The logic of the miniature garden

Another badly translated SakuraGame VN.

[DRM-Free]
Can be launched directly from *.exe file.

koko? moemi? both please

これは、誰の、箱庭？

这是，谁的，箱庭呢？
每个人都有属于自己的“箱庭”，只不过我们都未曾注意到这所藏在内心深处的花园。
千羽市，又被称作“箱庭市”，是一个以研究为目的的人造城市。在学生会“红鹤会”会长的威胁下，和久井 新（男主）不得不对连续发生在鹤羽学园的少女失踪案展开调查。
在空教室偶遇的抖m学妹妄想着新君被会长大人践踏的样子，一心要跟随新探索真相。
夕阳下伫立在新面前的神秘侦探少女雾架，说着让人困扰的台词：“新君，来和我解开这个都市的秘密吧！”
日记所记录的往事，是谁曾经刻骨铭心的记忆？伴随着欢笑的寻找，寻找？寻找！若隐若现的真相下危险接踵而至。

“箱庭即箱庭疗法，只不过是简单的操作却反映着我们连自己都未曾明白的本心。箱庭的实验，不在于箱庭的本身，是外物的施加映射出了人的本性。”
秘密的外壳被层层剥离，你是否听到那隐藏在背后的轻唸：“ね、これは、誰の、箱庭？”
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作为cabbit的第三作，《箱庭推理》早在14年于日本发售。我虽然没有接触过它的前作《翠之海》，但是对该社也是略有耳闻的。其实我早就知道有《箱庭推理》这个游戏，但有种种原因，未曾涉猎过，如今有这个机会来尝试，感到很荣幸。这次于steam发售的，是该作品的全年龄版。在我看来，这种行为一方面是该作为了响应了曾经玩过而收藏（补款）的人，另一方面是在通过该游戏来增加该社的知名度的同时让新玩家对剧情有所体会，可谓是一举两得。
《箱庭推理》优缺点很明显，特别是在其剧情和人物情感的描写上，但是在我看来，这些优缺点很好地相互契合了。因此总的说来，《箱庭推理》是一部较为优秀的作品，有缺陷，但是瑕不掩瑜。一千个人眼中有一千个哈姆雷特，不妨让我对此进行逐点分析：

由于原作是18禁的作品，因此在steam上发售时发行方SakuraGame对剧情进行了删减。但是让人头疼的是，由于删减的不妥当，使文本出现了不适宜的对话。在一定程度上，这会让玩家对剧情衔接部分的转变感到突兀，没有对剧情进行适当修改不仅会让“黄油玩家”欲求不满，又让普通玩家有似云里雾里。所以犯这种本该避免的错误实在是不应该，特此点出批评。
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化繁为简，在曲折中并进

对于轻车熟路的玩家来说，打开游戏的第一步一般是查看系统设置，这是为了更加了解游戏设定，因此我也加以效仿。当我打开系统，令我震惊的是，竟然有十来个配音，并且还没有算上配角。这说明与剧情相干的人物至少有十多个，这可头疼了我半天，要理清人物关系和记住人物名字本就是重中之重，如何处理玩家在游戏中的思考和判断成为了制作商的一个问题。
于是制作商采用了剧情导向图（我是这么称呼它的），通过一张分叉图表明剧情的进度以及各种选项的可能，并强制玩家推进剧情。这么做的缺点很明显，让玩家同时推多条线，并被约束行动，很不自在。举例而言，在开头设置了解锁玩法，玩家必须同时推koko线（来获得校内的信息）和雾架线（来获得校外信息）来获得彼此线路上障碍所需要的钥匙，这给玩家带来了一定的负担。而且过早地知道剧情的走向可能会使玩家失去游戏的兴趣，在我推完koko线并了解了雾架线的大量信息的情况下，我已经可以猜测到结局，有种没有必要推下去的失落感。
这笨拙的操作看似多此一举，但是相较于往常的adv游戏——那种利用文字阅读并加以选项的操作，就显得别出心裁了。利用剧情导向图，能够很好地把握剧情核心。通过简单的梳理，我不仅轻松地记住了复杂的人物关系，而且也清晰了两条主线以及四条副线的关系。《箱庭推理》作为推理游戏，剧情导向图也很符合推理游戏的风范——既然要推理，就要了解到足够的情报。在三线同推的情况下，我不仅享受到了“极致”的“乐趣”，更深入的了解到了故事的全貌。让玩家玩通游戏，让剧本发挥到极致，靠这张剧情导向图却都做到了，这就是化繁为简。
[hr][/hr]柳暗花明又一村，化繁为简便是笨拙背后的成功之处。

