Miniature – The Story Puzzle is a short, gorgeous puzzle game built in Unreal Engine 4. Each “level” contains one scenario that you are supposed to reorganize in order to play out an entire scene. Every scenario is unique, from settings to characters to lighting to sound... and it's intriguing to see each of them play out and unlock the next little “sandbox”.

Cleary every one of the puzzles was crafted with much care, attention to detail and competence. It's interesting how some levels are more “realistic” (i.e. tell “real life” stories) and some are completely otherworldly! The amount of creativity funneled into this, as a whole, is a joy to behold.


♣ It has a premise I've never seen before and a very interesting and unique way to execute it;
♣ It is absolutely gorgeous;
♣ The music, in the levels, is good;
♣ The stories you form do play out in an interesting way;
♣ The sound effects are quite fantastic;
♣ It is a roller coaster ride in its themes and the next level is always a pleasant surprise;
♣ It performs well.¹

¹ Didn't lag or stutter with my GTX 750 Ti.


Sadly, Miniature suffers from slips that, to some, can be crucial downsides:

♣ The interface is confusing;²
♣ It's too short;³
♣ It's easy;
♣ The “win” music is repetitive;⁴
♣ The UI won't “go away” to allow what could have been gorgeous screenshots;
♣ The level select menu is misleading and should be improved;
♣ It lacks controller support;
♣ It doesn't contain achievements;
♣ It doesn't contain trading cards.

² As other reviewers pointed out, it is counter-intuitive.
³ Can easily be beaten in under one hour.
⁴ It reminded me of The Sims and how every time you clicked a new town or something this excessively jolly tune played. Some levels in Miniature have a gloomy tone and the jolly tune for beating them defenestrates any possibility of an atmosphere.


All in all, I got Miniature during the Steam Winter Sale at 75% off and I have no reason to complain. Even at a bit more, it would have still been a fair price for such fantastic aesthetics and mechanics. To buy it a full price, however, is a risk, seeing at patches are certainly needed to fix your occasional bug (I hardly saw any), improve the level select menus and work on that interface a bit.

Ironically, this game suffers from lack of exposure.

(Essentially, a large “meh.”)
Miniature is nothing more than an engine showcase with 12 dioramas and no actual puzzles, just some mild player input to put the diorama scenes in order.

Miniature – The Story Puzzle is practically a techdemo for the depth of field shader in Unreal Engine 4. Its entire content is 12 dioramas of five scenes each, where gameplay consist of the player cycling through the randomly assigned scenes and guessing where they fit in the sequence. However, they cannot interact with the scenes at all.

In general, completing Miniature takes no more than 20-30 minutes—and this assumes some guesswork on the levels where scenes look suspiciously alike. Maybe a bit more, if you want to marvel at some of the dioramas a little longer.

As for the dioramas themselves, they are nice. Nothing particularly interesting or boring, just simply nice. Although I suspect some of the models may look rather plain if not for the ungodly amount of blurring with the depth of field filter.

I wish there was a neutral option, it’s not that bad but it’s really not that good either. I like the general concept of the game but it felt badly made and uninteresting. On the scale that tips it over to a negative review it really is barely balancing on a positive.

When opening a new game usually one of the first things you do is change the resolution. Changing the resolution in this you need to wait for each resolution to load before continuing to cycle through to the one you need. It took way longer than it should of and was an early indication to the quality of the game.

Starting the game, the “tutorial” was useless. I had to go into the discussions and find someone’s explanation on how to play to even get going. It’s not intuitive on it’s own and you shouldn’t really have to seek outside help for something that would be so simple to explain.

But with that said once you get going and get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. There are 12 puzzles in total so this one really is short. The idea is that you are given 5 snapshots of a scenario and you have to put them in the order of how each scenario happened. It’s quite a nice concept and all but it isn’t all that challenging or intriguing. Maybe if they told a story over the course of the scenes it could pull you in and give you a reason to continue, but unfortunately it doesn’t. They are all just random mini scenarios that have no real interest to them.

All in all it’s okay, but for £4 it’s nowhere near worth it. I have played games that are half the price and thrice the quality. If you can get it in a bundle somewhere or free then sure, but I wouldn’t really recommend it in any other circumstance.


TL;DR : It’s not that great. Get it in a bundle or free if you can but otherwise don’t really bother. It’s not bad enough for me to leave a negative but it’s barely on the line of a positive.

Confusing controls, until you figure them out. Very little actual content, 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Difficulty is non-existing. To sum it up, somewhat interesting concept, but execution is severy lacking.

This is an extremely short, as in 20-30 minutes, puzzle game, where you are presented with 12 different stories.
Each story is made up of 5 tiny dioramas, that you'll have to put in order, and then let the story play out.

The graphics are beautiful and the idea is fun, but it's just way too short to justify a €5 price tag.
Add in a button to disable the HUD for taking screenshots, lower the price or add more content, and this would be more than just a tech demo.

Still, I got it as a gift and was entertained for 30 minutes, so I give it a thumbs up.

It is basically some sort of 3D Scene that you put together in the right order of action

3 out of 10
You get one 3D model of a scene like a sort of diorama and you put together what happened in that picture in the right order. Like a scene of a family enjoying a day out. You put together that they first arrived with the car and end with the family sitting at night at a campfire and you do this by switching through various things the family did that day. Sounds interesting? Not at all. You just click through those scenes for 10 minutes at most and solve the scene. And that is it. Scene completed and then it’s the next scene. I really tried to get into it, even after I did not feel like playing any further after the first scene, I pushed myself to play until scene four. But after that, no just no. I felt soo tired, it’s just a waste of time.

6 out of 10

The music was honestly the best about the game. Serene, quiet and matching the tone of the game.

5 out of 10

The 3D model was done with the Unreal engine and it shows, it looks good…sometimes. But as you have the ability to zoom in and out it gets wonky and blurred and one still frame of a scene even done in 3D is still not good enough for a game without any other appeal.

Positive

• Music is decent
  
• Scenes are relatively short

Negative

• Graphics get blurred as you zoom in and out of them, making it hard to solve the scene sometimes
  
• It is just a series of still scenes

Final Verdict

Can’t recommend this game. Even if you like short and casual games, this one will not be fun. Putting still scenes in order, it’s just not fun at all. Sorry.


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I really enjoyed this game. Graphics and sound effects are amazing for a game genre like this. Game play is relaxing, some levels are easy but others are really difficult. I really enyjoyed the existing levels but sadly I ran out of all so should wait for new ones to come. I was missing achievments and a leaderboard. Looking forward for the new levels each months and good luck with this great game in the future!

A short 30 minute game of putting various stories in order.
There are 12 different stories that have 5 scenes each and you have to arrange the scenes in the correct order.
It's very simplistic and only one of there troubled me. The only real complaint that I have about it is that I wish the game was longer because it was pretty enjoyable seeing how each story played out. The game was enjoyable, but I feel that $4 is steep for a 30 minute game.
If it went on sale for at least 50% off, I'd recommend it if the game sounds interesting to you.

Now, this is a fun little game with good graphics and sound, but it has been abandoned by the developers, right after the release. They promised to come with more scenes and more puzzles, but they didn't. At it's current state, it is not worth it's price, even on sale. It's way too short with the handful of puzzles which are playable right now. It's a shame, because this game had potential.

Lovely claymation-looking graphics and kind of unique concept but I would prefer it with everything focused without the annoying blur on things without the mouse pointer over them