Indie horror games can be a fickle bunch, with potential to be a remarkable journey but quite often dragged down by low budgets and lack of polishing. Mirror Forge has an interesting story and the trip comes with intriguing moments, but the seams and cracks are sometimes too visible to ignore. Silent Hill fans may shed a tear or two, Stranger Things aficionados will come up with comparisons to the upside down world, but may also shake their heads in disbelief at some of the choices in display.

Multiverse of Madness

Described as a first-person psychological survival horror game, Mirror Forge follows the tale of Thomas Jackson, a man with a troubled and mysterious past involving a car crash and a tragic event that we’ll have to unearth. You start in your apparently cozy home and it’s your birthday, but when a strange package is delivered at your doorstep, things are set in motion and your day will never be the same. One thing is for sure, there won’t be birthday cake and presents.

In a few minutes you’ll find out that your world is clashing with other realities and, as always, with nasty and gruesome results. Think Silent Hill for a moment, as your newfound storage door will lead you into the depths, surrounded by blood, limbs, and distorted creatures defying explanation. Metallic walkways and strange contraptions abound, as demonic voices whisper cryptic things in your ears. This is not a tour for the faint of heart, not only because of the occasional sense of dread, but also due to the overuse of jumpscares.

Mirror Forge is somewhat effective at instilling a mood of gloom and the macabre, and often goes the full length to make you uncomfortable. Chopped off heads, creepy babies, torture scenes, deformed masses of body parts and more, some are blatantly shoved in your face while others are less prominent but still easy to spot. It’s intentionally disgusting, and it somewhat works in conveying a contrasting and upsetting mixture of worlds.

However, there’s a repeated reliance on jumpscares that cheapens the whole adventure, making you thread carefully in a way that doesn’t contribute to the overall pace of the experience. Scares are fine if created effectively as it sometimes happens in Mirror Forge – a creature passing through a window, a mutilated body crawling through the corridor far ahead; however, you’re likely to get frustrated when you see something briefly running at you with a loud screeching sound for the umpteenth time. It’s not the creature that startles you, but the thunderous sound that suddenly plays and catches you off-guard.

Being story-driven, Mirror Forge displays some clever ideas here and there. One particularly interesting set-piece happens halfway through the story, when you relive your memories and your happy life with your wife, shedding some light into the events that forged your personality. Drip-feeding us here and there, the game effectively fills some blanks and provides a nice change of pace from the current events.

Monster High

From confined spaces to small open areas, there’s a nice diversity of locations to explore and get lost within. Early in the game you’ll get this otherworldly weapon that doesn’t kill the supernatural creatures, only stuns them for a couple of seconds, buying you time to escape their claws. This is not a game about combat at all; it’s about finding your way through notes, with perhaps too much exposition going on, and solving puzzles that vary from mildly entertaining to excessively obvious. Physics are a regular part of the equation, as you pick up and carry items to request locations, sometimes with odd behaviors and glitchy results. This weapon can also be used in some glowing lights to reveal a character from the past and their actions, usually a linear way of knowing what happened to cause this fusion of worlds.

One intriguing section pits you against an invisible – or not quite visible, at least – monster roaming a facility, as you try to retrieve three generators. You must pay close attention to the noises the creature makes and find alternate routes to the objectives, making your way through small corridors and dim-lit areas. On the other end of the spectrum is a frustrating boss battle… or should I saying boss run, as you avoid obstacles and press a decidedly small button to open a door in the nick of time, where any slight error will take you back to the beginning of the section.

Frustration seems to be a recurrent theme in Mirror Forge. Occasionally you’ll be forced to make some jumps across boards or pipes, and when this is done in small areas it usually goes for the worst. Either bumping your head on the ceiling or repeatedly failing to land a jump that seemed easy will get on your nerves and highlights the lack of polish in some areas of the game.

Throughout the adventure you’ll find that the graphics fluctuate from very good, gritty, and disturbing to amateurish and low budget. This is evident in the character models, most of them worthy of a title from the early 2000’s, from the early game hangman to others, with the only standout – read above average – being the young girl that you meet at one point.

The same goes for the voice acting, which is acceptable but goes to cheesy extremes for most of the time, with an unnecessary overuse of profanity to pass the message. It’s bearable, for as long as you aren’t looking for AAA quality acting.

Silent Feels

Mirror Forge is a conflicting low-budget horror game with an ambition bigger than its resources. It’s by and large a decent time for fans with a Silent Hill itch to scratch, with a playtime of roughly six hours. Just make sure that you can withstand the horrors of indie gaming, in every possible sense – from clever ideas to head-scratching concerns, Mirror Forge will throw everything at you, and like the blending worlds you visit, it’s a compelling mess.

Pros

• Captivating atmosphere with Silent Hill and Stranger Things vibes
• Compelling mix of psychological horror and puzzles
• Decent story although with too much unnecessary exposition

Cons

• Lacking polish in various areas
• Most character models scream low budget
• Some jumping sections are frustrating
• Misuse of jumpscares gets annoying

Rating 7/10