[Panthera]

[mild puzzle spoilers if you're currently playing, or planning to play BM, and a huge rant]

I'm currently playing Black Mirror for the first time, walkthrough thoroughly placed in my hand (as I hate dying and not knowing what in the world I'm supposed to be doing) and I have to say I'm completely baffled by some of the game mechanic choices the developers have gone for, and I find myself asking "is this something ags often do, are these game mechanics frequently found in some older, not so known ags, or where the developers just trying to be as diabolical as possible?

While the "action" cursor that might get you killed without warning, objects that randomly need to be examined several times, sometimes with right-click and sometimes only usable when you've found the thing to use them for (I'm not picking up those old newspapers! Unless I need them to light the fire of course...) are certainly all annoying, I'm specifically infuriated by the forced artificial time the npcs' require to complete their task.
While this is used in several ags I've actually played (I've mostly played "newer" games, starting with TLJ, Syberia series and Still Life), there has always been tasks to complete during the "waiting period", and by the time you've completed the current task, you've triggered the hidden trigger that "completes" the waiting period.

Black Mirror does not do this. Instead you ask somebody for a favour or to complete a objective, and then have to wander around aimlessly trying to spend time in-game. usually not having any conversation options with anyone or objects to interact with while you wait for the person to "finish" their task.
I have no clue how the game triggers progression, does it follow an internal clock, the system cock, or maybe places visited?
Either way it just led me to quit the game in frustration on Chapter 5, because while waiting for the priest to finish his research for me, I've currently visited every single room in the castle, the grounds, the village and the morgue 3 times, and I'm still being told to have patience.

I guess what I'm wondering is; have there been several AGs that have used this form for time progression, where as I'm just spoiled from almost exclusively playing ags with objective triggered progression, or is this annoying even for old school expert ag players?

And will I ever be able to progress past that stupid priest?!?

I also do not understand how on earth I was supposed to figure out how to use the music box with James in that extremely short time period..

[/Rant]

[mrLOL]

What you're describing works pretty well in GTA, makes the time-of-day seem more real and often gives you a bit of preparation ("oh the interview isn't until an hour, I'm gonna go and find the coolest professional-looking car I can find"),

but for an adventure-game.. what were they thinking?!?
I haven't played it myself but that does indeed sound hilariously bad.

[stepurhan]

Whilst I've come across artificial time in other adventures, Black Mirror is the only game I've played where you could have nothing else to do while waiting. The more usual approach is that you have another clear task at the same time and doing that triggers the completion of the work. (i.e. when you have nothing else to do, you can collect straight away) This allows for realism (jobs you've asked for take time) without boring the player.

Black Mirror had a lot of things going for it but this drove me nuts as well.

[Panthera]

I got past the priest in the end, after trying three more times, the last two visiting every single location and looking at every single hot spot still active (the pictures, etc.) and completed the game.

The ending was rather anti-climactic though

I'm so saving my save games so that I can skip certain horrible parts if I ever play through it again. That slider puzzle took ages.

Had a lot of fun impaling his eye on the spear though.

All in all I agree with AGs review. I found most of them unlikable (besides Bates) and I was hoping for a twist/more complicated murder mystery.

Spoiler:

Hoping Robert wasn't really dead, since we never saw his body..

I liked the atmosphere and the story kept me going to the end, I wanted to see the thrilling end battle between good and evil (Heh, ) and unravel more about the curse.. So kudos developers, great way to make me finish, not so great way to make me not feel frustrated after the ending..

And I still have no clue how the time progression works! Does no one know?

[Fantasysci5]

I agree, I wasn't attached to anyone besides Bates (and the guy in the asylum). Did you see ahead of time who the 'bad guy' was?

[millenia]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

I agree, I wasn't attached to anyone besides Bates (and the guy in the asylum). Did you see ahead of time who the 'bad guy' was?

To me it was painfully obvious and lamed up the ending even more. It still wasn't horrible but just barely a 3½ star game. I had no problem with the characters though, I like many unlikable characters too, personality is good even when it's not "good" .

I think the second game did better with the ending. I guessed it too, but I didn't think it was rubbed in, it was just one of few possibilities that came to my mind and towards the end I could see that "yeah it's this one".

And yeah, first BM was awful with the "triggers".

[Panthera]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

I agree, I wasn't attached to anyone besides Bates (and the guy in the asylum). Did you see ahead of time who the 'bad guy' was?

As I said before (and it seems I can just put this whole comment in spoiler tags), I was hoping for more mystery and plot twists, so I was "praying" that the fact that

Spoiler:

we didn't see Robert's body or heard much about his death meant that he could be more involved somehow, and I also reacted to the detective saying "Now he's dismembered the doctor too" or something like that, without Samuel having told him that the doctor had been decapitated.

But the second dream and seeing the doctor dead made it quite obvious who the murderer was. When he was comparing the black hair going "I wonder who else has black hair" I was shouting at the screen "You have black hair!"

What surprised me was that people saw him. I was assuming a more supernatural link, ala Harry Potter seeing through Voldemorts eyes, and didn't link the writing on the wall (Samuel in blood) with the deaths at all, so I was rather surprised to hear Bates saying he'd seen the murderer.

Still, the "oh no, the portal is opened, look at that green goo" and then him just closing the portal without any problem, without us seeing Mordred or anything was really anti-climactic.

