Black Mirror Walkthrough by Peter Olafson

Introduction

On a stormy night, William
Gordon walks by candlelight to his tower study and begins a letter
to his estranged grandson. He begs Samuel to return to castle Black
Mirror. “There is not much time left,” he writes.

Gordon is closer to the
mark than he may know. Cut to an exterior shot from the point of view
of something climbing the tower wall. We can’t see the climber
but the accompanying dark whisper, the sheerness of the wall and the
slightly fuzzy, stretched-out quality of the picture (as though seen
through the eyes of an animal) suggests it can’t be entirely
human.

Within, William writes
on — that he is close to learning “the truth about our family,”
but thinks he lacks the strength to see it alone.

There’s a sound outside
like some great creature in pain. William looks left in agitation
— we can see now how on-edge he is — but continues to write. He’s
enclosing with the letter “the ancient ring of your heritage.”
“Always have it with you,” he charges Samuel. “Take
extraordinary care of it.”

Two candles on the wagon-wheel
chandelier suddenly go out. William writes his final words: “I
know my time is closing in. I can feel it.

“I am afraid …”

With good reason. The climber
has reached the windows. The two to the right of William’s desk
burst open as though blown by the wind. The player doesn’t see
what enters — we hear only guttural sounds — but William does.

Cut again to an exterior
shot of the tower windows. The remaining candles flicker twice and
then go out. The near window is flung open. And out goes William —
his back to the window and moving as though thrown — to plummet onto
the spiked fence below.

Samuel does come home —
for his grandfather’s funeral. He takes up the story as the
family returns to the castle in strained silence from the nearby Warmhill
church.

Odds & ends: The
study depicted in the introduction is exactly as you’ll find
it at the end of Chapter I. It’s modeled right down to the skull
on the chest at the rear, the chess board at the right and the music
box on the roll-top desk. (You’ll be able to make a similar
comparison at the rear of the castle library later in the chapter
and in other locations periodically throughout the game. Three-dimensional
models were the foundation for the game’s two-dimensional backdrops.)

Don’t puzzle
too much at the two candles on the chandelier going out before the
windows open. Call it a draft from some unseen gap in the run-down
castle’s masonry. This is just foreshadowing — an early signal
of an upcoming event. In this case, that William’s own candle
is flickering perilously. The designers do this throughout the game.

Finally, look carefully
at the shot of William after the windows open. There’s a lot
going on in those two seconds.

First, note that Samuel’s
grandfather appears to be looking at two intruders. Before his fall,
we see his eyes flicker back and forth between them. This isn’t
explained and perhaps it can’t be explained (though I’ll
suggest a possibility late in our story).

And if I read anything
beyond terror in William’s eyes in this scene, it would be a
flash of recognition. To judge from his letter, he seems to have expected
just such a fate … but not that it would arrive in this form.

General
Hints

Before we get into the
thick of things, here are some practices that’ll help keep you and
your game on an even keel.

Clicking:
You’ll have help from an intelligent cursor–one that’s typically
red when placed over an interactive object or location.

But you’ll want to be aggressive
in its use. All the available info doesn’t necessarily pour out on
the first click. If one left-click on an item or location doesn’t
prove revealing, a second may. (You can click as many as four or five
times before exhausting the responses, but pertinent info is usually
available within the first two clicks.)

Or try a right-click. Samuel
may then conduct a search or more thorough inspection of the location.

Note that there are three
kinds of right-clicks. Most can be performed when the usual mouse
pointer is displayed. (More on this curiously-shaped pointer a little
later.)

But you can get important
details about certain locked doors by right-clicking when the door
icon is on-screen and first impressions of non-player characters when
the dialogue icon is displayed. (These icons always appear as white.
To see whether you can elicit info with a right-click in a given situation,
you’ll just have to try.)

These latter descriptions
(one of the game’s better-kept secrets) usually belabor the obvious
or supply details you could otherwise pick up in conversation. But
in a couple of places you’ll preview the true flavor of a person,
get a sense of Samuel’s reaction to them or elicit a detail that is
unavailable in conversation or Samuel’s inner monologue. (These thoughts
are bracketed with dashes.)

