characters and world move so slowly that it can be irritating to experiment, and the fact that you have so few actions you can try at any one time means that if you’re missing something you can quickly default to just cycling through the same actions over and over until inspiration strikes, which isn’t very fun or engaging. It would have been nice if the game included the ability to speed up the walking/movement of time just so you could get around quicker to try things, or let you warp to checkpoints within each sub area. It’s not exactly a dealbreaker, but spending 10-15 minutes stuck on some part slowly traveling back and forth to try one of the three things you can try only to discover that there was some hidden mechanic (like having to pause time in a certain position so that something could happen that would permanently change the level, like clogging up a garden hose so it bursts to push aside an obstacle) never made me think “oh that’s clever” it made me think “well I’m glad that pain in the butt is done” which was not, I believe, the designers’ intent.

The Gardens Between’s pleasant aesthetic, low key but relatable story, and sometimes fun mechanics make for a nice way to while away 2 to 3 hours. It brings a level of polish and confidence that is rare in this kind of indie puzzler, and I can see why it got the attention it did, even if I don’t think the package as a whole is anything special. It’s cute and polished and it goes down easy, but it didn’t make much of an impact. There are a lot of clever little indie puzzlers out there, and high production values can only do so much to elevate average gameplay, even if that gameplay is based around a decent gimmick. In the battle of the indie puzzle games with “Between” in their title I got a lot more out of In Between than I did from this game. If I’d spent $20 on it I’d probably have been disappointed. As a Game Pass download it was solid. Recommended if you’re looking for something short and low key with a nice aesthetic and satisfying story arc. Otherwise it’s a game you can miss.

Nicely written.. i was really intrigued by this game when i saw a physical version get created for "limited run games," but after watching Brad play it as a quick look, it appeared really dull. Now im not against slow moving games in my puzzlers, but if thats part of the mechanic i can see how that can get frustrating.

In most puzzlers that i play once i see the solution, i want to quickly do it and move on to the next puzzle, because the joy to me is figuring out the puzzle and less about the result that it brings. As someone who does not have game pass (i know an anomaly) is the game interesting enough if it goes on sale?

@imunbeatable80: I wouldn't call the game dull to play because the visuals really are quite charming and it doesn't feel bad to control, even if that control is quite limited. I could see why it was dull to watch, though.

I can save you some time and tell you that this is not the greatest game. I actually don't think that the slow movement is particularly an issue once you've figured out what you're supposed to do, because that usually isn't too hard to execute. Where it's really a drag is when you are trying to experiment to figure out what you're supposed to do next (generally because the game has introduced a new 'stealth mechanic' that subverts the previously established rules.) This only happened a handful of times so it's not a pervasive issue, but cycling through the same minute long sequence of going backwards and forwards just looking for something in the background that might trigger something else to happen is not a good time. Not game ruining, but not great.

Value is obviously a difficult judgment for one person to make for another. Some might say it's not worth the 2-3 hours it takes to play it. Others might love the aesthetics so much that they don't care about the frustrations. Personally I'd say that about $10 would be the right price for this game, so half off the asking price. I definitely would not buy a fancy physical edition because I think it's a pretty disposable experience and not one I think I'll ever revisit, though I could imagine showing it to someone who wasn't super into gaming as a simple, charming, and mostly intuitive game that anyone could play.

You've said you're into puzzle games, and you had a decent time with Adam's Venture: Origins, which most reviewers thought was bad, so I could definitely see you getting something out of this game, which is rock solid technically, charming in visuals and storytelling, and features some decent and clever little puzzles. On the other hand if you're a hardcore puzzhead (that's what they call them, I don't make the rules) you might find it a little bit too easy. It's not one of those games with "puzzles" that are so simple that they're basically just busywork, but I wouldn't say it has any true brain busters.

My guess is that you'd enjoy it enough that it would be worth a shot at a sale price. It's quite short so it's not a big commitment. I do want to repeat my recommendation of In Between though. That game has stuck with me as a really underrated puzzle platformer. It doesn't have the budget or visual polish of The Gardens Between but it has a more impactful story, more engaging puzzles and gameplay, and its own sense of impressive style.