The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass

Visual novel that really banks on you being interested in solving an overall puzzle that gets increasingly complex. This can be rewarding by the final acts but requires a lot of patience to read with how the game is written. The overall mystery of what's going on reaches levels of complexity that's both funny and impressive. For the most part the reading experience can be tedious with repetitive things happening and characters feeling flat as if they only existed to proceed the mystery or provide deductions for the player. Many paragraphs are also written with far more words than needed. The overall story is held together pretty well but characters can really be colorless. Still, there are some interesting parts with the writing at least one of which I'll remember for a while. Trying to fully figure out the puzzle element is pretty demanding on logic and taking notes. The game provides good tools for this (I took a lot of notes personally, but didn't perform super well). The mystery forms its own cohesive structure over time making this kind of a unique experience you could imagine as something else than a VN. I can see why someone could get super into it. I get the impression a lot of polish went into the game despite its issues. There's some nice music in the licensed soundtrack. You might like this if you enjoy the idea of solving a mechanically complex mystery in a medium like this. Since the mechanics are solid it can feel like a puzzle game where you're always actively thinking towards solutions. Those aspects are really what's carrying this game.

[h3]他们渐渐爱上了那个房间，也爱上了因为这个房间而建立起来的关系。这只是一个不可避免回归的序幕，但他们都认为远不止于此。 [/h3] 其实五月就打完了这个游戏，但是当时认为自己完全写不好对这个游戏的评测，加上即使通关了两周目也还是没有特别搞懂，所以只是简略记在个人指南里，今天终于整理了一下发出来了，强烈推荐！ 虽然剧透的地方都涂黑了，但是感觉多多少少还是有一点，所以请小心阅读 断断续续花了一周的时间才终于把这个游戏打完，它真的比我想象的还要好的多， 玩的时候一度联想到了 [spoiler]《彗星来的那一夜》[/spoiler]，同样都是 [spoiler]世界线的交错[/spoiler]和微妙的不安感。 好到明明是单线单周目游戏，却让我在第一遍都还没打完的时候就迫不及待想开二周目， 要知道在此之前我已经对游戏提不起兴趣很久了，更别说还是视觉小说这种需要高度专注和沉浸的类型，这游戏简直是神医... 喜欢的剧情，喜欢的题材，喜欢几乎每一个角色（尤其是Erina），这部可以在我最爱的悬疑推理视觉小说top里排前三了。 即使是通关很久之后，内心还是被一种绵长而复杂的情绪占据。 这个游戏没有像太多同类型作品那样，只是追求谜题的堆叠或反转的冲击，也没有强行加入突兀的暧昧擦边或血腥猎奇内容[spoiler]（非恋爱为主题材VN的通病。。）[/spoiler]， 我觉得这个游戏在严密的逻辑与细腻的情感之间找到了一种最好的平衡，玩的过程中我感受到的大多是纯粹和专注，但也能体会到硬核推理之下幸福的温情，这个游戏在我心里各方面都已经超越题材相似的[spoiler]人狼村[/spoiler]了 一开始玩这个游戏只是被硬核推理的名头和阴暗的氛围吸引，一度以为就是典型的暴风雪山庄而已，随着剧情推进，[spoiler]视角[/spoiler]在完全没察觉到的情况下[spoiler]不断转换，时间线也彼此交织[/spoiler]，我才后知后觉意识到这个故事并不简单。。 每一个细节，每一句对白，甚至每一个沉默的间隙，都可能成为后续情节的关键伏笔。 故事本身其实没有非常的复杂，最核心的一个设定也比较容易猜到，但是真的讲的太好了，我觉得在并不新奇的核心之下，能把故事讲得这样严密又动人才是更难更强的， 完全没有吃书也没有剧情冲突，严丝合缝的伏笔回收和细腻的心理描写让真正发展到揭露的时候，并没有那种因为猜到了而失落的感觉，更多的还是对精密结构的震撼和感慨。 不过比起出神入化的[spoiler]叙述性诡计和视角转换[/spoiler]，我还是喜欢多结局和剧情外的一些设定。 每一个结局，尤其是几个BE，都不是随意安排或为悲剧而悲剧的，它们与主线紧密相连，有些BE的信息量极大，有些BE美学性特别高。 真的特别喜欢【被抛弃的传递】这个结局：[spoiler]Shiroya B穿越了，想要努力救人，想要最重要的Atsuki过得更好，结果因为虚无感和犹豫，导致无意之中 同样穿越的一直也想要让Shiroya开心起来的，本可以改变悲剧的那个 Atsuki B 向她奔赴时，在她眼前被撞死了，而原时间线的他们永远消失在了塔里。。。[/spoiler] 这个be甚至还有一个单独的结局文字动画，看见动画背景里湛蓝的澄澈天空，真的狠狠伤到了，令人无力的错位感。。 想开二周目的冲动就是这个时候达到顶峰的，那些看似零碎的对话、不同视角下的细微差异，在第二次游玩时才真正显现出它们的意义。 剧情后期的引导式旁白，一步一步带着玩家把整个剧情理顺看清，感觉也相当不错，真的很需要每一个剧情庞大的推理游戏都实装这个。 不过这个游戏的缺点也比较突出， 在角色塑造上，没有去费力的堆砌人设，而是通过碎片化的对话与行为细节，联想能力强的话确实能通过只言片语精准察觉拼凑出角色的实际性格，比如我早在剧情中期就隐约察觉到miiya的某些真实想法与性格，一边继续验证一边碎碎念为主角们感到不值得。。 但这种需要主动参与识人，更依赖自己联想与觉察的过程，往好了说是留白之美，往坏了说简直是致命短板。我会因为这种塑造方式时而很跳脱的觉得Atsuki好有谐星天赋，时而又觉得这人简直是个人形自动推理机器人。。 BGM质量也不错，很好听，但是前两章的BGM和剧情匹配的不是特别恰到好处，而且重复度很高，前期有一个BGM的特殊频率更是让我听着有点头晕。。音效倒是做的相当不错，只可惜很多时候都被bgm的音量掩盖了。 最缺陷的一点还是没有官中，文本本来就比较绕，汉化补丁好多句子都翻译的扭曲原意了，尤其是语序上更难读了，对理解剧情造成了相当大的干扰。 总之，这真的是一个在目前悬疑推理VN大环境中出现的很难的的游戏，强烈推荐给所有人玩，尤其是喜欢复杂思考的人。 虽然没有达到让我想失忆重来的程度，但通关之后依然反复回想那些在时间之下的真相，还有那些在循环中挣扎的人... 一点题外话，Akaro的穿搭， 我前面一直在想他穿的是打底衫还是毛衣，结果后来发现还真是薄薄的打底衫。 真健康啊。。其他人都穿棉袄和羽绒服了，不愧是长着这么一张酷哥脸的人。。。