If cursor remains red when
placed over the object even after you elicited all available details,
the object will likely find a role at some future point in the game.
(But not always. In chapters I and III, you’ll find that certain locations
turn the pointer to no clear purpose.)

Finally, don’t assume that
just because an item wasn’t interactive on first acquaintance, it
will remain non-interactive on a second. As the game progresses, the
status of a few items changes from “non-interactive” to “interactive,”
from “interactive” to “usable” and, here and there, all the way from
“non-interactive” to “usable.”

Talking:
Just as you’ll want to go back to previously non-interactive objects,
go back to previously-silent people — especially in the ultra-talky
first chapter. Sometimes an event or a conversation with one character
will ignite a new topic with another.

Throughout the game, you’ll
sometimes have the opportunity to give one of two answers to questions
posed by non-player characters. You can’t see the answers before you
give them–just their general positive or negative cast (represented
by happy and sad theatrical masks).

You can’t go wrong in any
serious way here, as your answers rarely alter the subsequent course
of the game and then only in the most minor of ways. (The most significant
result: You can get, or not get, some extra topics with other characters
after talking to Samuel’s grandmother Victoria about the gardener
Henry in Chapter I.) Typically they’re just different text to the
same end. Hence, I’ll address in detail only those positive/negative
questions to which your response either has some clear effect on the
course of play, the player’s thinking or on real or apparent resources.

Movement:
There’s a great deal of running around in The Black Mirror. You can
significantly reduce the amount of time spent waiting for Samuel to
reach a room exit by double left-clicking on the exit icon and sometimes
trim the number of rooms or regions he must traverse with judicious
use of the game map found in the Black Mirror library in Chapter I.
(This isn’t available at all in Chapter III or Chapter VI and you’re
prevented from using it in certain portions of the other chapters.)

Standalone puzzles:
Two of the game’s stand-alone puzzles — the solar system puzzle in
Chapter I and the sliding-tile puzzle in Chapter III — rely in some
part on the player’s own knowledge. That is, you can’t find the answers
within the game.

These solutions require
in one instance familiarity with the identity and positions of the
planets and in the other the ability to identify and place in sequence
astrological signs.

A lot of folks probably
know this stuff. But not all folks or all the stuff. Hence, at the
appropriate spots in the walkthrough, I’ve included links to web pages
that prominently feature the [then] nine planets and 12 zodiac signs.

Time sensitivity:
Every so often, you’ll encounter a timed sequence: killing the dark
wolf at the end of Chapter II, presenting your credentials to the
caretaker at the beginning of Chapter III and escaping your bonds
and distracting James in Chapter IV.

In each case, you’ll have
a window to select the appropriate item. This isn’t particularly hard,
but it’s useful to know that a clock is running.

There are also two or three
brief timed waits when Samuel tries to sneak into the asylum in Chapter
IV: the first for the furnace attendant to reach outside for a sedative-laced
beer and the second for him to fall asleep.

(The third wait may or
may not surface when you try to remove an iron bar from the window
beside the furnace-room door. It depends on how you handle the puzzle.)

Waiting:
Some other plot points appear time sensitive, but aren’t. At several
points in the game, Samuel must ask third parties for help with certain
tasks. And then Samuel must wait — in Chapter II for Dr. Hermann
to develop Samuel’s photos and for Mark to make a key, in Chapter
III for the chemist Richard to research the meaning of the chapel
inscriptions and in Chapter V for Father Frederick to search church
records for the final resting place of Lothar Gordon.

It may seem as though actual
waiting is required in these instances. But if you go that route,
the wait will take forever. If Samuel sits on his hands, the non-player
character will never respond with the information or item required.

A clock isn’t actually
running in those instances. The game here simulates the passage of
time by monitoring the player’s movements and you can run out each
of these waits quickly by moving Samuel to certain locations.

