🔔 UMA ANÁLISE VALE MAIS DO QUE MIL IMAGENS 🔔

Disponível anteriormente na Apple Arcade algures por 2019 e recentemente lançado para a Nintendo Switch, Manifold Garden é um jogo centrado não só em quebra-cabeças mas também em viagens estranhas e únicas por um mundo sem fim. Quiçá não seja tão estranho assim não fosse o criador, William Chyr, licenciado em artes pela universidade de Chicago. Com uma banda sonora e direção artística únicas, Manifold Garden consegue ser em primeira instância uma obra de arte e depois então, um videojogo.

Assim sendo, compreende-se que não haja um enredo propriamente dito. Em filosofia é costume discutir que as obras de arte sofrem problemas de interpretação em dois polos: isolacionismo e contextualização. Não vou gastar um parágrafo nessa aventura, mas deixo assente que em Manifold Garden tudo está à mercê da nossa imaginação. Se realmente existe um porquê para tudo o que acontece, certamente estará na mente do senhor Chyr, pois nada naquele mundo artificial revela uma intenção de desenvolver um enredo ou uma linha narrativa.

Mas ainda assim, Manifold Garden é um videojogo e isso exige que se estabeleçam algumas regras. O início da aventura começa com uma série de quebra-cabeças cuja função é explicar como decorrem as cerca de seis horas de jogo e no fim de cada desafio, a mecânica principal fica esclarecida: utilizar a gravidade do mundo, alterar a nossa perspetiva e colocar cubos na cor correta. É estupidamente simples e divertido, mas também desonesto na sua dificuldade. Tudo é feito em torno desta mecânica e progressivamente, surgem novas ideias para apimentar a viagem. Chega a um ponto que é necessário pensar três, quatro ou até cinco passos à frente para executar e avançar até à próxima etapa, muito ao estilo do apreciadíssimo Portal. A dificuldade está lá, mas existe pouco sentimento tão recompensador como este.

Mas por muito interessantes ou desafiantes que sejam os quebra-cabeças, a verdadeira experiência de Manifold Garden encontra-se na direção artística e na banda sonora. Poucos são os jogos que atingem um patamar quase etéreo na sua execução, mas o mundo idealizado por William Chyr é longo, vasto e repleto de estruturas inicialmente muito cinzentas e minimalistas que se vão tornando mais coloridas e complexas. Tudo é grande e ambicioso neste jogo; tudo é deslumbrante mas ainda assim, consegue ser estranhamente calmo. A banda sonora é um complemento excelente e a sua composição merece ser apreciada, mesmo fora do jogo.

Contudo, um dos momentos mais impressionantes foi cair de uma plataforma acidentalmente. Ao contrário do esperado ecrã de Game Over, a descida é contínua até se cair em terra firme…várias vezes no mesmo sítio de onde saltei. A descida continuava e continuava, um ciclo vicioso sem fim em que vi inúmeras vezes o exterior da estrutura onde estava confinado. Muito frequentemente a solução para vários desafios passa por mudar a forma como se olha para a questão.

Ainda assim, por toda a liberdade encontrada tanto a nível de mecânicas como a nível de interpretação, é de salientar que existe uma falha óbvia na falta de um botão para saltar. São vários os desafios que se tornam desnecessariamente difíceis só porque a nossa personagem é incapaz de contornar a gravidade com o seu próprio corpo. Algo que também é transversal ao género, e talvez algo mais subjetivo, é o nível de dificuldade. Outros tantos quebra-cabeças incitam a famosa reação “é isto?” na sua conclusão. Apesar da experiência geral no seu todo ser agradável, com a vantagem adicional de se poder jogar em qualquer lado, Manifold Garden não aproveita outras funcionalidades da consola, sendo tudo muito simplista.

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Mais experiência do que jogo, Manifold Garden deslumbra pela suas componentes artísticas. Aqui a jogabilidade apresenta-se apenas como um complemento interativo, na mesma onda de jogos como Journey, apesar da execução ser muito inspirada em Portal. A banda sonora, por sua vez, é indispensável e tem de ser ouvida para a mestria ganhar vida.

