Desktop Bonsai Towns Manual

01Before you start

Desktop Bonsai Towns runs on 64-bit Windows with Direct3D 11. You play it with a mouse and keyboard; controllers are not supported. The interface is in Japanese, English and Simplified Chinese (there is no voice). The first launch picks the language of your system, and you can change it in Settings.

Time

The town grows only while the game is running. Nothing happens while it is closed, and nothing catches up when you come back. It keeps growing while the window sits behind other apps.

Speed

There is no fast-forward and no pause. A bonsai takes several hours of real time to finish.

The clock

The date and time in the bottom-right corner (for example “2084/05/22 14:07”) is the in-game clock, not real time. The result screen’s “Time (in-game)” and achievements such as “One Week” and “One Month” count in-game days too.

Saving

The game saves by itself every 60 seconds and when you quit. There is one save slot. Pick “Continue” on the start screen to carry on.

02The start screen

City name

Pick a preset with “Change” (“Neon Pot”, “Cyber Bonkei”, “Nightglow Pot” or “Mega Bonsai”) or type a name of your own. You can rename the town later in Settings: “Type anything, any time”.

Choose a world

“Cyberpunk” is the world in this release. The other slot reads “Coming soon”.

Choose a pot

A pot you have not unlocked yet shows “Locked” and what opens it: an amount of carried-over funds or a number of completed trees. “Buy” unlocks it, and the pot you are using shows “In use”.

Continue

“Continue” resumes your saved town; the button shows the town’s name and population.

Start fresh

“Start fresh with these settings” begins a new town. “Starting fresh keeps your permanent unlocks and trophies”; if you have a save, the screen adds “The current quick save will be overwritten, though”.

Auto-start

The start screen goes ahead on its own after 10 seconds (“Auto-start in 10s”). Touch anything and the countdown stops: “Auto-start stopped — pick one below”. Settings can turn it off with “Auto-start on title screen: On / Off”.

You do not choose the shape of the tree. Each run picks one by itself, and shapes you have not collected yet come first.

03Reading the screen

Top edge · News ticker

Events scroll across from right to left, for example “Trains Connect the City — The city’s elevated railway opens: 4 stations at 44m.” Click one to fly the camera to where it happened.

Top left · Town panel

The town’s name and level, with “Pop”, “Bldg”, “Factions” and “Vacant”: population, buildings, factions and empty lots. The level (“Lv.20”) comes from the population, and each level takes about 1.47 times as many people as the one before.

Top right · Icons

From the left: “Achievements” (the trophy), “Statistics” (the bar chart), “Settings” (the gear) and the “Bonsai shelf”, then the large “Desktop” icon for desktop mode.

Right · GOALS

“01 TECHNOLOGY” shows how far you are from the next unlock (“Next tech: Ground Cars: … to go”, or “ready!” once you can afford it). “02 CANOPY DEVELOPMENT” follows how the canopy is coming along. Your “Funds” and income per second are at the bottom. ▼ folds the panel.

Bottom right · View, weather, clock

The “View” ball turns the camera (see Moving the camera). Below it are the weather, such as “Weather: Clear”, and the in-game date and time.

Bottom left · Tabs

“Tech” opens the unlock tree, “People” the residents, “Camera” the cinematic and photo modes, and “Pruning” the shears.

In the town · Event pins

Markers where something has happened. Click one to go there.

The “Statistics” window shows “Population and funds over the last 30 minutes”, homes and buildings, what the town is made of and what is going on right now, your permanent unlocks, and the balance of the factions. Its labels are icons: point at one to see its name.

Windows such as Statistics and Goals move when you drag their title bar, and they open in the same place next time.

04Moving the camera

Left drag

Pan. Up and down on the screen move up and down in the world. A press that moves less than 8 pixels counts as a click.

Middle drag, or W A S D

Pan across the ground: up and down move the view farther or nearer.

Right drag

Rotate.

Mouse wheel

Zoom.

View ball

Drag the ball, or click or hold its arrows, to rotate. Press it twice to go back to the starting angle. Drag its title bar to move it.

Auto-rotate

On the Camera tab (and on the pot buttons in desktop mode): “Start auto-rotate”, “Stop auto-rotate”, “Direction: Left / Right” and a speed from 2 to 30°/s (6°/s at first). It holds still while you turn the camera by hand, and your settings are kept for the next launch.

Click a resident

The camera follows them. Pan to let go.

A left click selects what is under the pointer when you let go of the button, as long as you pressed in the same place. If you dragged, nothing is selected.

05How a town grows

A voxel bonsai grows in a round pot, in real time, over several hours. Buildings go up by themselves along the trunk and the branches, and sky bridges link the branches together. You never place a building yourself.

Each tree takes one of the traditional bonsai shapes above. Now and then a “Wild” one appears instead, such as “Wild: long branch” or “Wild: open window”.

Residents

They live their own lives. Each one is doing something (“At home”, “Commuting”, “Working”, “Moving”, “Loitering”, “Talking”, “In a shaft”, “On a bridge”, “On a train”, “On an airship” or “Fleeing”) and may have a trait (“Chatty”, “Loner”, “Workaholic”, “Night owl”, “Hasty”, “Easygoing”, or “None”).

Population

Each walking resident stands for many people (Statistics shows the “People represented by one avatar”), and the population can climb into the trillions.

Funds

The town earns funds every second. Funds buy unlocks in the unlock tree.

