I played the Mirror Forge Demo so you don’t have to, but maybe you should. I was approached by the developer MystiveDev to try the Silent Hill inspired demo after they saw my review of The Mortuary Assistant, which was released by the same publisher DreadXP. The demo is free on steam and you can find it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1807200/Mirror_Forge/
This game is a psychological horror with dark themes that has just enough puzzle to keep it interesting and not make it frustrating. I will say I was let in a little bit of a secret about the demo and that is it is just a subplot and not the main story so if that is the case I can only imagine what the main storyline has in store for us because the demo was full of psychological scares and heavy subject matter (triggers listed at the end of the article).
In the demo, we begin in a factory area and find ourselves playing Thomas Jackson. This demo starts out bloody and only gets more upsetting and uncomfy as we follow the blood trail. The puzzle parts of this game are not so hard it takes away from the play, and that is always something I pay attention to. If something gets too frustrating the scares stop being effective and you can’t stay immersed in the story. The Mirror Forge Demo does a good job of balancing the puzzle with the story so that the player is able to move forward.
The voice acting of the main character, Thomas, is done very well. I find in many horror games the voice acting of the character you have to main can be dull, to say the least. Thomas’ voice acting is rather nice. It is muted in emotions at times, but reactions are still there. I have found in some games when a character doesn’t react at all to the horrors around them it takes away from the game; Thomas reacts at least some of the time, and that helps with immersion into this rather heavy storyline.
In the way of quality of life options the captions are automatic there are no toggle or customization options. The keybinds are also locked and have no option of remapping. I am curious to see what the full game will give us in these areas because accessibility-wise keybinding is a huge obstacle for many.
Overall I enjoyed the experience of this demo and got about 2 hours of play out of it because I am very thorough when it comes to exploring. The graphics are great and set the tone for some pretty gruesome imagery and good scares. With every step you take and every time you turn around something can change and surprise you, so this game keeps you on your toes. Nothing is quite as it seems and I am glad I had the opportunity to play this demo.
Triggers:
Gore
Blood
Flashing lights
Child loss
Alcoholism
My full playthrough of the demo: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1448678472?collection=ZMQan96A4xaFAw
Trailer for the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njzsbjo7fGw
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