This Starry Midnight We Make is a puzzle game by Cavyhouse and later localized by Carpe Fulgur. It is a game about making stars.
Hamomoru Tachibana is attending a festival when a wandering train of thought leads her to check out a local shrine. There, she encounters a university student named Chuunyu Shingoh, who is researching the Star Basin at that shrine, curious as to whether the mystical powers it supposedly has are real, or if it's just superstition. Hamomoru assists him by placing stones in the basin and seeing them evolve and shine like stars, but then learns that her ticket home is missing, and gets roped into helping Shingoh further his research until she can leave.
This game provides examples of the following tropes:
- Big Eater: Hamomoru loves food, but the story often keeps her from getting a chance; when she does eat, not even raiding soldiers can interrupt her meal.
- Color-Coded Elements: Black is water, red is fire, blue/green is wood, white is metal and yellow is earth.
- Natural Elements: The game uses the classical Chinese elements of fire, wood, earth, metal and water, which are all part of yin and yang.
- Fantastic Foxes: The night Hamomoru first finds the mystical basin, she crosses paths with a white fox.
- Fish out of Water: Hamomoru is not a native of the area where the basin resides, but is stuck in the area after losing her wallet.
- For Science!: Shingoh is very fascinated by the star basin and wants to explore its capabilities in full. Even if it requires human sacrifice.
- Guide Dang It!: Creating many of the star types requires lots of experimentation or looking things up.
- Golden Ending: Bringing closure to all the storylines unlocks the true ending.
- I Will Find You: The girl working at the Chinese Restaurant came to Japan to locate her brother, who had mysteriously gone missing years earlier.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Shingoh's main motivation is learning through direct experimentation whether the Star Basin can actually harness mystical powers and influence the nearby town using methods described in an ancient tome, or if the entire ritual is pseudoscience.
- Parental Abandonment: The boy working at the Textiles Shop is a Heartwarming Orphan, and the schoolgirl met on Main Street has a father that's always too busy to even talk with her.
- Parental Marriage Veto: The old politician at the mansion had aspired for his son to follow in his footsteps and marry the daughter of a notable household, and was furious when he instead eloped with a merchant girl. He considers it his greatest mistake in hindsight, because the son died shortly after, which he had to learn through a third party.
- Unmoving Plaid: All characters have a tiling pattern in their clothes that moves independently of them. Most characters have it scrolling even when the character themself isn't moving.
- Wingding Eyes: Hamomoru's eyes always have a spiral where the pupils should be.
- Work Off the Debt: After Hamomoru realizes her wallet and ticket home are gone, Shingoh offers her a place to stay in exchange for helping his research on the star basin.