穿插递进，剧情把握有失有得

[hr][/hr]剧情方面

在剧情上的得失把握，就koko线来讲，十分不妥当的badend不知是牵强凑数还是大意为之，即使是拿来做对照来反映人物心境也未免太牵强附会。虽然koko线的结局还是很美好的，但这也掩盖不了其中的暇眦。通过“钥匙”来推进剧情，将副线的情感代入主线，会产生更深刻的体会。因为副线不仅是主线的分支——不一样的结局，也不只是补充主线剧情的途径，这更是不一样的，属于不同人的恋爱物语。如果没有这些副线的描写，即使主线再完美，再艳丽夺人，那也只不过是没有绿叶的红花。因为，这本是属于不同人的箱庭物语。
相较于我玩过的其他一些adv（我的涉猎面比较狭隘），《箱庭物语》有一个独到之处，那就是它的“箱庭后院”。所谓“箱庭后院”，一方面是用于游戏节点上，游戏人物与玩家的互动，另一方面则是在线路完结之时，各个女主对男主的感情流露和为了推进剧情的“钥匙”递交。这种做法比较新颖，又能让玩家很好地体会和融入游戏。
但最值得赞赏的是，游戏在故事推进上以主线和间隙插入的“箱庭日记”交替前进，随着翻动的书页推进着一个救赎的故事——这是两个不同的故事。“箱庭日记”通过一个孩子的眼光，所以描写得更加朴素而又有童真，真实而又有一定的深意。穿插递进可以让玩家在推进主线的同时又解析相应的“箱庭日记”。不得不说，“箱庭日记”真的是关键的一步，“箱庭日记”不仅通过另一个故事拓展了剧情，而且为后文埋下了深刻的伏笔，以至于当结局揭晓，让人感到出乎意料，却又实实在在地符合情理。

浅度推理，适合每一个玩家的推理游戏
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说到《箱庭推理》，吸引玩家的最大亮点就应该是它的推理过程了。
《箱庭推理》把推理分为了两个方向的调查和两种不同的方式，即与koko的校内调查以及与雾架的校外调查和线索推理与解谜推理。
分为两个方向减轻玩家负担，很适合初心者。而两个不同的方式又增加了推理的乐趣，线索推理让玩家观察细节，在推理成功后获得成就感；解谜推理锻炼玩家的分析能力，使推理更具象化。
作为推理来说，虽然不算精致，但也算符合它所指明的要素了。

人物刻画，属于每一个人的箱庭物语
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既是作品又不是作品，既是情感又不止于感情。把情感交融于文字，恰到好处，这便是文学的最高境界。
调查的日记本上的不同色彩的字迹，那是属于雾架和koko的不同的性格与情感——一个叫作沉着冷静，一个叫作热情积极。不管是真奈的哀伤，还是萌美的醒悟，不管是会长雫的羡慕的目光，还是莉露美好的期待。人物形象跃然纸上。
超越文本的声音和画面贯穿着我们的灵魂，《箱庭推理》早不只是一个故事，更是不同感情的交融。人物刻画，往往是超越剧情的存在，因为人物是表达剧情灵魂的载体，没有人物刻画就如没有情感的皮囊，即使再完美，也会与社会格格不入。
“可没有让全部事情都完美的选择。”照应着游戏开头时新的想法，这就是属于新的箱庭。因为，《箱庭推理》本就属于每一个主人公的箱庭物语。

音出真情，色显真意
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音乐和作画

若要评价音乐和作画，在我看来，不管是音乐还是作画，早已融入了这部作品，不可分割。
《箱庭推理》在画风上以萌系色彩夺人眼球，这不仅让玩家感到舒适，也在某种程度上提高了作品的高度。画师高超的画技不只在人设和人物形象方面显得突出，在背景描写上也尤为细腻。音乐方面，就像我之前说的，能够很好衬映人物的情感。虽然我并不对音乐方面很刁钻，但是至少，我还是能分辨得出对应的BGM是否符合当前的场景，本作没有出现“音不对文”的错误，可以算得上是细心了。充足而又高质量的CG伴随着透彻的音色，来描绘最美的故事。
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[h1]结束亦是开始

