Twin Mirror from French video game developer Don’t Nod (Life is Strange) is set in Basswood, West Virginia, a fictional coal town at the brink of economic ruin. You play as Sam Higgs, an investigative reporter.

As a writer for the Basswood Jungle, you exposed unsafe labor practices at the local mine. Because this is a work of fiction, this led to the mine being shut down. Many of the locals blamed you for the resulting job losses. Add a failed relationship to the mix, and you had every reason to leave Basswood in the past.

The only reason you’re back in town is because of the death of your friend and former colleague, Nick. The official cause of death is a car accident, but Nick’s young daughter Joan suspects foul play and implores you to investigate. This is where the game presents you with your first choice: Do you promise Joan that you will look into it?

Like Don’t Nod’s other narrative adventure games, Twin Mirror is played from a third-person camera perspective. The game places you in various settings, many of which you can explore at your leisure before performing the required actions to advance to the next scene. In most cases, that involves solving simple puzzles. There are a couple of action and exploration sequences, but they require no significant player skill.

Long sequences of the game take place in Sam’s powerful imagination (Credit: Don’t Nod. Fair use.)

A rich inner life

Sam has an extraordinary mind. By focusing on a scene, he is able to rapidly piece together disparate clues into a coherent narrative. During these moments, the player is placed in Sam’s “mind palace”, a fragmented reflection of the real world. For example, Sam can imagine multiple versions of Nick’s car accident, until all the clues fit perfectly.

Sam’s inner life comes at a cost to those around him. Throughout the game, you must choose whether to steer Sam towards facts, or towards the people in his life. Central among them are Sam’s ex-girlfriend Anna, and Nick’s daughter Joan.

Twin Mirror is over in about 6 hours, making it one of Don’t Nod’s shortest titles. This isn’t enough time to get to know any of the characters except for Sam, whom some players may find difficult to relate to due to his social and emotional difficulties.

The game does offer the player meaningful choices, which can result in one of five endings. I was satisfied with the ending I received, and felt that it was consistent with my choices. As for the plot, let’s just say that no “mind palace” is required to solve the mysteries of what’s going on in Basswood.

The Verdict

Visually, the game is appealing, but it only offers a couple of genuinely interesting locales. Instead of exploring a vibrant world as in Life is Strange, you spend a lot of the game’s short runtime in Sam’s head.

I would still give the game a weak recommendation if you do like narrative adventure games. However, it is overpriced at its regular price of $30. It frequently plummets into the $5 range, and for fans of the genre, it’s worth picking up at that price.

Outstanding vegan Bavarian food. Everything we had was perfectly executed and tasted delicious. It’s been a long time I enjoyed a restaurant as much as Bodhi.
We had the Buffalo Wings to start with, then the Bodhi Pfanderl and the Enten Braten. We finished with the Mousse au Chocolat. The latter was just divine.
The portions are a good size, service is swift and friendly. There’s really no reason not to go here frequently. It’s probably a good idea to book in advance. The joint was packed when we arrived and without a booking we would have had to wait.

Vegan Buffalo Wings

Bodhi Pfanderl

Possibly the biggest pizza I’ve ever received in a restaurant! Easily enough to share for two people. For less than 14 EUR also very keenly priced, particularly given the city-center location of this place.
The outlet is large and it gets very busy - I’d definitely recommend making a reservation if you’re looking to go for dinner here.
The service was okay given how busy it was when we dined. I enjoyed the pizza and would totally come here again for another one. My friend had a vegan pasta dish, which was also a decent portion and tasted nice.
All in all a good place to dine in the centre of town and at very fair prices - the pizza, pasta, a small water, a glass of wine, and a beer came to less than 40 EUR.

Yikes! Probably the biggest pizza I’ve ever received in a restaurant.

Applewood Vegan Smoky Cheese Alternative

Picked this up a couple of days ago mostly because I hadn’t tried it before. Taste-wise it’s average, not really smokey and creamy like advertised, but okay. Apparently, this was voted “Best Cheese in Canada” in 2021. I feel that, on this occasion, the Canadians are wrong. I’ll try and be polite about it…
I will, however, not buy it again simply because of the inane plastic packaging, which requires professional safe breaker tools to pry open. Why is it that companies so often put their products in difficult to open packaging made out of plastic? My mum, who has arthritis could never open this.

