This Starry Midnight We Make

Not my kind of puzzle. It's a patience and experimentation game--lots of clicking and waiting and guessing, with very little explanation. I end up too frustrated to enjoy an progress I make, because the mechanics aren't presented in a way I grok well, so I never know what I did to cause something to happen.

宇宙が見える！

For some weird reason there are no user reviews or rating for this game on the store page, yet there are a lot of reviews in Comminity Hub... It's strange. It's a very cute, very meditative and... well, pretty weird game in various aspects, and with a genre which is really hard to define. It's a mix of jRPG, visual novel, simulation game and a puzzle, and it's hard to describe it clearly. Basically, you're a young girl, Hamomoru, who get lost while exploring a local shrine festival in Kyoto, and wandered into some small mystical area in the outskirts of the shrine. There was a basin and some strange guy who introduced himself as Shingoh and asked you to help with his half-occult research about that basin in exchange for treating you and helping you to find your lost wallet with all the money and train tickets. Well, you have nothing to say or do, but agree, right? The game itself consists of four linear parallel scenarios (fifth is for heroine herself) where you go to different places in the city, talk with residents and try to solve their (sometimes pretty surreal, an army raiding a Chinese restaurant... wat? O_o) problems via the basin. The basic has mystical powers, which is heavily based on traditional Japanese magic and Shinto tradition. By putting pebbles and clay into the basin you can turn them into different "stars" and form constellations and other celestial bodies from evolving them following a certain rules. These structures in the basin affect energy flow in the city and could change the flow of events, to proceed a scenario, you must form a structure needed for it. The gameplay here is very, very meditative, there is a small tutorial and tips during the whole game about how to create structures needed for your quests, but it only shows you the very basics of gameplay mechanics, everything else is up to your imagination and ability to experiment. That's what I really like about this game, as you're given more than enough freedom to do things, but at the same time not left in the darks with no clues about what to do next. The interface, though, is a bit clumsy, and I MUST warn you that there is NO AUTOSAVE! Also, there is no warning before exiting the game, so if you hit Exit button accidentially instead of Return, you will lose everything you did after the last manual save. That's why try to save as often as possible to not lose your progress, there are only three slots to save to, but it's enough. Well, this is true for almost every jRPG out there, so it's not all that sudden. I didn't encounter any bugs during the first run, and most probably, there aren't any. The art here looks clumsy, but it's really well done within this hand-drawn style, and with animations too. The music is calm and not annoying, which really makes it a relaxing meditative game about throwing pebbles into the pond. The translation is not bad and pretty consistent, but I still don't understand why Hamomoru constantly uses phrases like "our Lord in Heaven" and similar ones. I got it she might be a Christian (also, her clothes and book has cross symbols on it for some reason), but it's a little strange given that the game is basically about Shinto magic. I might go and try Japanese version to compare and see whether it is a translator's error, or not... Well, as I said above, the plot itself is pretty weird already, so it's not a big deal for me. This game is obviously a little gem out there. upd: I read descriptions carefully here and in The Midnight Sanctuary and it seems that Hamomoru really is a Japanese Christian pastor. She's a really rare type of character, especially for this type of media, so I was confused at first, but now it's clear. ----- If you are interested in other games I'm playing, check my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36682541-Lonely-Dev-Reviews/]Curator page[/url]. Maybe there will be something good for you.

This game is a wonderful sandbox to play in that encourages experimentation and creativity. It can get slightly tedious waiting for some of the more elaborate stars to evolve, but your "star basin" will continue evolving its contents even when you are doing other activities in the game. There are a ton of stars to discover and a lot of possibilities to create a totally unique star basin.

In this game you mostly experiment by dropping things into the play area without guidance and see what comes about. Look for how to make different things for its own sake. It's an interesting tool for teaching the process of discovering rules. It's done no favors by its unpolished visual presentation and its blase writing. You'll get little guidance or purpose from the game itself, making more a toy than a game at times.

I got filtered

In brief: a nicely self-contained puzzle game framed by a short story, based on combining objects in very specific ways. Lots of trial-and-error, logical thinking is (sometimes) helpful. Balances frustration with a nice sense of reward - buy it if you like figuring out how to build things. Gameplay: At its core, TSMWM is a game about building things up. You start with a few fundamental pieces ("stars", which unlock as the game progresses), and a playing field (the "Star-Seeing Basin") in which those pieces can evolve in different ways, depending on where you put them and what other stars they're near. Throughout the game, you're given a number of tasks to complete, each of which involves making a particular type of star or a constellation of stars. It's up to you to figure out how to actually do that - you get some guidance from your in-game "teacher" and his book, but often it's all just trial and error, especially late in the game. Of my ~48 hours in this game, about 1/2 were spent trying to figure the combinations for the last 10 (of ~140) star types. This is often a frustrating process - I'd recommend taking frequent breaks. Despite that, it is a fun and sometimes calming game to play, especially if you're into puzzles. Story: The game's storyline is fairly brief - you meet the two leads, then the 4 characters for whom you complete tasks. Each of them has 10 or so scenes, and then there are several "endgame" scenes when you're getting close to those last few stars. It's an interesting story set in 1910s Japan with some mystical elements, and HAMOMORU IS ADORABLE. *ahem* Visual and Sound: Like the story, fairly limited but done well. The characters are designed cleanly and are partially animated - in that sense, TSMWM actually goes beyond most visual novels. There are also a few interesting visual quirks, like animations on the characters' clothes. This game has a fairly unique art style overall, which I think adds to the "ethereal" mood. Same goes for the soundtrack - the music usually doesn't stand out, but does a good job of conveying tone.

This game is actually an interesting find. To shortly describe the gameplay, if you've ever played the "Alchemy" type of games where you mix multiple elements together to make more elements, This Starry Midnight We Make is almost like that. However in this game there are added restraints and rules that make it a bit more complex, those being that you can only make certain types of stars in their designated sections of the Basin, and stars need time and gases to further evolve, among other contraints. And the combinations of star types are nowhere near as obvious initially as a lot of elements in Alchemy (fortunately the game has a link to a game FAQ if you get stumped on anything progress-blocking). Additionally another aspect that furthers it from those types of games is the fact that you attain quests from characters you meet in the story scenes of the game, which is notably the other half of TSMWM. So rather than constantly throwing particles of stardust at each other over and over without concrete goal, you'll have milestones for all four side characters (for most of the game anyway). Also worth noting that the story scenes aren't too bad for a small title like this one. Art and music are fairly decent, and the writing has some charm to it. I wouldn't say the story is groundbreaking by any means, but it serves its purpose well enough. If you've got a few bucks to throw around and want something more relaxed, definitely worth a few hours of playtime.

This is very much a first-impression review. The game just couldn't get me interested for longer. It's a slow-paced and rather boring puzzle game, gating a slow-paced and rather boring storyline. I am also not a fan of some of the art design. The pond, where you'll spend most of your time, just isn't easy on the eyes. Nor are the kimono with shifting patterns that many characters wear.