| The Gardens Between | |
|---|---|
 Cover art for The Gardens Between, featuring the characters of Arina (left) and Frendt | |
| Developer(s) | The Voxel Agents |
| Publisher(s) | The Voxel Agents |
| Director(s) | Henrik Pettersson |
| Producer(s) | Simon Joslin Brooke Maggs |
| Designer(s) | Henrik Pettersson Josh Alan Bradbury Simon Joslin |
| Programmer(s) | Matt Clark David Little |
| Artist(s) | Jonathan Swanson Jessica Brett |
| Writer(s) | Brooke Maggs |
| Composer(s) | Tim Shiel |
| Platform(s) | Linux, macOS, Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, Android, PlayStation 5 |
| Release | 20 September 2018
|
| Genre(s) | Adventure, puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Gardens Between is an adventure/puzzle video game developed by Australian studio The Voxel Agents and published in September 2018 for Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4. It was later released for Xbox One in 2018, iOS in 2019, Android in 2020, and PlayStation 5 in 2022. The game, which conveys its story through visuals and gameplay rather than dialogue or narration, follows two children, Arina and Frendt, in the treehouse in a garden between their houses. In a dreamscape, they progress through sets of island levels, each representing different shared experiences. The characters walk along a path that winds through each level, and the player solves environment-based puzzles that prevent the pair from reaching and activating a portal at the end of the path. To do so, the player controls the flow of time forwards and backwards and causes the characters to interact with nearby objects and spheres of light, rather than moving the pair directly.
The game was developed by The Voxel Agents over the course of four and a half years, beginning in 2014, based on a prototype idea from 2011 about playing a memory video back and forth. The island levels are derived from Japanese dry gardens, and are inspired by the developers' own childhoods. Tim Shiel, who composed the game's music, later released an album of music inspired by his tracks from the game, Glowing Pains: Music From The Gardens Between. Critics praised the game's art style and gameplay, as well as the wordless characterization of the two protagonists, though some found the puzzle difficulty uneven or the plot shallow. The Gardens Between won the "Game of the Year" award at the 2018 Australian Game Development Awards, a 2019 Apple Design Award, and the "Best Puzzle Game" award at the 2019 Webby Awards, and was nominated for several other awards.