Trata-se, no entanto, de uma conversão muito simples, com alguns puzzles irritantes, um tempo curtíssimo de vida e nenhuma razão para voltar a jogar, o que coloca o jogo uns pontos abaixo do esperado.

Pontos Positivos:
✅ Banda sonora
✅ Direção artística
✅ Sentimento de recompensa

Pontos Negativos:
❌ Tempo de jogo muito curto
❌ Nenhuma razão para voltar a jogar
❌ Alguns quebra-cabeças muito irritantes

______________ FICHA TÉCNICA ______________

◻️ ➡️ "Manifold Garden – Análise"
◻️ 🙋‍♂️ Read more of my reviews by clicking here
◻️ 🗂️ Metacritic’s page here and OpenCritic’s here
◻️ ✍️ in European Portuguese
◻️ 📝 on 09/09/2020

____________________ FIM _____________________

A beautiful fractal puzzle game that has you exploring set pieces infinitely repeated upon themselves. Within these minimalist renderings you can explore by moving to any adjacent surface, find interactables, and try to figure out how to proceed to the next area - normally just by finding a switch, placing objects in set locations, or redirecting a flow of liquid to another location.

This game really blew me away with the sheer scale of its infinite spaces. It oozes atmosphere from its surreal liminal sandboxes, and the puzzles are just as fascinating as the solutions are devilish creating some mind blowing physics interactions that make use of the infinitely tessellating space.

While there is no real story to speak of the abstract goings on throughout each level are well worth the price of admission as you're treated to some wonderful visuals from start to finish, and for the avid puzzler every stage has an alternative solution which gives a great excuse to replay such a unique and interesting game.

High marks for creativity, a truly unique experience, and clever but simple mechanics that draw on the fractal world making you think in entirely new ways.

QUE JOGO LINDO PERFEITO MARAVILHOSO. eu acho que ele tem uma das mecânicas mais criativas e inovadoras que eu já vi.
eu acho que é muito fácil você se perder nesse jogo, mas também é fácil se achar. poderia falar horas como o game design desse jogo é incrível, mas outra coisa que também não é deixada de lado são as trilhas sonoras, perfeitas. dá vontade de ficar parado só ouvindo a sound track desse jogo as vezes
os puzzles também muito bem feitos e complexos do jeito que deveria ser. me rendeu vários wallpapers

After playing Antichamber back in 2017, I remember looking for another game to fill the void that was my desire for another Escher-esque puzzle game. Someone on Reddit thought that this game, Manifold Garden, was similar. Though the art style of both games ultimately take inspiration from the same paintings, they are completely different in nature.

Yes, they are both wonderful puzzle games. Yes, they are both a bit mind-bending. But Manifold Garden isn't constantly tricking you in the ways that Antichamber does; it's paths are possible, just infinite. It's not nearly as confusing, difficult, nor lengthy, but it's got a lot of other things that make it great.

Manifold Garden is NOT Antichamber. In fact, I think it's outright unfair to compare the two. They're that different. In Manifold Garden, you'll find yourself immersed in beautiful infinitely reaching landscapes, falling between the world alongside a constant ambience.

The puzzles in this game simply consist of cubes, buttons, a gravity-switching mechanic, as well as water a little later on into the game. They're never too difficult; never once did I even consider using a walkthrough, apart from points in my playthrough where I simply didn't know where I was headed or what I was meant to do at all. I kinda wish that the puzzles were more difficult, but regardless, I had a blast with the game.

There is a second playthrough, completely different than the first, that can be done as well. There's tons of hidden paths I never would've discovered on my own that gain this game another level of respect due to how cleverly interwoven each and every level is. I recommend going through this as well; however, keep in mind that this would take a massive amount of time without any proper guidance.

This game is not that long. It took me about 4 hours to finish my first playthrough of the game. This feels like the perfect length; if it went on for any longer, it probably would've felt like too much of a slog. The only issue this may pose is complaints about the price, but remember that this is a beautiful, polished, labor of love that took many years to create. I'd recommend picking it up on sale if you get the chance.