Death:
In Chapter II, Samuel can electrocute himself shortly after he enters
the Old Mines and be eaten by a wolf immediately after he escapes.
In Chapter III, he can lose his head in Dergham Gordon’s tomb. In
Chapter IV, James will bury Samuel alive if you don’t act fast. In
the catacombs in Chapter VI, Samuel can fall into a pit and, in two
spots, get a blade through the head. In each case, you’ll then get
a rather neat 3D cut scene in which the camera zooms in on Samuel’s
gravestone.

It’s easy enough to avoid
most of these bad ends through common sense and careful gameplay,
but clicks sometimes miss their target … and, in Chapter VI, you
have no advance warning that what you’re doing is potentially deadly.
You’ll spare yourself potential frustration if you save your game
on a regular basis in those sequences.

Inescapable situations:
The Black Mirror’s good about not stranding the player … except
in one spot. If you leave the Old Mine at the end of Chapter II without
a bullet in your gun, you -will- die.

Red herrings:
The game offers a few false leads — among them referenced items that
never turn up (the report on William’s death mentioned in Chapter
II), story elements that remain adrift (the goal of Robert’s experiments),
a prominent container that appears unlock-able but can’t be unlocked
(the chest against the rear wall of Williams’ study in Chapter I)
and items and locations that promise interactivity but never deliver
(the fountain and test tubes in Chapter III).

Don’t get hung up on them.
You won’t find solutions to any of these problems.

Plot holes:
Lots of these. Seemingly by design, the game rarely lays out of the
meaning of a given event in plain language. This can be confusing.
I’ve done my best to interpret these events and sort out contradictions.
(In places, I’ve probably over-interpreted them.)

The walkthrough:
This is version 1.0. It was assembled using the US edition of the
game (1.0en) published by by Dreamcatcher in 2003.

Why write 87 single-spaced
pages about a five-year-old adventure game? A couple of reasons. I’ve
written guide books and have been looking for ways to expand upon
the traditional format. And because I had all kinds of questions about
The Black Mirror. When I couldn’t find satisfying answers online,
I decided to answer them myself. It sort of snowballed from there
— to the point where the walkthrough became more of reverse-engineered
game design document.

Contact:
Your comments and corrections are welcome. You can write to me at
.

Copyright:
This document is copyright 2008 by Peter Olafson. You may not sell
it, distribute it, modify it, excerpt it (except for “fair use” purposes
in news coverage), edit it or publish it in any fashion without my
prior written consent.

Chapter
I: return of the future …

This chapter is notably
more complex, dense with optional things to do and less linear in
structure than the five that follow it, so I’m handling it a bit differently.

Below you’ll find two separate
walkthroughs: a stripped-down approach in “Just the Essentials” (for
players who want to cut to the chase already) and a vastly expanded
one in “The Long Form (for players who want to know how everything
works).

Just
the Essentials

The over-arching mission
here is getting Samuel into his grandfather William’s locked and barred
study. You can start on this task straightaway — though you won’t
be able to complete it until you finish the chapter’s other key threads.
(In fact, the most efficient route — it reduces somewhat the running
back and forth — would be to wait until Bates shows you a strange
symbol on the castle wall and then combine clearing the boards from
the study door with the task of extracting film from your uncle Robert’s
locked chest.)

The tower is reached via
the attic. Drop down one screen from your starting position, climb
the stairs, and head right along the balustrade to the old wing. The
door to the attic is in that room’s right rear corner.

It’s locked. But trying
the door allows you to ask Bates about the attic key, which you can’t
find on your own. It’s hanging to the right of the cellar door in
the kitchen.

In the attic, try the chest
against the back wall to the left of the entrance to learn it’s also
locked and the study door all the way at the other end to learn you
can’t remove the boards by hand.

These respective actions
permit you to ask your uncle Robert for his chest key (after you’ve
collected your camera; see “The symbol” section below for details)
and to take the hammer from the drawer of the work table in the stable.

