Mirror Mirror

[Bukarett]

Review time!​

*ignites the fireworks!*​

Alright, I finished the game, and I thought Im going to write a  (super long) short review. I would like to start with the fact that I am not trying to bash on you nor discourage you from creating games. You got potential and I would love to see it flourished. Please don't take this in a negative way, but rather a constructive one.

SPOILERS! Duh! 

Spoiler

To organized my thoughts, I separated everything into different categories, I hope you don't mind. ​

Story ​

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I'm not sure where to start with this, but your story doesn't hold together, it's very random and jumps from one place to another. At first your home, then school and KA-BOOM, a little girl gets hit by lightning! It seemed like a cool idea at first, but that all it was. Buki didn't add anything to the story. One of the most distressful things that I found was when Shio found Mizaki trying to commit suicide, what the characters did after saving her astonished me. They just let her go, didn't call the ambulance, didn't talk to her about her problems, didn't do anything. As a stressed young girl, she could've just committed a suicide again, once she left the school grounds! You never let the person who was just trying to take her/his life away be alone for a second after the incident! Not only that, when a student suddenly gets his head cut off in the middle of the school roof, there is no way of just leaving his body there and nonchalantly going back to class! What is wrong with people there? Why no one said anything to the teachers? Why the school wasn't suspended? Police wasn't reported? The main character was surprised that Rika was sad after seeing her friends head being cut off? I would be devastated! Not sad! There should be some post traumatic reaction there! All that made this better was a flower and four-leaf clover. Really? This is not how people act. Whenever you write your characters out try to put yourself in their shoes, and you will see that this is not the reaction you will get. There is so many situations in this game that I can pull out, point and say, this is not appropriate way to act in this situation. Shio walking up in a random house, his instinct should't be to approach the person who dragged him there, but to run and get the hell out. He didn't know if he was kidnapped!

Enough about that though, lets change the subject to the actual story. I really did not like the fact that nothing was explained, I got all 3 endings and nothing was resolved. We don't know why Kyoya was trying to kill her, why all these things were happing to Shio. Nothing. Nada. I'm speculating that it has something to do with the story found in his house. What I would suggest, before relicensing the game, is to let people play test it and see if they understand the story how you intended to be understood. If thats not that case, then change it, it's as simple as that. I liked where this was going, it could've been something great, it really could, but it wasn't told right, rather it wasn't told at all.

This is just my personal advice, but before writing a story for the game next time, how about first starting with a very short summarization. It helps a lot to see your plot in the most simplistic form, to later be able to expand on it. What also helps a ton is to write your story in points on small notecards, then arranging them in chronological order. You'll see if the story works fluently, if not you can always rearrange the notecards and look at it from a different perspective. You can always add and subtract some events and you'll be able to look at it as a whole rather than specific events.

Mapping and Graphics​

Your mapping wasn't all that bad, a little bit bare, but thats would be my only concern. There was couple minor problems, with the bed in the mansion, bathroom and I found that you can walk on top of the door in the cafeteria. All of these are minor mistakes that can be easily fix though. In the main protagonists room your missing corners of the walls, I'm not sure whats up with that, but I think its a tiling problem. I really liked the face sets that you created for the characters, all the different expressions and that they were original rather than RTP frankensteins. Its nice to see original art, and kudos to you for creating cutscenes as well! Those were really nicely done.

Music​

There is almost no music throughout the game, and it was lacking in certain places. I would recommended to add some, because when I was stuck looking for an item or just wondering about it was very quite and almost drove me mad. Music adds to the atmosphere and I think it would add a bit more horror aspect to this game if it was done right. There are many royalty free songs that would work here. I did enjoy the music you added though, like when Rika is sitting on the bench and your trying to find an item to cheer her up, that was a really good choice for this scene, it worked quite well.

Puzzles and Gameplay​

Ah, There weren't much of them and you mentioned that in your post, but the ones there were they were very scattered. Some made sense, some were puzzles that you would find in classic adventure games, really, really out of place. For example when your trying to open a door in the library, and your looking for Axe. You made everything available, you can go outside, to your house, to Kyoya mansion, literately everywhere, except for roof and couple classrooms. I was sure that I'm going to find something on the roof, since there were a lot of tools there from the construction, but surprisingly found an axe in a random locker makes you wonder who the hell goes to this school? The school garden was very random as well and it took me almost half an hour to find this four-leaf clover. The game needs more hints and direction. I would get rid of the map to the school as well, its a nice add-on, but it didn't do much. The school is pretty easy to find without it.

There is also an error I found, whenever your going back to the mansion the last time, Kyoya is still in the kitchen, I was trying to talk to him to give his book back, but later realized that if you go to secret room downstairs the story progresses there. I think you should get rid of this extra senpai there.

CONCLUSION​

Altogether its not a bad game, its just need a lot of fixing and polishing it up. You need to revise it and make it better, so it will be worth sitting next to the other great RPG Maker Horror games.

I know a lot of people mentioned it, but please fix your grammar, a new sentence should start with capital letters. I make a TON of typos and spelling errors and I know how it is, but your final product should not have these. Have someone revise it, Im sure there are many people on this forum who would be glad to proofread this for you.

I started a new tradition whenever I will review a game, I will also make a small sketch as a thank you. After all, you did something I haven't accomplished yet and that is created your own game, and kudos to you. Good luck and I will be looking forward to more games from you. 

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[Shelby]

Ah this was a interesting experience. the mapping and sound errors ruined the game for me. The English errors didn't help either. I had to deal with invisible walls and doors to maps to hat didn't show them and no sound effect when you went to new rooms most of the time.

These are simple mistakes to fix, would you like some help fixing all these errors?

 

[cutiecai]

Bukarett, thank you for that very long review! I really appreciate it. Yes, the story is very implicit. I overdid it. I will give more clues next time, and I will improve the flow of the story. Thank you also for telling me what you think about the mapping, the music and the puzzles. I have noted your suggestions down, and I will use them to improve my game. Unfortunately, I do not have time to make a new version of Mirror Mirror right now, but I definitely will someday. Also, thank you for the sketch :')

Shelby, I'm sorry to hear about how the errors ruined the game for you I will fix these errors when I have time