The Black Mirror

About The Black Mirror

The Black Mirror was made by the Czech studio Future Games and released in 2003, first in the Czech Republic as Posel Smrti (Death's Messenger), then in North America and Europe. It became a hit in Germany, and by 2008 its maker reported more than 500,000 copies sold worldwide. It led to two sequels and, in 2017, an unrelated reboot of the same name. Steam sells it today as Black Mirror I and GOG as Black Mirror 1, both for Windows, published by THQ Nordic.

In 1981, Samuel Gordon returns to Black Mirror, his family's castle in the English countryside, for the first time in twelve years. His grandfather William has died on a stormy night, and everyone calls it suicide. Samuel does not believe it. Searching William's study, he finds that the old man had spent his last years on the history of the Gordon family and a curse that has followed it since the Middle Ages. Then other people around Black Mirror start to die, and beside each body is the same red sign.

It plays as a classic third-person point-and-click across over 150 locations in six chapters: the castle and its grounds, the village pub, a vicarage, a chapel, crypts and further afield. You talk to the servants and villagers, collect and combine items, read letters and journals, and solve mechanical puzzles and riddles left behind by Samuel's ancestors. The puzzles are hard in places, as Steam players note.

Its horror is slow and gothic: rain and thunder over the castle, candlelit crypts, a morgue, grim deaths and the feeling that the family's past is closing in. Critics in the US were harsh, GameSpot faulting its writing and voice acting while admiring its length, challenge and atmosphere; in Germany it was the best-selling adventure of 2004, and 4Players named it that year's best adventure. It suits players who like long, dark detective adventures in the spirit of Gabriel Knight.

How to play The Black Mirror

1. Click on the scene to walk Samuel around; hover over things to see what can be looked at or used.
2. Talk to everyone and read every letter, book and note; they hold the clues.
3. Pick up items and use them from the inventory on the world or on each other.
4. Solve the mechanisms and riddles in the castle and beyond to reach new places.
5. Use the map to travel between the castle, the village and the other locations as they open.

Tips

• Save often and in several slots. Samuel can die without much warning in a few places, as GOG players point out.
• Re-read your notes when stuck: they record what Samuel has learned and often point to the next step.
• Search each scene carefully; some small objects are easy to miss on the dark backgrounds.
• Revisit people after each new discovery, since they often have something new to say.
• Double-click an exit to leave a scene at once, and use the map to skip long walks.

Questions