Hidden Memories Between the Gardens is a moving story about a best friend from childhood, offering a fun VR take on flat screen indie puzzles. Read the full review.
If you’ve played The Gardens, which is between the 2018 Flatscreen platforms, Hidden Memories is a strange extension of the story I was thinking of. It’s more of an expanded Retread than a sequel, adding a new opening in a few decades and quickly returning to familiar ground. These new additions may not guarantee a second playthrough, but this VR adaptation still offers a beautiful story.
What is it?: Garden support between extended extended puzzle gardens in time manipulation VR adaptation.
Platform: Quest, PC VR (reviewed in Quest 3)
release date: August 7, 2025
Developer/Publisher: Voxel Agent
price: $19.99
Exploring this world from a third perspective, you are tasked with manipulating time to guide arenas and friends across the islands. The hidden memory of the garden, which has successfully invoked the nostalgia of childhood through colorful and charming surreal images, is whether it is an oversized sofa with a popcorn bowl over rock formations, or see a huge bike in the distance.
Everything is managed through a pleasant, simple control scheme, and you don’t move each character directly into each environment. Instead, you change the flow of time by moving your hand to the right (accelerate) or left (invert). Both Alina and her friends follow a pre-determined course with several potential branching paths, depending on the input.
Quest 3 gameplay footage with hand tracking control captured in gamebixby
The hand tracking control fits naturally into this minimalist scheme and interacts with objects using pinch motion, but the motion controller simply requires a trigger press. It’s comfortable to play with one hand, making it an ideal option if you’re concerned about accessibility. The interactivity of VR is pretty basic, but it’s easy to pinch items interacting with them without dragging their hands in the settings direction.
The hidden memories between the gardens have few comfortable options available, but this is not a game that requires them. In either VR or mixed reality, you’re playing close or far from a third person’s perspective, so you can’t find a normal moving option for movement. All you can really do is turn off the controller vibrations or adjust the audio.
There is no need for a specific left-handed mode either, as button input is mirrored with minimal hand.
Your goal is to use lanterns to transport pink orbs to the peak portals on each island, gradually introducing more complex mechanisms. For example, some flowers contain the necessary orbs that can be used to activate the bridge. Other flowers can be automatically absorbed when they pass the orb, and there is no immediate way to get other flowers. For example, if you encounter dark clouds that can only intersect with a light source, that can be a problem. Similarly, some cloud paths can only be walked without an orb.
There are fair difficulty curves that become increasingly difficult, and these levels remain (usually) well-designed using discernable logic to solve them. It is important to be extremely careful as some cues are more obvious than others. To make matters a pain, some levels along the way make me feel confused about what I should do. Ultimately, understanding the solution at these moments generally feels more frustrating than rewarding.
Screenshot taken by uploadVr in Quest 3
One of the most important changes in the garden’s hidden memory is that each island now appears to be a rotatable diorama that grabs a base to change its perspective. This includes mixed reality support in Quest 3. This has become my favorite way of playing. The hidden memories also include an optional closed view in a completely immersive environment only.
These changing perspectives do not affect the puzzle in any meaningful way, and are pretty much the same beautiful games as we saw previously seven years ago. Unfortunately, if you’re nearby, it’s emphasised that Quest 3 has not particularly sharp resolution. It also has a slightly uncomfortable black boundary that checks if it moves too much when using a stationary boundary, but this is not big. I previewed this on Steam, but I can’t quite compare the two as I haven’t received access to the full PC VR edition yet.
Gameplay footage captured by Quest 3 UploadVr
Just like before, this short campaign takes around 3-4 hours and is not welcome. Hidden Memories adds some welcome playability to each stage, and offers new scenes to help you learn more about the pair with new collectible items that enter Arina’s diary. To find the complete set, you will need to tinker with items, such as finding tickets within the chocolate wrapper.
Still, I feel that this new feature is rather minimal and I don’t naturally tend to find all the items. It is at these moments that the roots of Hidden Memories’ flat screens are revealed. Still, it’s nice to see Voxel’s agent develop Alina and her friend further through this wordless story. The ending is relatively sudden. After collecting all items, if you find out you have a new or expanded ending, update this. Nevertheless, this conclusion makes me feel emotional.
Hidden memories of the garden during reviews – Final verdict
While this could be said to have not been originally designed for VR or mixed reality, the hidden memories between the gardens are a fascinating journey that touches the familiar pain of a friend who has left her. It has a compelling story about beautiful and surreal childhood imagination, and taking a diorama approach introduces an interesting perspective to this existing story.
Several issues prevent this from becoming an essential recommendation. Quest 3 resolution is not the sharpest, and some levels are pretty frustrating and if you beat the original game before, the expansion content is not enough. Still, Voxel’s agents do mostly justice in this chilled puzzle adventure in VR.
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