Tapping out a couple hours in, the writing here is too rough for me to spend 40+ hours with, the characters are flat, and the art feels too safe. It seems like no risks were taken in terms of character or environment art, and so there isn't anything to latch onto except for the prose and the mystery. The mystery could very well be neat, but the prose is so slow and meandering, and none of the characters seem like they have a distinct narrative voice that I am just not going to be diving into it. The score is pretty nice from what I heard though.

The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass is a hard VN to recommend: the prose is clunky and frequently very dense in a bad way; the story doesn’t pick up steam until a few hours in (6-8 in my estimate); characters, more frequently than not, act like mystery-delivering devices disguised as cardboard cutouts of people. If anything, this is more of a logic puzzle book in a visual novel wrapper. But despite all that, you can tell that this is a passion project and people spent hours of their life on creating something, that, despite its many downsides, shines brightly. And so, I do recommend it. The Sekimeiya does respect your time if you honestly engage with it and are willing to look past its shortcomings. Once you overcome dry clunky prose, you start noticing fun character moments. And by that time, core mystery picks up and it is genuinely intriguing. The final chapter, specifically, I found to be a very honest and genuine way to engage with the reader and I wish this was an approach more mystery VNs took. Also, I have to praise the robust notes system and the very useful search function. Though I mostly stopped taking detailed in-game notes for one reason or another, I still used it a lot (be it for refreshers or to keep track of info) and it was a pleasurable experience. Oh, and the soundtrack is really fun. I’m not really big into EDM, but this track list fits the story perfectly and I enjoyed the music selection. TL;DR if you value character writing, allergic to dry clunky prose and can’t look past some very explicit contrivances for mystery setups, skip this one. If you are looking for a hardcore mystery that would make Furudo Erika salivate, this is going to be best 40-ish hours of your life. I was neither of those and I still ended up enjoying this VN.

I honestly do not understand how this isn't "overwhelmingly negative" unless the majority of reviewers haven't made it most of the way through the game. As someone who has read through Higurashi, Umineko, and many other VNs, I read through this game enjoying it well enough. But a mystery can be absolutely ruined by its conclusion. The conclusion is completely and utterly ridiculous and contrived. It is as if the authors tried to add as many incredibly stupid rules and special things to the way everything works in the game that I literally found myself going "wait, what, that's supposedly their answer as to why X happened?" And to be clear, NOT in a good way. I recommend avoiding this at all costs!

It's such a fantastic, gripping story, but I haven't finished it only because I really wanted to puzzle out the solution on my own. One of these days! Still, the game merely prods you, you can easily finish it without getting it right, and you'll enjoy every minute of it anyway.

It starts good but becomes rather boring at some point (I think chapter 1 is too long). There are many impossible and unnecessary complications and the whole mystery part becomes annoying rather than intriguing. I won't spoil the reason because if you know it, the game falls apart right away. I'd say this is one of the least interesting VNs that I ever read, some characters don't even have a proper character development, they are there just to be plot devices.

迄今为止玩过的最硬核的游戏，第一次在游戏中感受到了自己智商不足。游戏整体在穿越设计的创新设计和严谨性都十分惊艳，全篇干货不是在出题就是在解题，没有多少轻松休闲的日常桥段，感觉是非常理工科的作者。 整个作品通过叙诡和多视角转换，以及诸多伏笔，带你一点点拨开Sekimeiya的真面目，真的做到了层层递进，在不同进程的理解下细节仍然全能对的上，逻辑自洽。 美中不足的是文本阅读量确实过长，在解题篇的时候前面的很多内容真的不记得了，从某种意义上讲像庞大，复杂但又精密的仪器，可远观但真的很难亵玩。

Some very obvious flaws that I'm sure are covered in other reviews, a slow start, often dry and expository dialogue, but I absolutely loved this, especially towards the end, if you like mysteries I would definitely give it a go, this is a very impressive work

Such an ambitious and deep mystery! Took me a while to wrap my head around it, but the twists and the payoff at the end are really satisfying.