The boards gone, try the
study door once to learn it’s locked and then a second time for Samuel
to mention checking with his grandmother Victoria about the key.

Victoria’s ticked off you
brought it up and sends you packing. Ask Bates for his advice — an
apology — and then deliver on it and you’ll learn the key is history
but that William may have had another. Consult Dr. Hermann and he’ll
agree to send a messenger to the front gate with William’s belongings.
They conceal a riddle which leads to the study key.

You’ll be transported to
the gate automatically when the bells ring at the Warmhill church.
But to get to that church, you need to complete three additional parallel
plot threads at the castle (one of which we’ve already touched upon),
pick up four additional items and then pay a visit to the village
of Willow Creek.

Except for the visit to
the village, all these tasks can be performed at any point in your
attempt on the study door. (You can’t visit Willow Creek until after
you’ve completed the three threads and have all the items.)

Those items:

– the map from table in
the middle section of the library,

– the pills and wallet
from the suitcase in your room

– and the candies from
the bowl in the dining room.

The remaining threads:

– find and record a strange
symbol on the castle wall,

– find and follow up on
a “strange object” in the bushes nearby

– and reassemble and follow
up on a torn-up photograph found in the fireplace in the old wing.

The symbol:
This is the thread you can combine with clearing the way to William’s
study.

At the front left corner
of the castle, look at the bent section of fence where William’s body
landed. Then ask Bates about “the place of William’s death.” He’ll
lead you outside and point out a “strange spot” on the wall above.
Look at the “stain” beside the casement window and click on it. Samuel
then says he should record it.

You’ll need the camera
from the dresser in your room upstairs. Use the key Bates provided
at the start to unlock its door. Try the locked bottom drawer of your
dresser and then retrieve (with a right-click) the key from atop the
doorframe.

Camera in hand, talk to
your uncle Robert about film and he’ll offer some of his own. If you’ve
already tried to open Robert’s chest in the attic, you’ll also be
able to ask for the chest key immediately. (If not, you’ll have to
try to open the chest and then return to Robert.) Use the film on
the camera and use the camera on the symbol to take your snapshot.
Return to Robert and ask about developing the film.

The strange object:
Also right-click on the shrubs to the right of the symbol to retrieve
a “strange object.” Talk to Bates, who refers you to the gardener
Henry. Henry confesses he found a similar piece nearby, pawned it
in Willow Creek and misplaced the receipt. Be sure to follow up on
the “bill of exchange” topic.

The torn-up photograph:
Right-click on the fireplace in the old wing to retrieve the pieces
of a torn-up photo. Right-click on them in your inventory to reassemble
them. (See “The Long Form” for some advice on the solution.) After
you’ve unbarred and then twice tried the door to William’s study,
ask Victoria about the picture and she’ll identify its subject. Run
the picture by Robert as well — a second time after Victoria identifies
its subject — and he’ll say it looks like a patient.

If you’ve done everything
above, you can now highlight the village on your map.

Willow Creek:
Move right across the river and try the pawn shop door. Then talk
to the child Vick in front of the Three Kegs Inn, respond positively
when he asks if you have candy and run through all his topics. Enter
the inn, talk to the proprietor Harry about “what’s new” and then
twice “about the pub” and then to the patron Tom about “debt.” Talk
to Harry again about “debt” and “pay off the debt” and then to Tom
again about “debt” and “Mark.” Now you can highlight the Warmhill
church on your map.

Warmhill Vicarage:
Head all the way right and talk to the grave-digger. Run through all
his topics, then visit the rear of the graveyard and click on William’s
gravestone. Return to the grave-digger and ask after Father Frederick
a second time. The bell tolls and Samuel automatically returns to
Black Mirror’s main gate to meet Dr. Hermann’s messenger Mark.

Black Mirror:
Collect the box Mark leaves behind, right-click on it in inventory
to extract a watch and again on the watch to extract a riddle. Once
you’ve read it, enter the rear section of the library and activate
the quill on William’s work table. Take the box of model planets from
the secret cabinet in the corner and use them on the rim of the globe
in the room’s middle section. Place them correctly (see “The Long
Form” for the solution) to reveal the key to William’s tower study.

