The Mirror Lied

Hello players!
I'm now here to talk about The Mirror Lied, a 2008 game made with RPG Maker XP by Reives, or better, Kan (Reives) Gao, the Director, Writer, Composer and Developer of the Freebird Games, the group that created the popular To the Moon series and other interesting products like Do You Remember My Lullaby, A Bird Story, and this game too (here's the link where you can find this game and grab it from steam, the other download links are outdated)!

Now, the game: this is a 15-20 minutes short adventure that I really do not want to decrive, since it will detract to the enjoyiment, what I can say it's that in this game we play as a little girl, Leah, with no face (her face is totally blank) inside an apparently normal world where nothing is what appears... Leah is in fact trapped inside her home since there is no way to leave, but she does keep getting phone calls from "birdy"... a total mystery that the player will have to unravel!


Decisions... well that's really a simple choice, a bullet always beats a lock, at least in the movies!

The Mirror Lied is more an experience than a game, an interactive novel whose aim is to tell a story and entertain the player rather than posing challenges and puzzles to test his skill and mind. But do not expect a visual novel since here there isn't a lot to read, the dialogue is sparse and mysterious, most of the time is spend in fact interacting rather than reading. Oh yes, the interactions... there are so many (nearly every item on any map is interactive, really!), despite the game being set inside a single house. And mapping? That's really great, I liked not only the amount of details and the atmosphere, but also the clever use of light and darkness.
The music? Custom made, it was composed by the game developer himself and it's also pretty good.

Now, the gameplay: it's a pretty classic adventure with tasks that are rather basic, like looking for a key or using a particular item in a particular place, that's it. But all is done really well, you can also play the game with the mouse, and being an adventure game that's simply perfect. Perfect and pretty easy, since the purpouse of the game is to tell a story, that's quite bizarre and clearly allegoric, but it's not a horror game, even if the atmosphere is pretty sinister/dark.


Well, to be honest since I'm standing inside a burning room I AM JUST A LITTLE WORRIED!!!

Final Verict
Well if this game was longer I'd probably have giver a better rating, but maybe it would have been a bit boring? I do not know, I liked it and I really wished for a longer story (I wonder if other players have this opinion too) and I wished it was explained a bit better since in the end it's pretty confusing, anyway it was good and enjoyable! I like interactive stories especially when not only they're inspired, but also created with this attention to the details, every item has its place and the locations are professionally designed. The fact that the plot isn't really easy to grasp may be a problem, but surely not a terrible one, I mean like it or hate it, this is still a professionally made solid little adventure with a nice creepy atmosphere.