being created. The designers refer to the levels as islands or gardens, and the art style of them was derived from Japanese dry gardens, with the structure of each garden creating "harmonic asymmetrical silhouettes". Each garden represents a moment in Arina and Friendt's friendship, with the elements of the level used for "environmental storytelling" to show what about that moment was meaningful to the pair. The moments the gardens represent were inspired by the designers' own childhoods. Arina and Friendt were designed to have very different personalities, with Arina "fearless, headstrong and fiercely independent" and Frendt "constantly curious and wandering". Lead animator and designer Josh Alan Bradbury has said that the concept was that the moments are meaningful to them as children, rather than that they would be special when they are adults. Moving back and forth in time through the memories was intended to be a metaphor for reliving the same moments through nostalgia, remembering them in different ways and coming to a collective version of events with friends. The Gardens Between was released on Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 on 20 September 2018, and on Xbox One on 29 November 2018. It was later released for iOS devices on 17 May 2019, Android on 15 Jul 2020, and PlayStation 5 on 16 June 2022. Previous titles by The Voxel Agents had been released first or only for mobile devices; executive producer Simon Joslin has said that not primarily designing the game for mobile devices changed their relationship with how they were developing the game and their expectations for it. Reception The Gardens Between received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregator Metacritic. The Verge Michael Moore considered how The Gardens Between presented a type of theoretical physics related to different points of view when discussing the potential of time travel, as what Arina and Frendt would witness would be drastically different from what the player witnesses or other potential perspectives in the game. In a positive review for GameSpot, Peter Brown liked the character interactions of the game, writing "Though the world they venture through is full of creative touches and small magical moments, the two characters own every moment. From the way they subtly peep at one another while crossing paths, to the adorable gestures they use to point out helpful objects in the distance, their body language clues you in to