故事最后的标题给结局划上了句号。
推开了最后掩抑的门扉，无论是跌宕起伏的剧情，还是出乎意料的结局，我们总会回忆属于每个故事的道理。游戏的故事终会有一个结局，人生的故事也一样，无论好坏如何，这是我们无法揣测的。
即使如此，我们也应该像男主一样不后悔于自己的选择。
结束亦是开始，相较游戏，属于我们自己的故事还只是起步。我们都怀揣着属于自己的秘密，属于自己的箱庭。或许我们只是在笨拙地摸索着，但是想象有一天，我们终会创造出属于自己的箱庭。
书的扉页已被翻开，无论结局如何，也请遵听悉便。

You have to go down each tree to get keys to let you continue down the tree path you want to go down to start with.

I felt this was a good mystery visual novel that gets pretty interesting and had some twists I wasn't expecting, and there being more to characters than it seems at first.

Unfortunately, it feels hampered by the game apparently being Machine Translated. While I believe you can -mostly- tell what's going on even with the MTL, it does force you to try and decipher what some parts are trying to say, and that can get tedious(it feels better than it was in 'Midori no Umi', though).

Even with that issue, I think it's probably worth a read.

There's a easy to use Flowchart system, with different sections labeled for choices, endings, H-Scenes(if the patch is installed), and Keys you need to collect to advance the story.

After finishing a playthrough, either from hitting a blocked story point or ending, make sure to select 'Start With Info Inherited' to keep any found Keys and go back to the Flowchart. If for whatever reason you somehow get stuck, try going back to and finishing/skip through a section that gave you a Key, 'Inherit Info' again, and try any parts that may have been locked off before.

I hope that the publisher doesn't try to rely on MTL, if it was used, for future releases, since I feel it hurts the experience.

My 2nd Cabbit VN experience I was eager for. Unfortunately, it was published on Steam by one of the most notorious localisers. Still, to be fair, I feel a need to share my experience and reasoning behind the Not Recommended judgement.

This VN is currently the penultimate title released by Cabbit(2014). The lengthy story it presents revolves around mysterious disappearances of high school girls. Our council appointed protagonist is quickly accompanied by two inquisitive girls. Both weird, according to him, but unquestionably helpful despite their unique quirks. Thus the enticing detective adventure begins. On your way you can make several choices leading to separate paths, both good and bad ones. Most separate paths are required to complete in order to finish the routes of main heroines, so the length of the experience extends considerably. Occasional, humorous interruptions which break 4th wall, add to the charm of this story. I sure had fun reading it all. There is also seeming random, unrelated 'diary' scenes that complete the picture. Pretty complex narration methods were employed here and I sure found it enjoyable.
However, the atrocious 'machine translation' quality of English severely hampers the experience. This sole reason is my justification behind the Not Recommended verdict. I can stomach this somehow but I don't have it in me to recommend it to others. If you require proper grammar and vocabulary then I advise you to steer away from this product, unfortunately.

Quality of the art served here is up to standards. It is actually rather standard among better Japanese VNs so my expectations were satisfied here. Lots of detail, very cute, and colourful. There are no animations but it is not an issue at all. Characters have several poses and emotions to show. Beautiful backgrounds aplenty adore the scenes at all times. Cutesy, or should we say kawaii, design completes the picture of this quality product.

Numerous tracks accompany the events. They are all pleasant to eardrums and sufficient variety is offered. Some songs can be heard as well during opening and ending videos. Maybe, nothing really memorable but all fit well with events.

No serious bugs in here but there are certain issues. I had problem with playing videos when on full screen/external screen. Also, notebook notes were disappearing when starting from flowchart 'boxes' after selecting the 'inherited story' option. Still, had less technical problems than with the Endless Jade Sea VN.

To conclude, a well done VN with an amusing detective story, interesting characters, several outcomes and quality audio and visuals. Unfortunately, the horrible English localisation provided by SakuraGame destroys enjoyment. I simple can't recommend such treatment for others to try: 4.8/10 (would give close to 8 otherwise)

Steam Deck Experience: Playable

Didn't test extensively, but it appears that this game is playable. The frame rate is a bit low though and you will have to stick with the touch screen or mouse controls.

English translation is fairly rough. I got tired of reading every other sentence two to three times just to piece together what was being said.

This game seemed Normal at first, and then it took an extremely strange and amazing turn, didn't expect it to be a thriller by the end, But it was an amazing game.