Factions

As the population grows, factions appear, split, absorb each other and fight. A megacorp makes the tallest tower its headquarters and buys up buildings. A cult gathers followers and can bring the whole town down with a great ritual. Hackers steal without breaking anything and black out buildings. The security bureau puts cordons around incidents.

Trains and airships

The elevated loop line opens once 80 buildings have been completed, and residents get on and off at its stations. Airships fly their routes and take on passengers at mooring points. Ground cars and flying cars need unlocks.

Falling branches

A branch that loses its support falls with its buildings. Ruins sometimes stay behind as bleached dead wood, the jin and shari of bonsai.

Signs and lights

Neon signs, large holographic ads, billboards and rooftop details fill in as the town grows.

06Weather, disasters and invasions

A change in the weather, a disaster and an invasion each come about once an hour, at uneven intervals. The news ticker and the event pins take you straight to the scene.

Weather

The weather speeds up or slows down growth and building: rain, spores and aurora hurry them along, while storms and EMP storms slow them or stop them. Lightning breaks off small pieces of buildings, and an EMP storm puts the town’s lights out. Fine weather reads “Clear”.

Disasters

A meteor strike sometimes gives a warning first. A train cannot derail before the trains are running.

Invasions

Enemies appear, close in, attack and leave. The giant cat is a rare visitor: it turns up in one run out of ten, and never more than once.

Damage

Everything breaks voxel by voxel, with flashes, shock waves, dust, embers and debris. Residents can die, though one event can only take so many.

07What you can do

The town builds itself, but you can steer it a little.

Build pin

Hold P and left-click the ground in the town. The next building goes up on the free lot nearest the pin. The game’s own advice: “Use the build pin (P + left click) to send new buildings to other lots, so the homes are not all in one place”.

Residents

Click a resident to see “Traits” and “Activity”, and the camera follows them. “Bless” puts a spring in their step; the button then reads “Blessed”.

Pruning

Needs the unlock “The Art of Pruning”. Open the “Pruning” tab and left-click to cut (the leaves go first); right-click or press Esc to stop. See below.

Unlocks

The “Tech” tab opens the unlock tree. Esc closes it.

Renaming the town

“City name” in Settings.

“Cutting a branch that holds homes drops the homes too. Check what sits on a branch before pruning.”

08The unlock tree

“Unlocked nodes stay unlocked in every run; the end-of-run score carries over as funds.” Open the tree from the “Tech” tab. Each node reads “Owned”, “Needs prereq”, “Available” or “Too costly”, with your “Funds” at the top. The tree cannot be reset.

09Camera tools

Each of these needs an unlock from the Camera branch of the unlock tree.

Cinematic mode

“Start cinematic (C)” on the Camera tab, or press C. The camera films the town by itself from one viewpoint after another: “Cinematic mode — press C to exit”. Until Observer Drone is unlocked, the button reads “Cinematic (drone required)”.

Tracking Lens

Adds views that follow residents, run down alleys and ride along with vehicles.

Event Broadcast

Cinematic mode cuts to major events on its own.

Photo mode

“Photo mode” on the Camera tab. Time stops and the interface disappears: “Photo mode — Left+Right drag to move / F12 to save / Esc to exit”. Hold both mouse buttons and drag to move. F12 saves the picture as a PNG.

10Desktop mode

Desktop mode takes away the background and the interface and leaves only the bonsai on top of your desktop, so the town can grow beside your work.

Switching on

Click the “Desktop” icon at the top right once a town has started. From full screen, the game turns into a window first. The town keeps the size it has on screen, so size the window before you switch.

Clicks

Clicks on empty space reach the app behind: “Mouse input passes through to the desktop behind”. Clicking the town brings the game window to the front.

Moving it

Press on the town (the pot counts) and drag to move the whole window. The camera stays as it is.

Pot buttons

Point at the town and two buttons appear beside the pot: return (the same icon as Desktop) and auto-rotate. Auto-rotate shares its settings with the Camera tab and keeps them after you leave desktop mode.

Coming back

Press Ctrl+Alt+B, which works even while you are in another app, or use the on-screen icon.

Other windows

The bonsai is not pinned above other windows. Bring another window forward and it covers the town.

11When a run ends

A run ends when the tree is finished or when the town falls. Either way, part of the score carries over as funds for the next run.

The trophy at the top right opens the “Achievements”. These are the game’s own in-game achievements, not Steam achievements. They are grouped into Sky layers, Height, Population, Survival, Construction and Incidents.

12Settings

The gear at the top right opens “Settings”. It also shows the state of your “Quick save” and your “Permanent unlocks” (kept across runs).

Volume

“Master”, “Music” and “Sound effects”.

Display

The resolution and “Mode: Windowed / Full screen window”. “Apply” keeps them for the next launch too. They cannot be changed in desktop mode.

Language

日本語, English or 简体中文.

City name

Rename the town.

Save

“Delete the quick save”. Press it again to confirm (“Press again to delete”).

Back to the start screen

“The current city is saved first — pick Continue on the start screen to resume it”.

Auto-start

“Auto-start on title screen: On / Off”.

Quit game

Saves and closes the game.

13Questions

Does the town grow while the game is closed?

No. It grows only while the game is running, including when the window is behind other apps.

Can I speed it up?

No. There is no fast-forward.

Can I choose the shape of the tree?

No. Each run picks one by itself, and shapes you have not collected yet come first.

Are there other worlds?

Cyberpunk is the only world for now. More worlds with other themes are planned.

Can I play with a controller?

No. The game is played with a mouse and keyboard.