The Black Mirror

aka: Black Mirror 1, Black Mirror I, Black Mirror: Der dunkle Spiegel der Seele, Messenger of Death, Posel Smrti, The Black Mirror: Lo Specchio Riflette Le Colpe Oscure Del Passato, The Black Mirror: el pasado es el oscuro espejo de tu alma, The Black Mirror: the past is a diverted mirror of your soul
Moby ID: 9391

Description official descriptions

The death of his grandfather, William, brings Samuel Gordon back to Black Mirror, the family's ancestral home. Although William was considered a kook and his death most likely a suicide, Samuel is investigating the matter. Samuel is convinced that the death was no accident and that the mystery's answer lies in the research William conducted, sequestered in the castle's tower. But will uncovering ancient family secrets bring new light to the matter or shroud the Gordon family in doom?

The Black Mirror is a third-person, point-and-click adventure game set largely on the sprawling grounds of Black Mirror Manor including an asylum, the church and its grounds, and the town of Willow Creek. The game begins immediately after William's funeral and Samuel is reintroduced to his estranged family and meets the household staff. An uncle who hides himself away in his study, an ill-tempered gardener, and a family doctor who hints that he knows something are just some of the cast members Samuel will deal with. The Black Mirror contains 150 locations and five hours of spoken dialogue.

Spellings

  • Черное Зеркало - Russian spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

89 People (88 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 55 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 71 ratings with 5 reviews)

You can't go home again

The Good
The death of his grandfather, William, brings Samuel Gordon back to Black Mirror, the family's ancestral home. Although William was considered a kook and his death most likely a suicide, Samuel is investigating the matter. Samuel is convinced that the death was no accident and that the mystery's answer lies in the research William conducted, sequestered in the castle's tower. But will uncovering ancient family secrets bring new light to the matter or shroud the Gordon family in doom?

Black Mirror is a third-person, point-and-click adventure game set largely on the sprawling grounds of Black Mirror Manor including an asylum, the church and its grounds, and the town of Willow Creek. The game begins immediately after William's funeral and Samuel is reintroduced to his estranged family and meets the household staff. An uncle who secrets himself away in his study, an ill-tempered gardener, and a family doctor who hints that he knows something are just some of the cast members Samuel will deal with. In all, Samuel will explore an ad blurbian 150 locations and listen to five hours of spoken dialogue.

Like most adventure games, Samuel spends a good deal of time collecting inventory objects and dealing with environmental obstacles. Left-clicking on hotspots makes Samuel do something: open a door, use a key, start a conversation. Black Mirror also lets Samuel right-click hotspots, at times, for a more thorough investigation or to make a general comment about a person. While it does have its share of puzzles, Black Mirror is not a puzzle-heavy game and Samuel will make it through large chunks of the game simply by using the correct object at the correct time or by talking to people.

Conversation plays a huge role in Black Mirror and the designers did a good job of weaving household intrigue into the storyline. For instance, a casual mention that someone imbibes too much leads to the discovery of a household feud and a reflection on the state of the Gordon family. While much conversation relies on clicking icons, occasionally Samuel has the opportunity to be gentle or abrasive. This doesn't affect the game's outcome, but it does reflect on Samuel's character.

Black Mirror is atmospheric and has wonderful ambient sound effects that draw the player into a largely static scene. Although the story is clearly a horror/mystery, whether its origin is natural or supernatural is wisely left open until the game's ending levels. And as the death toll rises (and finally reaches the game's M-rating), events become more unsettling with Samuel's life increasingly placed at risk.

The Bad
Like many games, Black Mirror has an alphanumeric code the player types in the first time the game runs. Black Mirror also uses the insidious StarForce Copy Protection System which analyzes the disk to make sure it's an original. It does this every time the game starts and takes between thirty seconds to two minutes. Thank you, Adventure Company!

Anyway, Black Mirror has a lot going for it in terms of story and design, but suffers from poor pacing and weak game play. To begin with, things take longer in Black Mirror than they should. Early on, Samuel realizes that he should document the arcane symbols he finds around the manor. The easiest way to do this is to use his old camera, but he needs film. Luckily Robert has film in his trunk in the tower. So Samuel goes to the tower and finds that the trunk is locked. Trek back to Robert and Robert says, Oops, here's the key. Just wait until you have to get the film developed.