Excellent and challenging puzzle game with a relaxing soundtrack and crazy visuals.
Would recommend anyone try it out if they enjoy a good challenge.

Be vary of playing if you suffer from:
- fear of heights
- vertigo
- nausea

It's visually stunning and there is a lot of potential for non-Euclidean shenigans in here, but personally I found the execution a little lacking. Some of the puzzles in the mid-game are great; I greatly enjoyed the puzzles with waterfalls. However, a lot of the puzzles just devolve into 'find the one cube in this large and confusing environment... I get that that is the point of the game to some extent, but it's not fun to do? On balance I don't regret playing it though; probably worth picking up if only for the kaleidoscopic graphics alone.

Cool first-person puzzler with nice visuals and ambience. The puzzle gameplay is fairly standard and logical, it’s not quite as clearly level-based as Portal or Talos but for the most part, finding the goal and pieces of each puzzle is not hard which is the approach I prefer with puzzle games. The quality is pretty good but I wouldn’t have minded some more difficult or satisfying puzzle designs, or just more in general. I had a great time but it only lasts a few hours.

The visuals are great, the style feels like an extension of what you see in Antichamber except instead of being confined to small corridors, the levels are massively open and infinitely repeating. This gives a great sense of scale but I’ll admit that with no real weight or a potential loss state, the game doesn’t really capitalise on this ambience. Portal 2 has a much smaller scale but the massive falls feel much more significant and immersive rather than just being a cool idea like in this game.

The story kind of matches the style in that it’s vague and without narrative. There are some abstract ideas but I don’t think it’s supposed to be very meaningful. Maybe I just missed the point. Anyway it’s still a good choice for puzzle fans but maybe a little overpriced at full price since there isn’t a huge amount of content.

There's a temptation to describe Manifold Garden only by comparing it to its spiritual forebear: Antichamber. Many reviews of the game have done so, and while I resent the idea that the first game to implement a certain mechanic or aesthetic becomes the default by which all that come after must be compared to, I found that when I started looking closer, the comparison became more and more interesting.

There's just no getting away from it. Manifold Garden looks and plays like an Antichamber 2 that never came to pass. The game is built on similar non-euclidean geometry, coloured block puzzles and coated in near-identical stark white visuals. But where Antichamber felt claustrophobic and confusing, purposely so, Manifold is enormous and breathtaking. The structures differ entirely too, with the latter game taking place over a series of fairly linear levels interspersed with gorgeous, geometric vistas, where the former was a tangled mess of interlocking corridors. The goals of both games are completely different, even if their methods are very similar.

I don't like Antichamber very much. I think it's main puzzle mechanics are completely antithetical to its MC Escher gimmick and on the whole, it's largely charmless. I do really like Manifold Garden though, for many of the same reasons I dislike its predecessor. It's not a particularly difficult game, I breezed through it in less than four hours and never found myself stuck for more than a minute or two at a time. It's lacks narrative too, but I don't regard that as a drawback, as the simple, gameplay and visuals driven story is a surprisingly beautiful one. Despite the complete absence of characters or words, I found myself feeling quite emotional as the ending played out. The world may not make sense, but there is a clear goal and in achieving that goal, I felt accomplished and like I had done something good and worthwhile. Antichamber's ending just left me confused and disappointed, like a teenager's failed attempt at sex. Manifold also hides a secret, non-linear second playthrough too, which I greatly look forward to experiencing in the future.

Manifold Garden is by no means an amazing game. Its puzzles are at times too simple and I would have loved a DLC that would just push its puzzle mechanics to their extreme, but what's here is undoubtedly great. If you found yourself disappointed by Antichamber or you're a fellow Portal fan with a penchant for the strange, absolutely give Manifold Garden a play.

The best part of Manifold Garden is just exploring the beautiful infinitely tiled environments. I was always excited to see what area would come next!

As a puzzle game, it's in a bit of a strange position - the hardest puzzle is usually just navigating the environment. The actual block puzzles tend to be pretty easy for most of the game, and can sometimes feel kind of like a distraction. But they do make good use of Manifold Garden's mechanics, especially towards the end of the game (and in the optional achievement challenge run).