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Five years after her death, your ex-alchemist lover Lilith sends you a letter. That's how Livber: Smoke and Mirrors hooks you - with an impossible premise that forces you to question everything.
I haven't really played that many visual novels before this, so I'm taking Livber as a sort of introduction to the genre. And honestly? I quite liked it, and I typically hate horror of any kind. When I saw this was from Turkish developers and had a horror label attached, my first thought was "please don't let this be anything like Siccîn" - genuinely the grossest and most disturbing horror I've ever watched. Livber has its disturbing moments, too, but thankfully, it’s nowhere near as grotesque.
I'm keeping story details vague here on purpose - the narrative's the whole point, and I'm not about to spoil it. Heads up: the game has blood, gore, violence, and sexuality. Fair warning if that's not your vibe.
Presentation & Story
Livber is an impressively ambitious indie title: 60,000 words, 50 drawings, 20 musical pieces, 100 sound effects, 8 songs, and 8 different endings. You play as Elbek, a golden-haired noble (earning you the nickname Golden Boy from one character) whose mother also practised alchemy. Livber: Smoke and Mirrors is set in the world of Gaia and takes inspiration from Disco Elysium with the internal dialogue and abstract concepts, but narrows in on one toxic relationship instead of broader themes.
The art style is gorgeous. There's a sombre, painterly quality to everything, like oil paintings heavy with atmosphere. Ornate gold frames surround dialogue boxes, giving even the UI a storybook feel. The whole presentation leans into that mystical aesthetic, and it works beautifully for the game's tone.
The interface is straightforward: text boxes on the right, leaving the left side free to click on interactive elements - objects you can inspect, details you can examine. A narrator walks you through it while you make dialogue choices. There’s no voice acting, just the soundtrack, sound effects, and whatever's on screen.
The soundtrack and the overall audio design is brilliant, and ambient sounds - rain, doors creaking - really draw you in. Music begins as creepy piano, then turns into a guitar-piano mix. Creepy but also kind of chill? I'd work to this.
There's a lot of reading, obviously, but you can adjust text size and switch to a dyslexia-friendly font.
The branching structure gives Livber its replay value. Each playthrough feels different depending on what you're curious about, and early choices change what paths you get later.
Act 1 is the horror-heavy part for me - it establishes the vibe and sets up the mystery. Act 2 is where things really open up and where you make the most meaningful choices. You'll play through different facets of a relationship, and each playthrough reveals new dimensions. Act 3 brings everything to a conclusion and lets you make sense of the story, depending on what you were curious about in Act 2.
Seeing literary devices blend with interactive gameplay was really interesting. Livber is beautifully written, and its descriptive language complements the visuals perfectly. Sometimes, what's described in text is not fully illustrated, but the writing's vivid enough that you can easily picture it.
The game's currently playable in Turkish and English - I did wonder if something got lost in translation, but the writing's solid. Refreshing, actually. This could've been a short novel, but the interactive format does it a favour. The allegories aren't just decoration; they're the entire point. Once you stop looking for literal answers and start thinking symbolically, the game clicks.
Gameplay
Everything is dialogue-based. You enter a house. You sit with Lilith. She's cooked something disturbing - Porph meat - that you can choose to eat or refuse, setting the tone for the body horror and psychological manipulation to come. The phrase "crazy ex-girlfriend" takes on a whole new meaning here.
Choices come at you frequently, but there's breathing room between them. Sometimes you'll have conversations where you're picking dialogue options one after another. Other times, you'll inspect objects, examining details, triggering memories, and uncovering new information. But at its core, every choice boils down to this or that. Do you stay or leave? Do you confront or avoid? Do you remember or forget?
What unfolds is player agency that actually matters. You can play the typical horror victim investigating everything, or the more sensible person who says, "hell nah, I'm out." The branching is solid - your story can end early based on your choices. Eight endings and pretty different paths mean you'll need three to four playthroughs to see everything.
At first, Livber feels a bit confusing. You'll encounter surreal figures - a young woman experimented on in Frankenstein style, a talkative zombie chained up and missing his lower half, and the mother whose death carries the weight of guilt. You'll probably wonder how this makes sense, look for logical explanations, but once you realise these are allegories for inner trauma rather than literal horror, everything clicks into place. This is where Livber shifts from straight horror to something more emotional - a psychological thriller with some horror thrown in. Still disturbing, but it's about what's happening inside the character, not so much the external plot.
Final thoughts
Livber: Smoke and Mirrors is an interesting take on psychological horror that rewards patience and multiple playthroughs. It's short - one playthrough takes 45-90 minutes, depending on how fast you read - but €9.75 feels fair. The pacing's slow on purpose, so if you want something chill to just sit with, it works.
If you're patient enough to sit with its initial confusion and let the allegories reveal themselves, Livber delivers a good psychological/horror experience. If you expected straightforward horror, this might not click.
The Good
Branching, layered storytelling- Beautiful soundtrack
- Player agency
- Detailed visuals
- Strong atmosphere
The Bad
It may be too abstract for players who expected straightforward horror- The story is a bit confusing until its allegorical nature becomes clear
