Adventure Gamers - Forums

Welcome all to the Black Mirror Community Playthrough! Whether or not you voted for it I hope you’ll consider joining in with us as we play through together.

Before we go any further, it might just be worth clarifying which game we’re talking about. This playthrough is for the very first game in the series which was released in 2003 by and not the 2017 reboot by King Art Games. Confusingly, both games have the same name, but they are not the same game.

If you still haven’t bought it yet, it is generally called ‘Black Mirror 1’ on stores and can be found at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/292930/Black_Mirror_I/
https://www.gog.com/game/the_black_mirror

For those who didn’t vote for it or are otherwise unsure whether to join in with this playthrough, what sort of a game is this?

In terms of puzzles and controls it’s a ‘traditional adventure’ and, as will be apparent from the start, it is very definitely a horror game. By modern standards I would say it’s pretty long and puzzles are not too easy, but never get near to nightmare difficulty.

One of the things that really makes it stand out and I think one of the reasons that it sold so well during a time where the traditional adventure game was ‘dead’ is the atmosphere. It is almost lovecraftian in the heaviness and oppression and there is just something addictive about it, for me at least. It’s really striking and the equal of (although not identical to) The Lost Crown, which is another atmospheric masterpiece for me.

One or two things to get straight before we play

Personally I love this game for a number of reasons, but there are a couple of design choices that can easily frustrate you if you’re not prepared for them. For that reason I’m going to set them out here, because if you’re prepared for them, hopefully they won’t be too much of a problem.

1. Hotspots disappear and reappear.

Imagine the situation, you enter a screen and move the mouse around to interesting looking things. Sure enough the mouse cursor glows red and you click away to interact with it. 2 minutes later you come back and try to interact with it again and it’s gone! The developers took the choice that when there’s nothing else to be done with something at the moment it ceases to be interactive. It may seem strange to some but it’s not a major problem;

2. Sometimes you can’t take it until you need it.

A bit similar to the above, but there are one or two occasions when you cannot take an object until you find you need it. Therefore something that you couldn’t interact with at first now you can. This is a little more annoying but there is very little of it in the game.

3. Finally and most importantly MAKE SURE YOU RIGHT CLICK ON EVERYTHING.

I know, I know, that sounds obvious, you’re a seasoned adventure gamer and you know how to use a mouse. However, the developers took the extraordinary decision that 95% of things in the game produce no response when you right click on them. Not a boring message, not a change of cursor, just nothing. Within 2 minutes you’ll stop right clicking on anything. However, some hotspots and inventory items need to be right clicked on to get the desired response and progress. If you get stuck in the first chapter I pretty much guarantee it’s because you didn’t right click on something - get in the habit and stay in the habit to prevent a lot of frustration.

[EDIT] One more thing that I forgot… It is possible to die in this game. This isn’t an early Sierra game or anything it’s only in a couple of places that I think are reasonably obvious, but just to be on the safe side, do remember to save often enough that you don’t end up having to backtrack too far.

OK, enough messing around, let’s get into it!

Chapter One - return of the future

It’s time to meet Samuel Gordon and his family at Black Mirror Castle and to investigate… well you’ll see.

You have until Friday 17 March to complete the first chapter, which ends with the Chapter 2 screen.

Great!

Thank you for the explanations. I was aware of some of them, but it’s better to remember everything you adviced.

My Steam version in Spanish works fine, so… let’s see what the Black Mirror hides (not the TV show lol)

I think I will have to pass on this one. There are those that love Lovecraftian themes, and those that don’t. I fall into the latter category. I will, however, follow the playthrough. If it turns out I was wrong, always possible, I may get the game to try on my own at a later date.

rtrooney - 09 March 2023 08:42 PM

I think I will have to pass on this one. There are those that love Lovecraftian themes, and those that don’t. I fall into the latter category. I will, however, follow the playthrough. If it turns out I was wrong, always possible, I may get the game to try on my own at a later date.

That’s fair enough, not every game will be for everyone. I hope you do manage to try it at some point though as it is definitely worth checking out for anyone. It’s bound to be dirt cheap in a sale again soon.

To prevent confusion though I should probably make clear that this game does not really have lovecraftian themes (i.e. cthulhu, the sea etc.) but has that sort of atmosphere or feel. I probably wasn’t clear enough about that in my post above.

By the way, I will be playing Chapter 1 next week. I must finish some stuff first.

This is a great game, one of the best post-2000 adventure game. I did a solo playthrough of this game on the forum years ago, and I mentioned multiple times how the game reminds me of Phantasmagoria, and I think Sierra has been a big inspiration for Future Games when they made this. Also, I still remember Samuel’s great voice acting and the eerie atmosphere, strengthened by a great background art.

Black Mirror 2 and 3 are not bad games at all, but the first game is one class above. And the 2017 “reboot” is nowhere near. I’ll see if I can find time to join the playthrough, the game is worth of many replays.

Veovis - 10 March 2023 05:11 AM

Thanks for leading this Intense Degree! One thing I would consider telling those who play is about the possible dead end at the end of one of the chapters. I’m sure you know which scene I’m talking about. At least I never found a way to continue at that point without replaying a good chunk of the chapter. Maybe a “save often” advice would be especially appropriate before starting that chapter.

I like your thinking. For now, you’ve reminded me that I was going to say:

It is possible to die in this game. This isn’t an early Sierra game or anything it’s only in a couple of places that I think are reasonably obvious, but just to be on the safe side, do remember to save often enough that you don’t end up having to backtrack.

walas74 - 10 March 2023 07:49 AM

By the way, I will be playing Chapter 1 next week. I must finish some stuff first.

No problem. We can always look at the timeframe if people are lagging behind.

It’s tempting to join the playthrough, because the game is beautiful and different, and I haven’t finished it back then. For reasons mentioned in the second post, and I just can’t bring myself to go through all this again. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have time anyway. On a side note, I remember the protagonist being hilariously snobbish, something you also rarely see in adventure games)

Intense Degree - 09 March 2023 03:01 PM

3. Finally and most importantly MAKE SURE YOU RIGHT CLICK ON EVERYTHING.

I know, I know, that sounds obvious, you’re a seasoned adventure gamer and you know how to use a mouse. However, the developers took the extraordinary decision that 95% of things in the game produce no response when you right click on them. Not a boring message, not a change of cursor, just nothing. Within 2 minutes you’ll stop right clicking on anything. However, some hotspots and inventory items need to be right clicked on to get the desired response and progress. If you get stuck in the first chapter I pretty much guarantee it’s because you didn’t right click on something - get in the habit and stay in the habit to prevent a lot of frustration.

So in summary, right click does nothing for most things you see, but you need to do it on a comparatively small number of things. It’s the most annoying thing about the game for me.

I am tentatively joining the playthrough, but I’ve been struggling with finding more game time in recent weeks, so no promises.

I have the GOG version of this and booted it up. The game has been on my “to play” list for a good long while.

Had a minor issue with the options. I tried changing the sliders, but clicking-and-dragging didn’t work, and the +/- signs didn’t work either. I had to single-click and then move the sliders for it to work. Felt counterintuitive to release the mouse-button before being able to change the sliders.

Quitting and restarting resets the options, apparently. Not sure if they’ll be saved with the save games - I didn’t save because I skipped most of the intro because the subtitles weren’t on.

Will try again later.