Buy it when it's on sale, since it'll boost the worth of playing this game entirely.

The artist is probably a robber, he stole all the artistic talent from humanity and put it in this game.
Ah the feels. This game is too bright for my eyes. I had to put on sunglasses to finish this.
Recommended for anyone who is accustomed to light.
Remember to keep balance between Yin and Yang.
Play horror game before this ~_~

I bought this while it was on offer, the game looks old and dated, the graphics are quite low quality and the translation is quite poor.
As for the game play, well, there isn't much, you get to make a few critical choices at certain points, my first choice was the wrong one, so after about 1 hour I had to go back and start again as the game ended (locked doors)
It's a strange story, like most of these, and some of the dialogue is quite poor, but again I think that's down to the translation being off. I saw a date stamp of 2014, so I think that is when the game was actually made and it does show.
I am enjoying the crazy story and tbh we are just sat here reading it on auto play, the wife is enjoying it too, but she loves anything Anime related :)

Had I paid full price, I would have probably got a refund.....
I will leave it there and let you make your own mind up ;)

6/10

Overall, The logic of the miniature garden is a rather unsatisfying work of a visual novel The characterization is unsatisfactory, the main plot is bland and boring, and the puzzles are ridiculous. No matter how you look at it, this work is quite poor in quality.

The plot lock system and excellent process guidance make this game extremely easy for any player to get started, and with the cute characters and good music, the first impression is actually not that bad. But with the gradual advancement of the game, the shortcomings of this work are more and more exposed, and quite deadly. The long and boring plot makes the player suffer in the middle and later stages of the game, and the logic of the plot is not very rigorous so this work is little room for thought-provoking. As a visual novel game, the poor plot has been almost equivalent to the death sentence of the game.

If you can accept these shortcomings, just for the sake of relaxation and do not want to think deeply about the game's plot. perhaps The logic of the miniature garden can also be said to be a good game. The game's deductive elements and plot are best not thought about in depth at all, as they are neither affordable nor worthwhile. Note that the game also has an adult-only Fan Disk featuring Koko, so if you are interested, you can give it a try.

SakuGame on publishing, true to themselves. Misleading screenshots with language that was replaced with mediocre translation. My dollar stays with me.

The English translation is unbearable. It hurts to read. It has a lot of typos and grammar errors.

"If some pervert maneuvred this, I suppose your school close to us should have been more likely to be such a target."

"Though I had only a short chat with her, I can make sure that this guy is a freak"

Somehow it's worse than a google translation.

It's not the first one that has poor machine translations from SakuraGame. Thankfully steam allows us to ignore the whole catalog of creators we don't like.

Do all the positive ratings here come from people who can read Japanese? That's the only explanation I can come up with for the high score. The English translation is very bad is what I'm saying.

Story 6.5/10
Not interesting it soon get boring and constantly had to complete route that your not interested in.
If you like the art and came for light hearted romance this maybe a good choice but not for someone into mystery and plot.

I really liked this one and I would certainly recommend it to any VN fan, even with the two downsides I found on it.

The story is great but fragmented so, in order of understanding it wholely, you need to follow all alt routes, with the exception of a pair of the bad endings. But it develops well and it has got surprises, drama and commedy. It is centered a lot in psycology, and social and economic differences. In order of following the story you need some keys given to you after reaching some scenes and endings that let you open some other parts of the story. It's a nice trip and mostly well closed. Some of the scenes are not disclosed until you finish all you finish every scene and try again to see some of the scenes where MC was not present and that there were, at the first go, capable of spoil the secrets needed to keep the tension. There are 5 of them, and only give explanations to certain facts that were let in the air. I only thought that one of the routes was a bit too artificially built, and even then, is not bad at all, it's just that the love grew too quick. And one of the of the girl actions I found silly but again, she is a wierdo.

The characters I found to be great. Basically all of the are well constructed and full of surprises. Their art is lovely and I found difficult not to get involved with them. I even felt that one of the characters that hasn't got any route should have one... that lovely Juri-chan should have had a story. From the 5 followable characters I've really got a liking in Moemi. That would be my waifu in this game. In her story you can feel she cannot be as perfect, but even the it really surprise me how it was developed the part were you got to know and how is followed

There is a feature I found very helpful and it is that you can go, at any given time, to any already watched scene to choose another path, so you don't really need the typical continously saving action to see them all. The routes are divided in two major branches, I'll call them the Chisai branch and the Ooki one for obvious reasons, which is nice if your tastes are very defined. The story is quite linear, more than I though after seeing the map of the paths. But I, even being one of those that doeson't like kinetic novels at all, did felt bothered because that.

