Pixelhunter – Black Mirror Trilogy

From Monkey Island to Sam and Max, the Point and Click genre has been characterised by its humorous games, brightly coloured pixel art and quirky characters. Even Jane Jensen’s supernatural themed Gabriel Knight series featured a wise cracking, buffoonish hack writer, and pure horror games such as Sanitarium are a rare occurrence. Although with Telltale Games adapting the comic sensation that is The Walking Dead and the neat looking indie horror game Home on its way in June, it looks like the horror genre is gaining some ground. A good time to consider Black Mirror, a classic horror adventure series.

The first game, developed by Czech studio Future Games in 2003, introduced the curse of the Gordon family and their ancestral home Black Mirror castle. The player takes the role of Samuel Gordon, a thoroughly dislikeable figure who left his ancestral home in disgrace twelve years prior, only to return for the funeral of his grandfather. A spooky castle containing a portal to hell, a string of bizarre murders, a lunatic asylum run by an aristocratic sadist, and a protagonist suffering severe mental issues ‒ all the elements of a good horror yarn are here, and for the most part the game delivers, its beautifully rendered photorealistic backdrops really piling on the atmosphere. Although, sadly, any tension that develops is largely undone by some truly atrocious voice acting.

German studio Cranberry Productions picked up development duties on the second and third instalments of the trilogy and happily the voice acting was greatly improved, along with the production values and writing in general. Set closer to the present day, Black Mirror II follows Darren, the unfortunate offspring of Samuel Gordon, who has grown up blissfully unaware of his mother’s dark past in New England. For those who have played the original game, fore-knowledge of the Gordon family secret lends the experience a good degree of dramatic irony, as you lead the oblivious, rationalist Darren closer to his inevitable doom and watch as his sanity erodes.

The fact that the first part of the game, set in the sleepy American town of Biddeford, takes so long to unwind gives a real sense of transition between the protagonist’s normal life and the trauma he experiences as his investigations take him ever closer to the supernatural, personal loss and madness. The second half of the game sees Darren travel to Black Mirror and Wales where he attempts to uncover his past, and it’s fascinating to retread the locations from the first game, so similar and yet so different. For instance the creepy asylum has been turned into a guesthouse with the owner cynically and morbidly exploiting the tragic events of Black Mirror to attract tourists. A real highlight though is the game’s utterly absurdist cliff-hanger ending.

The third game, released not too long ago, is also split into two halves. Darren, now possessed by the spirit of his evil ancestor, must first fight to prove his innocence following the string of murders in the second game, before he finally inherits Black Mirror castle and sets off to end the curse once and for all (with the help of a really hot agent from the Vatican). Although the third part delves deeply into the heart of the central Gordon curse, it arguably shines too much light on those nice dark corners of mystery. The ending in particular is far too satisfying to be truly… er, satisfying. Black Mirror as a whole is an entertaining horror yarn that makes a refreshing change with its morbid subject matter and humourless gothic stylings, although the second act is a definite highlight.