The weekend before last saw four new games come to Apple Arcade – The Bradwell Conspiracy, Nightmare Farm, Pilgrims, and Redout: Space Assault.

On the weekend just passed, five more hit Apple’s subscription service – Decoherence, Inmost, Mind Symphony, ShockRods, and Stela – taking the current count up to 80.

It seems it would be pretty safe to bet on another handful releasing this weekend, as Apple Arcade climbs towards its promised goal of more than 100 games in the weeks following Arcade’s release. Will we see any of these as yet unreleased 24 games this weekend? Get your bingo cards ready.

At the very least, ATVG knows that following October 18, the total will be 81, with William Chyr announcing today that his seven year project – Manifold Garden – will finally be out.

At first glance, I was thinking this might be a nice quiet game to set aside for the iPad, but the more development videos and trailers I watch, the more I’m looking forward to tripping out in front of a 60-inch screen on Apple TV with Chyr’s mind-bending creation.

Punch that Continue button for more.

 

Before reading on, I would suggest getting yourself in front of a decent sized monitor or TV, expanding to full-screen, and running the video embedded at the bottom of this page. Pictures describe Manifold Garden in a way that words can’t.

But I’ll try.

Mash together the movie Inception with the game Portal (and a little of The Witness thrown in for good measure), and that sums up the vibe I’m getting from Chyr’s spatial dreamscape.

The idea is to complete first-person physics puzzles, while working within a universe of twisted gravity, where up is down and down is up. You can fall off a ledge, but if you do, you’ll end up falling down to where you started as the world folds in on itself.

Yep.

William Chyr started his project with the working title of Relativity in 2012, originally as a quick project to familiarise himself with working within Uinty3D. After seven years of lessons, labour, and pouring love into what became Manifold Garden, here it is.

Chyr’s development blog is an interesting read, as he describes his background predominantly as an installation artist (you can check out some of his stunning work here), but also mixes in a fascinating range of disciplines – physics studies, ad agency work, and a design studio – which when taken together, go a long way to explaining the end result of Manifold Garden.

While early puzzles task players with sliding blocks to trigger switches in order to become familiar with the physics and gameplay, Chry promises there is “an entire world full of wonder and impossible architecture for you to explore.”

Okay Chyr, I’ll bite.

Manifold Garden hits Apple Arcade October 18.

If you’re new to The Apple TV Gaming Blog (ATVG), or just new to Apple TV gaming in general, or both, then the best place to get acquainted is our Best Apple TV games of 2018 article. You’ll find a great collection of games to play, and a bunch of useful links to our previous site content. Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.