The localization is bad, and it's the worst of the downsides I mention before, but it is easily possible to follow the story. Even then, understanding a bit of the voices will be helpful. At least, to see how much they messed with it. The voices are basically very pleasant, I don't know anything about seiyuus 'cos I never been a fanboy but they transmit feelings very well. Music is ok and SFX's not so much, but... who really cares about the latter?

I felt that most H-scenes were rather short, but again, getting just the perfect length is almost impossible and depends on each player taste so... doesn't really change my opinion of the game.

In sum, would give a 7,5/10 and gets my quality seal

Whats the worst thing that can happen to a great VN? Correct, a shitty Translation and thats exactly what this VN has. This makes it impossible to really get into the Story and just destroys all the fun. If you want to torture yourself through it then be my guest.

The store summary for the game looked interesting enough but the grammar and spelling errors are killing the game for me.

For example, there's a character that has the "middle school disease" and keeps calling Wakui "Wakui (alias" - where is the ")"?

Look, I know translating is difficult and the English language can be a bit of a pain but when the president first asks you to investigate, she should "wish" instead of "wang."

I'm going to soldier on through it- the refund period has already expired (thanks slow internet download speeds).

The game is good for what it offers - $10 for around 30 hours of content (PS: I'm a fast reader that's why it took 18 hours) for the normal person. I have experience reading translated light novels which usually can have some confusing sentences, so my expectations for the game's translation is not high. However, I can say this translation was very poor, and could've been improved with even the slightest of proofread. Very lazy on the translators part. On top of this, since I can also comprehend Japanese which made things a LOT easier, and because of this often times the translations weren't needed so keep that in mind.

The plot was very interesting, but the key system kind of made you playthrough routes for "keys" which weren't all worth the time it took to get them, but the ending was quite... Well see it for yourself.

Would I buy this with $10 if I could put up with shitty translations that sometimes make absolutely no sense, as well as understand what they're saying so it wouldn't fuck up the important moments? Yes.

Would I buy this game if i had to try my hardest to pick up the hints needed in-order to get the main message of the sentence, consequently also having to attempt to understand the characters so I could avoid ruining the important moments? No. That's too much work for the average player. Most people would rather just buy another VN, but I stayed through this one solely because of the plot. The game itself wasn't too bad, but the translation sends most buyers to another VN that can offer a better experience for them.

Conclusion: The game is good, the translation is shit.

Was it worth it for me? Yes.

Will it be worth it for you? Probably not.

Interesting story, but I wouldn't recommend this.
I would if they have better translation.

The translation gets even worse the deeper you get into the game.

The Game has overall very Bad and low Quality English translation, The Publisher in question is a repeat offender.

Inspite of it not Having any Japanese text in the game...the screenshots show them...isnt this against Steam TOS for displaying False Data and Information to promote sales? and there is not even a single screenshot of the poor English text....

If you browse through their releases, you will notice that all of their releases have very poor English... and they are doing nothing at all to rectify this...

Marketing a Product with English Text wherein the said Text hardly resembles any decent form of Understandable English is called false marketing.. moreso if the publisher in question takes no form of action whatsoever to fix it..

Why take on English Localisation, if your so Bad at English language? stick to your Native Language.. and let Western Publishers take care of Western Localisations..Steam should take action against these guys.

These Guys are Running Raffle ( Lucky Draws ) for each of their releases.. and one of the conditions to enter is to Buy the Game and Leave a Positive rating on steam for that game,,this is completely against steam TOS ..someone needs to take against such practices

And finally some screenshots below

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

Awesome game, very long and yes there is an adult patch! This VN has multiple playthrough endings. Kinda like "Zero Escape" game where if you reach a dead end/ending, you need to reload a previous time line. For instance I didn't find a key to locked door because I followed the wrong girl, so I had reload which the game tells you to, and Pick the other girl. cool part is you get to keep the Key and if you choose the wrong girl, you now have the key to continue her path. Support this game, there is a lot of BS visual novel games have to go through to get on steam now adays. and support it for H-patch :D

So very much like Zero Escape.

https://37.gigafile.nu/0626-o0d9a766dea823c158728573b54c85f58 ENG Patch