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The Fogged Mirror

A small horror game built in Rive for the Rive Halloween Challenge: squeegee a steamed-up bathroom mirror while something crawls up behind you, and kill the light before it reaches your shoulder.

Split view of the same arched bathroom mirror: on the left fully steamed over; on the right wiped in bands, with a pale drowned face with black wet hair leaning in at one shoulder

You have to clean the mirror. You don’t have to like what’s in it.

An old bathroom at night, a steamed-up mirror and one light switch. You squeegee the glass to see the room behind you, and something crawls towards you while you do. Kill the light before it reaches your shoulder, then wait in the dark until it stops breathing.

It’s one of my four entries for the Rive Halloween Challenge, and it went from a first version to these screenshots between 6 and 11 October.

The arched bathroom mirror mid-wipe: two clear bands showing a dark doorway behind you, drips running down from the lower edge — The blade clears the whole band it sweeps and drips from its lower corner.

It crawls

A door creaks, two eyes catch the light in the far doorway, and from then on it’s coming: round the door, across the floor, up to your shoulder. The timing is fixed, so you can learn it. About seven seconds from the creak in the first reflection, under five by the third. Wipe fast and it comes faster.

Four frames from the mirror: eyes in the doorway, a figure coming round the door, crawling right behind you, and a pale face with black wet hair at your shoulder — One crawl in four stops. It only moves while the light is on.

The dark isn’t safe either. Switch off and it stops where it is, and after a long quiet it breathes on the glass from the other side. When a breath doesn’t come, it’s gone.

The bathroom in darkness, the mirror black except for a small patch of fog where something breathed on it — Count the breaths.

What it leaves

Turn the light back on and the mirror has misted over again, with two handprints where it stood. Only the skin that touched the glass cleared it, so you get fingertips, pads and the heel of the hand, and the hollow of the palm stays fogged. From its second visit, it writes.

The word MINE written in shaky capitals in the fog above two handprints, water running down from each — Written from the inside.

A real bathroom

The bathroom is a Blender scene, rendered and baked into layers: the room, the reflection behind the glass, a foreground for the tap and everything on the counter, and the light switch in its off position. Rive slots the fog, the water and the visitor in between, so the toothbrushes stay sharp in front of the glass and the visitor is only ever behind it.

Four layers of the bathroom render: the room, the reflection behind the glass, the foreground objects on their own, and the room again with the switch flipped down — Four layers, one bathroom.

Before and after: on the left a flat dark-green cartoon bathroom with a pixelated fogged mirror and a column of instructions; on the right the tiled bathroom with the arched brass mirror — 6 October and 11 October. Same idea, different bathroom.

The other three

The rest of my Halloween entries: Hollow, a pumpkin you really carve, Séance, a talking board that answers back, and Knock Knock, a peephole you shouldn’t trust. All four are in the Rive Halloween Challenge on Contra.

The Fogged Mirror

It crawls

What it leaves

A real bathroom

The other three

More projects

Hollow

Séance

Knock Knock