I just played the intriguing "The mirror lied", a short and strange RPG game developed by Kan Gao, from Freebird Games. As a developer, myself, I can praise it's charming graphics, it's enjoyable gameplay and it's smoothly bumpy flow, reminiscent of old-school point-and-click games (but never the boring ones). Gao accomplished an atmospheric and involving game, which takes the player to a dreamlike experience, following Leah, the lonely protagonist.
The game takes roughly 20 minutes to end. Although set in a very common and even cozy house, "The mirror lied" is weird, to say the least, and, as I just found, has been the subject of many debates on it's meaning. Someone nicknamed "Katthecat" wrote a very good and comprehensive essay about it.
Gao took himself a part on this debates, to "explain" the game in a short video - all he does is shrugg his shoulders to the viewers, showing an ammused expression.
I guess the best answer on the "meaning" of the game is advanced by a short review on the site "Grinding Down". The work is just "an experiment intently too vague":
However, here, in The Mirror Lied, it all felt like an exercise in simply trying out mechanics and puzzles–nothing more, nothing less. A half-hearted attempt at a narrative to connect everything was provided with Leah, Birdy, and the phone calls, but the rest is left on the back-burner, because it doesn’t matter if you understand what is happening by the end, only that you got there, by figuring out how to unlock drawers, access a computer’s email network, and fill up a bucket with reddish liquid to water your ladder to freedom.
And I would add something more: Gao was probably trying to stir a buzz among indie gamers, in order to promote his masterpiece, "To the moon" (that I did not yet play). And it is fine to be so.
"The mirror lied" makes me think about "Bandersnatch", the interactive episode of the cult Netflix series "Black Mirror". The series itself is too grim, bleak and gloomy to me, but this interactive experiment left me curious. There are many endings, and people around the Internet kept endlessly discussing them and their supposed "meanings". There are many complex and even confuse flowcharts available on Google trying to outline "Bandersnatch".
I must confess the interactive episode felt exciting at first, but the chase for it's differente endings, through many repeated and looping paths soon became boring to me. As to the "meaning" of "Bandersnatch", I think the only way to "win" the challenge is just turning the smartphone off and moving on to some good book.
"Bandersnatch", as I see it, is something like a practical joke or a prank on the viewers, intended to drag as much attention as possible and potential followers for the series. After all, attention is the most precious merchandise in our overconnected world. I must confess that I was only interested in that interactive experience by the overexcited chat about it among my high-school pupils.
Returning to the ingenious and enjoyable game developed by Kan Gao, I can say it made a very good work at creating a vague narrative exquisitely tailored to left the players puzzled after just half an hour (or even less) of gameplay. Quite an accomplishment, for an indie game.
To make my point, I guess both "Bandersnatch" and "The mirror lied" are purposefully "disturbing" and made to leave the public wondering about their respective "meanings" - that can be many or none. In both cases, I dare to say, the mean is the meaning. We, humans, are inclined to search for meaning everywhere - and I believe there are many meaningful thing in this world we live in.
However, many human endeavours are meaningless, by accident or by purpose - which I particularly believe is the case of Mr. Gao intriguing game. Such "meaningless" works of art may feel boring or disturbing just because we want to find not only a meaning but THE meaning, the true, final and unambiguous one. Our questions crave for answers, even if the answers are shoddy or far-fetched.
It is striking that all the interpretations about "The mirror lied" available on the web tend to be allegorical, concerning specially the main features of the game: the characters Leah and Birdy and the constantly watered plant. But are they truly allegories? Can they not be just a girl, a bird and an overgrown potted plant in some bizarre and lonel setting?
As a bad poet, I am fond of allegories and, generally, figurative language, but as a historian, I tend to be very cautious about them. And so, to conclude this reflexion, I quote Tolkien, scholar and novelist, whose point of view about allegories is very keen, accurate and sound:
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of the readers. I think that many confuse applicabiliy with allegory; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the domination of the author.
In an interview about "The Lord of the Rings", the author was even more straight: "It has no allegorical intentions, general, particular, or topical, moral, religious, or political".
And thus I must yet congratulate Mr. Gao as, mischievously shrugging his shoulders to the audience, he abdicates the "domination" of the artist for the sake of the "freedom" (and joy) of the players. "The mirror lied" is a dreamlike game, and, as it goes for dreams, find it's meaning might just ruin it's oniric atmosphere.
And to properly close, "Mischief managed!"
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