In the study, open the
rolltop desk and take the chess piece and the music box from the desktop.
From the drawer, take the book. Right-click on the book to find a
hidden key. Right-click on the front of the drawer to find William’s
diary. Use the small key to unlock the chest on the right side of
the room and take the strange sphere within. Right-click on the chess
piece in your inventory to reveal a little knife. Use the knife to
lift the latch on the study door and step through the doorway into
the attic.

The
Long Form

When the introduction ends,
you’ll find Samuel outside the common room in an upper corner of Black
Mirror’s main hall. We’ll make a survey of the house and grounds
and then zero in on your key discoveries.

Samuel’s inventory
is as good a place to start as any. You’ll find here the bedroom
key he received from Bates and William’s “mourning card.”

The key can find a use
almost immediately. After he leaves the common room, Samuel’s
inner monologue suggests a visit to his bedroom. You’ll eventually
need to collect three items from that second-floor chamber, but none
of them are required at this early stage of the game.

And the mourning card?
You won’t touch it until Chapter III, when it’ll help
get you past a pair of locked entrances. For now, it’s just
a curiosity. This is apparently how Samuel learned of William’s
death. (When Samuel finally talks to Victoria in the common room,
he’ll refer to the card as “the Mourning letter”
in the “about myself” topic.)

I drew a blank on “mourning
card” myself and turned up this nugget in the online archive
of Ancestry Magazine (at http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=152):

“Funeral cards
have a long history … These cards were to be distributed to family
members, friends, and the surrounding community in a timely manner
to alert invitees to the date and time of the funeral. Recipients
of a funeral card were expected to attend the funeral or risk offending
family members.”

The article goes on to
report the cards are no longer used. In the modern era, they’ve
been replaced by obituaries and death notices. So how is it they are
used in The Black Mirror, which is set in the spring of 1981? (You’ll
learn the year from William’s gravestone at the end of Chapter
I and the season from the diary you’ll subsequently find in
William’s study.)

Ah. It’s just another
element of the timelessness of the game world, described on page 17
of the manual in the preamble to “First Five Minutes of Gameplay”:

“In the town
of Willow Creek and nearby Black Mirror Manor, everything looks as
it did a hundred years ago. There are no paved roads, no prefabricated
houses and no cars. The roads are cobbled, the houses are made of
stone and look dilapidated, and instead of cars the local inhabitants
drive wooden carts or coaches. There aren’t many who would wish
to live in the middle of nowhere, and strangers seldom come here …”

Allusions to this odd state
of affairs surface several times in this chapter and spottily thereafter.
These include Samuel’s question to the servant Bates about “castle
Black Mirror,” Robert’s replies to Samuel’s questions
about “Black Mirror” and “what’s new,”
Dr. Hermann’s note to Robert (which you’ll find upstairs
in the magazine rack outside Robert’s study), the portrait of
Dergham Gordon in the common room (in an oblique way) and the appearance
of a broken-down carriage in the Black Mirror stables. But it’s
never explained in down-to-earth terms — perhaps because there is
no earthly way to explain it. (The closest the game comes is in Robert’s
reply to Samuel’s inquiry about the castle’s state of
disrepair. See the “Robert’s study” section below.)

Much of the manor is open
to you initially. Some areas require keys (the attic and William’s
study), others open after certain events (the common room and the
greenhouse) and some require completion of a series of events plus
the map from the castle library (the village of Willow Creek and the
Warmhill church). Still others will have to wait for later chapters:
the cellar (Chapter II) and Robert’s study (Chapter V). (You never
do get inside Victoria’s bedroom, but she’ll talk to you
through a crack in the door in Chapter V.)

No particular route is
forced on the player for much of this first chapter. That is, you
can work on the chapter’s four major threads in parallel or in almost
any order. (“Almost” because you’ll have to complete three
threads before you can complete the fourth: entering William’s study.)

