Mirror Murder Mystery [System LitRPG]

Information

Status

Completed

Year

2023

Author

noct

• 7. Mystery Maybe
  Jul 1, 2023
• 6. Macabre Malice
  Jun 26, 2023
• 5. Midday Massacre
  Jun 25, 2023
• 4. Mysterious Men
  Jun 18, 2023
• 3. Mindful Mutterings
  Jun 11, 2023
• 2. Matter of Mimics
  Jun 10, 2023
• 1. Mabel finds a Murder
  Jun 9, 2023

Reviews

Community Reviews(8)

• obsidianblackRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  A fairly short, but well plotted little mystery set agaist the backdrop of a litrpg world.
  Characters are well written, the quality of the writing is quite good.
  The background of the world is also highlighted well through the characters.
  All in all, a nice and fairly quick book to read for an evening
• Grand Admiral BobRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I did not think anyone would make anything great with the prompt. Clearly my I was wrong.  A very interesting detective story (as the title does more than hint) with LITRPG elements.  These are balanced in a way that is advantageous to the story as a whole and the various twists work very well to my mind.  A lot of things that came off to me as simple world building were suddenly made important as the story went along and in total it is a tightly written story.
• TheTempestRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Interesting and clever short story.  I think I read it in about an hour or so.
  Was fun to read and had me trying to figure out who the murderer was the whole time.
  Also good detail with regards to the motivations and backstories of the different characters.
  I think I'll also go look up the anime/short story the author drew inspiration from now, hahaha
• CocadasRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  The murder mystery and the fantasy setting came together perfectly.
  Great characters, interesting mystery, good use of litrpg skills and the perfect amount of lore to bring everything together in a story.
  The MC is really interesting. Detectives in media are always shown to have a clear mind (haha), serious and kind of detached demeanour. But in those cases, it is just how their personalities are, not that they literally has no other option but to repress their childhood trauma through detective work/skills. Great twist.
• Mr_moggRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  What a great detective story that very well implements the LIT RPG elaments. The detail in the descriptions is asl good, paint a clear picture in your head. The characters though we have just meat them feel fun, and the world feels lived in. I cant wait to see where the story goes.
• PossumtailRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Very good story overall.
  I haven't read that many LitRPGs yet, so I'm not super familiar with the genre and don't know if this has been done before, but I really liked the mixture of the detective and LitRPG themes.
  The MC is interesting. He seems like a typical Sherlock Holmes/Poirot type guy at first, but then we learn his backstory and he has some interesting depth to him which made me appreciate his character more.
  The mystery was engaging too, and kept me guessing until the end.
  Overall, worth the read even if you're not usually a fan of the mystery genre.
• RznRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  This is an interesting murder mystery type story that employs all the hallmarks of an orthodox locked room detective story. My only problem is that the litrpg elements are minimal, and the actual solution to the case is not straightforward or reasonably deduced from the text - both in narration and dialogue. This issue, as well as the manner of the solution being flawed, means that I cannot give it 5 stars in good conscience. A reader should have a good idea of the players and the general gist of what happened before the reveal, but as per the genre tradition that is only a partial answer. Motive and method are aspects which should be discerned before the assembly (the traditional marker for the reader to make their conjectures).
  Now, this is a good story and is written well. Don't let me convince you otherwise, my gripe was just that it did not adhere to orthodox locked room genre that it presented itself as. Consider it a straight mystery and the piece works. The conventions and dialogue between author and reader here just went in a very specific direction leading to sometime spent on the deduction and events only to find out the details are lacking. The final chapter is a good conclusion and dialogue piece that does much for the worldbuilding and yet is the sort of thing I would have liked in the mystery body itself, at least in analyzing the players of the piece. This is a great read and deserving of your time.
  Minor spoiler for those who want to know why it is not orthodox:
  The conclusion requires knowledge of fictional world elements that are not discussed in the prose. While evidence is presented, it is not examined and connections are not made. The solution has elements that are directly contradictory to one another. The glaring incompetence of the detective cannot be understated.
• JeeboRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  This is my first ever full review of a story on Royal Road, because I believe that for the first time I am able to verbalise objective, hopefully constructive,  criticism. Aside from "story good" oder "story not good".
  Our author invites us to a setting that echoes the stories of Sherlock Holmes. A victorian style fantasy world, with one of RoyalRoads beloved LitRPG Systems. The prose itself is not unique, but the descriptions tell us that the author has a clear vision in mind as to what we should be thinking of when he describes a monotone and almost dreary townscape.
  I discovered no typos that broke my immersion and since english is not my first language I cannot speak as to whether or not there were major grammatic errors.
  The characters are what you would expect from a classic "whodunnit", we have the competent and devoted maid, the victims best friend, the victims estranged son, a Lady hailing from a distant land as well as an arrogant businessman of the upper Elite and last but obviously not least, the rugged Detective/Skill-supported genius taking on this curious case.
  Sadly, they are all as cookie cutter as one can think of. Don't get me wrong, tropes and clichés exist for a reason, and the reason is that they work. But 9 chapters simply don't give us the time to really get to know all but two of them on more than a surface level.
  Which brings me to my issue with this short story: We lack the time to learn about the world or the characters therein.
  A good whodunnit grabs us with it's mystery as well as with it's clues and keeps us guessing until the solution at the end.
  A bad whodunnit gives us a spectacle and a bunch of clues, that don't matter until the detective gives us the convoluted explanation (looking at you BBC's Sherlock)
  But a truly great whodunnit gives us all the clues so that we can guess the solution ourselves just paragraphs before the detectice spells it out for us.
  This story falls inbetween the bad and good category. Attentive readers will