The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between is a puzzle game which consists of twenty-one levels, grouped into sets of two or three. Each level is an island littered with objects with a pathway winding through it. The goal of each level is to reach the portal at the top and activate it. Arina carries a lantern, which can absorb light from nearby sources.

When lit, the lantern can be used to activate the portal when Arina is near it, or clear away purple fog that is otherwise solid. The lantern can also be given to cube-shaped creatures that jump around the level, and retrieved from them elsewhere. Frendt can activate chimes when he is near that open or close flowers that contain either a sphere of light for the lantern or a black sphere that absorbs the light.

The plot of The Gardens Between is conveyed through visuals and gameplay, as no dialogue or narration is present in the game. It follows two children, named outside the game as Arina and Frendt, a girl and boy who live next door to each other and are close friends. On a rainy night, the two sneak out and hide in their treehouse, built on a small garden square between the houses. A light sphere forms in front of them, which causes the treehouse to fall into a vast dream ocean with sets of small islands representing their shared experiences, beginning with Arina moving into her house.

They sail between the islands in the dreamscape to light a portal at the top of each one, and finally to a central island and a large portal. As they progress, the weather of the dreamscape becomes overcast and then rainy. At the end of each set of levels, a scene is shown of what memory the levels represented, and a constellation appears in the sky. Once the central island portal is lit, the islands all collapse into the ocean, leaving the pair in their treehouse.

The Gardens Between was developed by Australian studio The Voxel Agents over the course of four and a half years. The initial concept for the game was created in 2011 as part of a series of rapid prototypes for game ideas, with most centering on manipulating time. The Gardens Between's concept was inspired by a scene from the 2002 film Minority Report in which a character plays a video memory forwards and backwards by moving his hand back and forth. Although the concept was not turned into a game then, when game director and designer Henrik Pettersson rejoined the studio in 2014 The Voxel Agents began to expand the concept into a full game. An early prototype in 2014 included the concept of walking up a path on an island, as well as puzzles such as bringing a flaming torch past a waterfall by setting a falling stick on fire and then rewinding time so that it would light a beacon further up the path.

The initial version of the game was a puzzle game using the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but the team wanted to use an original story instead, which was created by narrative designer Brooke Maggs. The game's narrative retained some elements of fairy tales early in development, but soon shifted to use fantastical elements that were more surreal and less taken from existing fantasy stories, and also to use the "Voyage and Return" narrative archetype such as in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , Pan's Labyrinth, and Coraline. The music was inspired by Icelandic composers and ambient music, and the composer, Tim Shiel, was involved early in the design process so that his music would match the tone of the game being created.

The Gardens Between won the "Game of the Year" award at the 2018 Australian Game Development Awards, was nominated for "Excellence in Visual Art" at the 2018 Independent Games Festival, and won a 2019 Apple Design Award. It won "Best Puzzle Game" award at the 2019 Webby Awards and was additionally nominated for "Best Art Direction", and was nominated for "Gamer's Voice: Video Game" at the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards. It was also nominated for "Best Audio/Visual Accomplishment" at the 2020 Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards.

Critics were "generally favorable" towards the game, according to the review aggregator Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 78% of critics. The gameplay was praised, with Caty McCarthy of USgamer and Jay Castello of Rock Paper Shotgun praising the variety of puzzle mechanics that were continually added throughout the game. Peter Brown of GameSpot and Daan Koopman of Nintendo World Report found the puzzles clever and Emily Sowden of Pocket Gamer called them "nicely balanced".