Initially, Samuel’s
stated goal is to decide whether to remain at the family home. His
grandmother Victoria requests as much at the tail end of the intro
and your uncle Robert raises the question in his first in-game speech.
Clearly this was designed to give Samuel some time to wander about
his former home and form impressions about what happened to his grandfather.

Samuel says before leaving
the common room that he needs some time to put his thoughts in order
before he decides. But it doesn’t take long and Samuel seems
to reach this decision invisibly. He can declare twice in this chapter
— right away to Robert and later to Victoria — that he returned
to Black Mirror only for William’s funeral.

And that’s the last
you’ll hear about Samuel moving back into his old room and unfurling
his old soccer pennants. Early in the first chapter, his goal changes
to investigating William’s death. More on this rather awkward
transition under “the library” section below.

The
Ground Floor

The
main hall: There’s a lot going on here. We’ll
start with the butler Bates.

When you leave the common
room, this old family retainer temporarily vanishes from the game.
But once you enter the part of the hall closest to the front door
(down one screen from your starting position), he’ll reappear in an
upper corner of this large three-section chamber. You’ll find him
dusting the mantel of the fireplace beside the library entrance —
one screen to the left of your starting position.

Talk to him. Right off
the bat, you can ask after Robert, the castle and Bates himself. He’ll
reveal that there is something oddly oppressive about the place —
a sense Samuel shares — and that Robert is behaving oddly (though
he’s too decorous to put it that way). Your uncle doesn’t come
home some nights — apparently owing to his commitments at a place
called Ashburry — and no longer allows Bates into his study.

And that’s not the
end of Robert’s strangeness. See the “Hallway” and
“Robert’s study” entries in “The Second Floor”
section below.

Check in with Bates on
a regular basis. He is a regular fountain of information. If you:
a) talk to Robert about the state of the castle, b) click on the fireplace
in your room upstairs, c) try the locked attic door, d) reassemble
the torn-up photograph from the fireplace in the old wing, e) try
to remove the boards blocking the door to William’s tower study, f)
click on the spot outside where William’s body landed or g) find the
“strange object” in the bushes nearby …

… Bates can: a) try to
steer you away from exploring the castle’s old wing (unless
you’ve already visited it), b) indicate he’ll light a fire for
you (and eventually does; see the “Samuel’s room” entry
in “The Second Floor” section below for details), c) direct
you to the attic key (with an attendant request to return it when
you’re done), d) report that the man pictured doesn’t look familiar,
e) refer you to the stable for tools and explain why the study door
is barred, f) lead you out of the house to the bent section of fence
at the castle’s left front corner and point out a “strange spot”
on the castle wall or g) suggest you turn the object over to the detective
Collier (which can’t be done) and finally direct you to the
gardener Henry.

Topics c), f) and g) are
all necessary to make progress in the game.

Note that, unlike other
characters in this chapter, Bates moves around a good deal. After
he leads you outside to the bent section of fence below the tower,
he moves from the main-hall fireplace to the kitchen. If you ask him
to light a fire in your room and then leave the house (using any of
the three doors, but not the map you’ll find in the library),
you’ll find him emerging from your room when you next approach Samuel’s
bedroom. (After this event, he assumes his previous position in the
main hall or kitchen.)

This hall — consisting
of the starting location outside the common room, the fireplace screen
to the left and the front-door screen below — is the hub for your
exploration of the house and grounds. And, once you acquire the map
(see “The library” section below), it’s your destination
point when traveling to the castle. When you click on the castle,
you’ll appear just inside the front door.

After the common-room conclave
at the start, the hall is also the closest thing to a family gathering
place. In addition to Bates’s appearance here in Chapter I, you’ll
find Victoria on the sofa at the beginning of Chapter II and Victoria
and Bates at the start of Chapter IV. (If you click on the sofa to
the right of the fireplace now, you’ll also learn the late William
liked to read the paper here.)

