Several months ago, I surfed the Switch eShop for visual novels and adventure games, bought a couple, and went on my merry way. The next time I visited the eShop, it had one of those Amazon suggestion boxes saying, “Since you bought this, we think you’d like this.” The suggestion was for The Gardens Between, which naturally, I had never heard of. You’d think I would have, since it released on the PlayStation 4 back in 2018 when I still worked for a PlayStation site, but no. It totally slipped through my radar. When I saw it, I thought it was a new game. With what I’ve been playing lately, that was a silly thing to assume.

The Gardens Between was neither an adventure game nor a visual novel, so I’m not entirely sure how this got into my recommendations after buying Tangled Tower. It’s a puzzle game, albeit a simple one. After playing a few levels, I was ready to give up for being boring, but something made me stick with it to the end. After reaching the ending cut scene, I am so glad I did.

It’s About Time

No literally, it is about time. The only controls the player really has is to move this pair of friends forward and backward through time as they walk through the level to the end. However, each character has their own unique abilities. The girl character is able to pick up, hold, and place down a lantern. The only way to clear the level is for the girl to have a lit lantern for the two of them to place on a pedestal. The boy character can flip switches, which sometimes open flower blossoms of light or darkness (takes away the light from the lantern) and sometimes alters where the environment is in time without the characters moving.

Like any good puzzle game, the first levels are simple to show how the time elements work. Gradually, the puzzles become more and more complex, which, with how few controls you actually have, is rather impressive.

On the flip side, since there are so few controls, solving the puzzles never feels impossible. They’re akin to same “ah ha!” moments I had when playing The Turing Test or even Portal. The Witness this is not. I probably really would have quit if it was.

Is There a Story, Though?

If you know me or are familiar with my work in gaming over the last 16 years, then you know I’m a story gamer. The apparent lack of a story is why I nearly called it quits early on. The game begins with these two characters in a tree house in the rain. Suddenly lightning strikes, and they’re both in this strange world of islands that appear to be made up of their memories. In the level, you don’t play through the memory itself, but when you place the lantern on the pedestal, a piece of the memory forms in the sky. The memory then forms and plays out after all of its pieces are collected. Each memory typically has two or three pieces aka levels to solve.

The memories are cute, the visuals are stunning, and the sound design is superb, but is there a point to all of this? All I can say is sort of, but the ending resolves in a way that I can guarantee you will not see coming. As such, I’m on a little crusade to tout this game to puzzle-loving friends and family.

It’s not expensive, it doesn’t take long to play, and hey, it’s a great way to pass the time (ha! I’m funny) while we’re in this quarantine. It’s not Portal mind-blowing levels, but it’s still something short and sweet that puzzle fans should check out.

The Gardens Between review copy was purchased by me.