The Beard in the Mirror

This is the second point and click game that I've played in the last year along with Broken Age since probably the original release of Grim Fandango (Appropriately, I bought this game at the Retrogamecon where this game fit right in). The two games couldn't be more different in story, but where Broken Age had a much larger production budget and a lot more flash to it, you find that isn't as necessary with these types of adventures as long as you enjoy the journey. I loved the old Sierra games when I was a kid, and I felt right at home when I loaded this game up and played through. The story itself would have been right at home in that era if not for some of the more modern influences/reflections (Which don't detract from the story). The story itself isn't flashy, and it's not meant to be. I've read some reviews and some people are expecting Lucasarts-in-their-prime level storytelling from a 2 person development team, but that would be a mistake. The charm in this game is that it feels like the story has a personal connection to the developer, and I think that comes across really well. I hope we get to see more from this team, and learn more about Paul's story.

Στα [+] • Η ιστορία δέν είναι κακή, κάποιοι γρίφοι είναι έξυπνοι καί μερικοί διάλογοι καλογραμμένοι. Στα [-] • Ερασιτεχνικά γραφικά, κακοφτιαγμένες καί άδειες εικόνες, χωρίς ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον. • Συνηθισμένοι καί απλοικοί κατά κανόνα γρίφοι. • Εκνευριστικά καί άσκοπα φλύαρο. Αν χρονομετρήσει κανείς τήν διάρκεια τών διαλόγων καί τήν διάρκεια τής κίνησης τού ήρωα, τής εξερεύνησης τών χώρων, τών δοκιμών μέ τά αντικείμενα τού inventory κλπ. κλπ. δράσης, η αναλογία θά είναι γύρω στά 3-5 πρός 1! Βαθμολογία: 1,5/5 http://adventures-index10.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-beard-in-mirror-lizo-paul-tba-home.html

I would give a sideways review if they were available, as this seems like a true labor of love, a tribute to a lost age of gaming and not a terrible experience. OTOH, I couldn't get myself to finish it. The story was pretty trite and the graphics were jarring (a really bad color palate). I smiled a few times but in the end I just didn't think it was very good. It was competent though, and I would say to the devs not to give up if they are still making games.

💋

I decided to upvote this game after finishing it - it has a decent (but not very engaging) story with some charming moments, mostly good puzzles and great music. The Beard in the Mirror is a fantasy adventure game made by 2 people over a long time: it's a work of love but it's a work that was done on limited resources: the artwork could use some additional detail and shading, many things were not animated and many of the scenes were largely empty. The story is a good take on "stranger in a strange land" but there were several points where the solution to puzzles were not very believable. The conversations were all right but there wasn't much depth to the world. There are some funny one-liners. All in all, a good old-school point-and-click adventure, I'm glad I played it but there's not much replay value. Recommended to any fan of the genre. Note: like others mentioned, I ran into issues with the game resolution. Keep in mind, that this is an old AGS adventure so it's display support is not as up-to-date as the current version of AGS. Windowed mode with 4x scaling worked for me; none of the full-screen ones did. If you have issues during start-up, run the winsetup utility that sits in the game folder to configure resolution.