And it’s the locus
for a lot of the castle’s strangeness. The “monolith” at
the hall’s center is the castle’s founding stone. It’s “charged
with a peculiar kind of energy” and surrounded with a ring of
old symbols. If you move over by the fireplace, you can click on the
symbols. Samuel says no one knows what they mean.

Now, cryptic symbols and
a stone charged with energy of any kind would seem to beg further
investigation. But not here. This location never comes into play.
It’s used just to set the creepy mood.

Odds & ends: There’s
a little inconsistency here. Read the plaque on the monolith. Samuel
reports that the castle’s founding stone was laid in 1206. But
in Chapter V, he indicates construction started in 1121.

Same deal with the vines
or snakes that spiral around the columns that flank the front door
and the support poles for the pale green lights that flank the gap
in the low wall around the central monolith. You’ll also find
this motif on the lights just inside the library entrance, the three
lamps in the common room, the bedposts in Samuel’s room and,
much later, on the columns in the secret chapel beneath the castle.
There’s something vaguely predatory and tentacle-like about
them — consistent with the oppressive environment Bates mentions.

Finally, note the huge
paintings of past Gordons in the two upper corners: good-guy Marcus
Gordon above the big fern at the starting point and, more particularly,
his bad-guy brother Mordred above the fireplace.

These set the stage for
the appearance of a significant painting in Robert’s study in
Chapter V. But there are all kinds of things going on with the latter
portrait — few of which will make any sense right now.

Mordred appears bathed
in a pale green light and surrounded by a strange glow. These are
the effects of a nearby light source. You’ll learn about the
source in Chapter II, but you won’t actually see it until Samuel
has a vision in Chapter V. (This lighting scheme involves some artistic
license, as, logically, it doesn’t quite work. The light source
would have to be behind Mordred to produce the corona effect, but
in front of him for him to be bathed in light.)

Also check out the strange
ornament Mordred wears atop his head. It’s similar to the mouse
pointer. You’ll see this again in Chapter II (when you’ll
find something similar) and then repeatedly throughout the remainder
of the game.

The backdrop is drawn from
the secret chapel beneath Black Mirror. Victoria will mention this
location later in the chapter if you ask her about the castle.

The two dogs that flank
Mordred also flank the entrance to the common-room door and what appears
to be a miniature of one can be found on the table in front of the
picture of Jeremy Gordon in the front section of the library.

Odds & ends: And
was something more planned for the paintings themselves? The game
treats certain pictures at Black Mirror in a different fashion from
other interactive objects … but to no clear end.

Most hotspots in the
backdrops are interactive only in the first chapter in which they
appear. (Exceptions are objects or locations that change state owing
to the rainy weather or the time of day. We’ll see these in
chapters II and III.)

But four paintings
at Black Mirror — those of Marcus and Mordred Gordon in the main
hall, William’s watercolor in the greenhouse and the portrait
of Jeremy Gordon in the library — are interactive in every chapter
in which you’re able to reach them. And a click on three of
those pictures (Marcus, Mordred and the watercolor) yields on each
occasion a close-up view of the painting.

One close-up I understand.
Marcus and Mordred will turn out to be key characters in the backstory.
But why repeated close-ups … unless something is observably changing
in the paintings from chapter to chapter?

It’s an intriguing
idea — rather like the premise of M.R. James’s short story
“The Mezzotint” — but there’s no evidence to support
it. The viewable portraits are the same in Chapter V as they are at
the beginning of Chapter I.

Other hotspots: the
chair just to the right of the door to the library, the fireplace,
the Gordon coat of arms above it, the door to the right of the front
door and the little table just left of the common-room door.

A couple of notes on
these last two locations. The door is purely ornamental. This former
entrance to the castle’s old wing has been sealed off. You can
reach the old wing on the second floor.

And Bates allegedly
deposits the family’s mail on the little table. However, nothing ever
appears here. The parcel that turns up in Chapter I and the letter
in Chapter IV must be collected personally out at the main gate.

One last note. Check out
the crossed-swords motif on the wall between the fireplace and the
sofa. You’ll find a sword just like this one in the final chapter.

