The Gardens Between is a game about two childhood friends who look between the ages of 11 and 14 who end up in an island filled with objects and memories that they experienced from when they were younger. Together, they solve puzzles to explore the friendship that they had built.
On paper, the story sounds very bland and shallow. I was confused as to why I was playing a game about two kids reminiscing but once you get to the end, you'll realise what the actual story is about and it turns out to actually be quite decent and compelling. If you were expecting a story-driven game, this still may not be able to hold your attention as there are barely any cutscenes aside from a few seconds of memories and no dialogue. It's a bit more slice of lifey, focusing more on the atmosphere and much less the characters.
There's an atmospheric tone to this game from the music and the scenery. It starts off light and then it gets dark and somber right up to a background of Arina's shirt washing away and a stormy night. The music is even the same way, starting off very calming and happy but then turning somber and sad. You may realize that the game is building up to something somber and that's what makes the atmosphere of it quite interesting. At the end of the game, spoiler alert if you haven't finished it...
The two kids are getting seperated so this whole island is basically them holding onto the memories that they shared together and going on their last adventure as their final goodbyes. I think that the lighter atmosphere of this game represents the times when they were happy and the sad atmosphere represents their sadness at splitting up and that they're getting closer to the time of saying goodbye. There's even a level where we see Arina's shirt falling into the water and in the levels before, she had the shirt on. Considering that she lost it sometime in the past, the "shirt" in the present was more of a figment of the imagination since they are living in the memories of the past before she lost the shirt.
The gameplay has an interesting time manipulation mechanic that can get a bit complex but it's still quite easy. As a puzzle fan, the simplicity of the puzzles did get me bored as they don't take much time to figure out.
I wouldn't say that the game is a bad game or anything, it just wasn't aimed at me. I would love to see another time manipulation puzzle game though.