I'm playing Black Mirror 2 now, so no spoilers about the ending! But I was a bit surprised during the starting sequence

Spoiler:

when we see Samuel starting the fire. I had assumed the black sphere he picked up influenced his killings, and I was a bit disappointed it didn't have more to do with the plot

One thing I'm still unsure about the mystery though:

Spoiler:

Did he kill William? He says himself that he didn't arrive before the day after, nobody else seemed to see him before that day, and how did he know to come? He never got the letter, Robert hid that. Unless Samuel had taken the letter and placed it in Robert's safe during one of his black-outs.
Also, the door to the attic seemed to have only one key, Bates', so how could he have done all that without being seen? And how did he get the mourning letter?
And if William really killed himself, then his death shouldn't have counted towards the 5 that raised Mordred, so why did it, and why did he come after the fact and painted the symbol on the tower?

And what made William suddenly feel so sick? I thought it was the sphere, but it doesn't seem like that was the intention, so why did he suddenly feel so weak and thought something was wrong?

Oh, and who did Bates see him kill? I assumed it was the care taker, but why was Bates outside to see that in the middle of the night?

Originally Posted by millenia

To me it was painfully obvious and lamed up the ending even more. It still wasn't horrible but just barely a 3½ star game. I had no problem with the characters though, I like many unlikable characters too, personality is good even when it's not "good" .

I think the problem for me was half the bad voice acting, and half the horrid script translation. There were so many awkward sentences, function word mistakes and strange sentence construction that it made most people sound really strange, especially the little boy's "dialect".

I also felt Samuel did some really mean things without having any reason to, like not sterilizing the needle before doping the attendant, electrocuting the doctor (and then taking the music box through the electrified grating without electrocuting himself!? ), locking the grave-digger in, letting the mad guy I can't remember the name of just stay in the light house, completely ignoring the skeleton in the mine's wish for a proper burial and being a complete dick to Morris and the care taker in Wales.
(And he never gave his aunt back her family heirloom)

I often like non-likable characters, I'm very fond of April in TLJ, I like Oscar in Syberia 1 and 2, and I liked the main character in Lost Horizon (who was never mean to animals, so that could have something to do with it). I like Jar Jar Binks and Wesley Crusher for Gods sake!
But Samuel just seemed to behave like a dick and do over the top mean things for no real reason, and seemed to follow a moral idea of "the end justifies the means" without having a clear idea what the end was.
At least in Lost Horizon you can justify some actions with having to save the world, and without you doing it, there won't be any world for these people to live in anyway, but in Black Mirror he has no idea why he's investigating for about half the game, and he has no justification for having to find all the keys and stopping Mordred before the last murder.

[ZeframCochrane]

Originally Posted by Panthera

And I still have no clue how the time progression works! Does no one know?

I'm afraid there are only two ways to answer that question. Either ask a developer, or by a process of tedious trial and error. The first option is pretty much unfeasible, so I guess we have to examine the second.

I suggest a systematic application of the scientific method. To test each hypothesis, it would be sensible to save the game immediately before the trigger to the time-based segment. So, for example, save before the character says something like "Come back in a few hours".

Hypothesis 1
Time progression is linked to real time, and starts immediately after the conclusion of the conversation.
Load the saved game, end the conversation... and do nothing. Leave Samuel in the same location the conversation took place, and go do something else IRL. I suggest a walk in the park. Periodically check back to see if attempting to start a conversation with the other character will show progression in the form of new dialogue options. If this goes on for more than 5 or 6 hours, we can scrap H1 and move ahead. Back to the drawing board.

Hypothesis 2
Time progression is linked to real time, and starts immediately after leaving the location the conversation takes place.
Same as above, except you must leave the location before you go walking in the park. It's imperative that you leave the location but not visit any other location besides any one immediately attached to the conversation one. Failure to do so will result in ambiguity as to which Hypothesis has been verified. No joy? Move on.

Hypothesis 3
Time progression unrelated to real time, and is emulated by visiting several locations.
Follow this algorithm:

-Set n=1
-Until n is big enough for you to get bored, DO:
-Load game (important for consistency!)
-Leave location and visit n other locations
-Go back to see if new dialogue options are available
--IF there are THEN
--n is the number of locations you have to visit before new dialogue options are available
--EXIT
--END IF
-Increase n by one.
-End DO

It could take some time. Take notice of the fact that n could climb above the total number of available locations, as you can visit the same location more than once.

Hypothesis 4
Time progression is achieved by a combination of the above.
And here things get complicated. There's no way to consistently check every possible combination, but I suggest to try the following.

-Set t as a reasonable starting time (1 min? 5 min?)
-Set n=2 !Starting with n=1 would in fact retest Hypothesis 2, so you can skip directly to n=2
-Until t is an acceptable amount of time, DO:
-Until t/n is above the minimum amount fo time you can stay in each location, DO:
-Load game
-Attempt visiting n locations in t time
-Go back to see if new dialogue options are available
--IF there are THEN
--n is the number of locations you have to visit before new dialogue options are available, and you must do this in t time.
--EXIT
--END IF
-increase n by 1
-END DO
-Increase t by a reasonable increment (+5 min? +10 min?)
-END DO

And I bet there are more Hypotheses to be tested, but these are all the ones I can think of for now.
Good Luck!

[Fantasysci5]

I like dislikable characters, too, but most of these characters were too flat to like or dislike...

And Panthera,

Spoiler:

You bring up some good points. I just assumed Samuel had came and killed William, and then went back to a hotel or something, then came the next day. I didn't give it much thought.

And yes, Samuel was a real dick throughout.