The common room:
Located behind the right-hand door at your starting location, and
initially off limits.

Most of the people who
were gathered here have scattered — your uncle Robert to his study
upstairs, family friend Dr. Heinz Hermann to the ground-floor library
and the butler Bates to the main hall — while your grandmother Victoria
remains behind to think her sad thoughts. You won’t be able to speak
to her here until after you’ve twice tried the unbarred door
to William’s study. Thereafter, the room remains open to you. (Nothing
further happens at this location in-game, but you’ll make a
non-interactive appearance here at the end of Chapter III.)

No take-able or use-able
items can be found here, but, once you get inside, click on the horse
statue and the plaque below for a brief evocation of better days.
(The estate still maintains two horses and a groom. Check the stable
to the left of the castle.)

The Henry VIII-like fellow
in the picture on the far wall is Dergham Gordon. You’ll find
a way into his tomb in Chapter III.

And if you linger here
long enough, the clock below the painting will eventually chime a
random number of times. This is just a nice adornment and has no meaning.
Most of the time, the game doesn’t keep track of time.

Other hotspots: the
small cabinet below Dergham’s portrait and the magazine on the
table to the right of Victoria.

The library:
This is reached by heading left from your starting position to the
fireplace and then through the door.

You’ll find Dr. Hermann
scanning the shelves to the left of the entrance. He has one topic
at the start: William.

Use it and, straight off,
Samuel tells him he doesn’t believe William’s death was
an accident.

And why not? Well, that’s
something of a puzzle. This assertion comes out of nowhere. At this
stage, we have no reason to think Samuel has any basis for doubting
the cause of death. Our protagonist seems to have placed the cart
of his suspicions before the horse of an investigation.

Consider: Samuel doesn’t
raise any such concerns in the intro. No one has told him about the
circumstances of William’s death or the discovery of his body.
(In fact, you’ll never get an account of the latter. Bates might
have offered one when he takes Samuel to the spot where William died,
but Samuel takes pity on the old retainer and doesn’t push the
subject.) He hasn’t talked to the authorities or questioned
anyone at the castle. He probably hasn’t seen the spot where
William died or the room from which he fell. He hasn’t read
his grandfather’s urgent letter or learned about his reclusive
behavior.

And he hadn’t been
in touch with William in 12 years, so even if he’d done his
homework, he wouldn’t be in the best position to judge whether
the death was an accident, suicide or something more sinister.

To be sure, Samuel will
do his homework in this first chapter. And the death is indeed suspicious.
But shouldn’t there be some event or discovery early in the
game to make Samuel suspicious?

Odds & ends: This
isn’t an isolated event. Something similar can occur if Samuel
asks Robert about William and does occur when he finds the spot where
William died.

In the former case,
Samuel declares he doesn’t believe the death was an accident,
“let alone suicide.” In the latter, he says, “I
won’t leave before I find out the truth” — assuming that
an unknown truth is out there to be found. All this may make you think
you’ve missed some critical discovery or epiphany. But no. It’s
just a gap in the story.

The doctor concedes the
circumstances are “strange.” He appears to discount the
notion of suicide — as does Samuel in conversation with Robert —
and to raise the possibility of foul play via the disclosure of unusual
marks on the corpse: “numerous deeply burned areas, I have no
clue as to their origin.”

However, it’s a short
chat. Hermann’s uncomfortable talking about his friend in the
wake of the service, and assures Samuel he’ll reveal “everything”
the next day when you visit Hermann at the morgue. Samuel then tells
himself that Hermann knows something.

Odds & ends: Does
Hermann in fact know something more? Samuel says he does, but, taken
at face value, the exchange suggests Hermann just wants to get off
an uncomfortable topic. (You don’t talk about the autopsy right
after the funeral.)

In any case, the burns
are an intriguing dead-end. When you talk to Hermann in the morgue
in Chapter II, he refers to his report on William’s death and mentions
the burns again with barely any elaboration.