Backtracking seems to be Black Mirror's theme though. Samuel tends not to notice inventory until he needs something. Expect to revisit areas and pixel hunt from time to time, just to see if something new pops up. Occasionally characters will ask you to wait a bit before they can help you. This doesn't mean just waiting though, it means leaving the area and reentering it to see if "time" has "passed."

More annoying is Black Mirror's expectation that players draw from an external pool of knowledge rather than using hints within the game. While I wasn't stumped by basic chess moves or identifying planets by their shape, I did have trouble with a slider puzzle that relied on knowledge of the order and symbols of the zodiac. Utterly amazing, especially for a game that isn't afraid to be wordy.

Finally, at times I was completely jarred by what Samuel was expected to do. How do you get a kid to talk to a stranger? Give him candy! Wow. Samuel is, at turns, a prissy snob who doesn't want to get his hands dirty as he talks down to the staff and a conniving liar who sets up an elaborate electrocution trap. I have no problem playing a right bastard as long as the game establishes that he's a right bastard. Samuel seems more misguided, so this adds unnecessary confusion—like when a character asks you to go into town for something and tells you specifically where to find it, it's easy to think that's really what you are supposed to do.

The Bottom Line
I imagine Black Mirror had a lot of back-story that never made it to the game. As such, the story is interesting, but elements like the main character's tortured soul come off as self-important. Some elements that did make it to the final game should have been better developed. Samuel takes pills for his headaches. Couldn't that be incorporated into game play? It seems like Samuel has a hallucination at one point, spotting blood in a grinder. Wouldn't it be interesting having a character that sees things, unless he takes his medication—and then limit the number of pills he has? Why not let Samuel's personality options, apparent in some conversations, have a real affect?

Instead Black Mirror is a typical adventure game, which isn't to say that it's a bad game, but don't expect to be whisked away.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2005

Nice Graphics, Good Story Line, Extremely Easy to Finish. Thumbs Up!!!

The Good
The Black Mirror is a traditional third-person adventure. The game places real-time 3D characters onto pre-rendered backgrounds. The game's weather effects are with one word: "UNBELIEVABLE"!!! Almost very scene features details, such as tree branches waving gently in the wind or birds flying in the distance. Reminded me of "Syberia" and "The Longest Journey". Smart dialogues and an unexpected ending!!!

The Bad
I think that the only disadvantage of the game is that it is very easy to conclude. Also there are a couple puzzles in the game that you can't find clues in the game to solve them, but you have to have knowledge of those things. For example in Chapter One, the puzzle with the Globe in the Mansion's Library, where you have to place the planets of our solar system in order, starting with the one closer to the sun.

The Bottom Line
A must have for adventure lovers!!!

Windows · by ggfournar (5) · 2003

Waste of Time!

The Good
The backgrounds were well rendered and sound effects were OK.

The Bad
Where to start? Other than the ending (which requires special mention) this is a state of the art game......for 1995! The characters were stiff and almost like South Park cut outs. The dialogue could have been phoned in and probably was. But the ending was absolutely insane. What happened? Did they run out of space, or time? I kept saying there will be more on the second disk...but it was never used! This may be a "heavy" ending for our Wild and Swinging East European guys but for the rest of the world it was simply STUPID!

The Bottom Line
Don't waste your time. If you ever feel like buying this dog, lie down till the feeling goes away ( or just go jump off a tall building!).

Windows · by Rick McGarry (2) · 2004

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Special Edition Zerobrain (3052) Dec 2, 2010

Trivia

German localization

The voice of the main character Samuel Gordon is the German voice of Johnny Depp. This is interesting because Gordon looks similar to Depp.

Polish localization

For its release in Poland, the game's subtitles were translated to Polish. However, nearly each sentence contains mistakes such as typos, repetitions (sometimes the same sentence is repeated twice in a row), omissions and even spelling errors.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2004 – Best Adventure Game of the Year

Information also contributed by BostonGoerge

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by dusoft.

Additional contributors: MAT, Terrence Bosky, Jeanne, Monkeyhead, Havoc Crow, formercontrib, Zeppin, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, Zerobrain, Plok.

Game added June 11, 2003. Last modified March 20, 2024.