Picked this up during my first bigger shop after coming back to Sweden. It’s not bad. I like the consistency - it’s nicer than that of other vegan cream cheeses. I wish they would do away with the plastic packaging, but overall, I feel that this is a good product, which enhance my breakfast routine.

Philadelphia Plant Based Almond and Oat

Wer viele Serien, Filme und Dokumentationen auf den immer zahlreicher werdenden schaut kann mitunter schnell den Überblick verlieren welche Episoden einer Staffel bereits geschaut wurden oder nicht. Und für genau diesen Fall gibt es einige Dienste im Netz, mit denen diese Sache erledigt werden kann. Mein Dienst der Wahl dafür ist JustWatch.

Gefunden habe ich den Dienst durch die enge Integration mit TheMovieDB. Wer dort eine Serie oder einen Film sucht kann mit einem Klick die Seite oder die (ggf. installierte) App starten und kann sich den aktuellen Stand des Fortschritts anzeigen lassen.

Zusätzlich werden einem allerlei Informationen zu dem Film und den darstellenden Personen angezeigt. Das ist für mich nur schmückendes Beiwerk denn den Dienst nutze ich ausschließlich für den oben genannten Fall. Daher habe ich auch keine Zusatzdienste gebucht und kann zu diesen daher nichts sagen. Neben Android und Apple sind auch noch diverse Fernsehhersteller mit an Bord und ermöglichen eine Integration von JustWatch. Auch hierzu habe ich keine Erfahrungen aber es kann durchaus sinnvoll sein.

Eine der vielen Dienst am Markt für das Tracking von Serien oder Filmen. Auf jeden Fall einen Blick wert.

I finally got to try the vegan version of Sweden’s best loved caviar, Kalles. I never ate the original, because caviar in tubes is such a Swedish thing and I only moved here when I was already vegan. The non-vegan wife says it tastes like the original. Personally, I like it. It’s not too salty, spreads nicely, and genuinely tastes good. It’ll be uplifting my breakfasts from now on. It’s nice to see more and more vegan versions of popular products appear in stores.

A tube of Kalles Vegan

St. Mary’s Forane Church is situated in Chalakudy, Kerala. It belongs to the Syro-Malabar rite of the Catholic Church. It is a beautiful and spiritual place. It also provides many facilities for worship. It has a chapel for worshipping. You can also enjoy the beauty of silence in the chapel, and also pray to God, but quietly. However, the chapel may also contain worshipping by the means of prayer. The church also hosts Holy Mass, which is usually in the morning, and at 5 PM in the evening. During Lent, the church still offers the normal Holy Mass Schedule, and also offers the Holy Mass at 8 PM. To Conclude, this church is a beautiful and a spiritual place to receive, to pray and to worship God. Openstreetmap - https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/618589809

Venus Hotel is situated near the KSRTC Bus Stand, in Chalakudy, Kerala. It is a hotel which mostly provides vegetarian options, but may also provide fish and other meat products. I do recommend it for breakfast, as it serves nicely prepared regional breakfast of Kerala, such as Ghee Roast. It also provides Porrota bread as well. The vegetarian options are good, and the Porrota is good with the egg curry. But, I do not recommend fish though, as they served me a fish which was a bit old once. This might be of accident. Anyways, I do recommend a little precaution if you are willing to eat dishes containing fish in the hotel. I have not found any other issues. Openstreetmap - https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/10618514845

These are perfectly ordinary disposable handwarmers. Nothing wrong about them per se.

In and out of the packet (Own work. License: CC-BY-SA.)

Marketing

Except with the marketing, of course. They claim that these last for 12 hours. Maybe with a precise thermometer you might detect some faint memory of heat radiating from these after 12h, but in practice these become useless at around 6 hours, that is the normal time for other brands as well.

So these warmers are no worse than others, but doubling the time claim is just cheating the customer. I recommend supporting a vendor with more realistic claims.