A Mirror's Curse
You are Ethan Yoon, a normal boy.
Just a regular high schooler—until a fateful encounter at the Autumn Festival leaves you cursed. Now, every little thing you do pushes you further from the boy you once were and closer to... something else.
Your only clue? A cryptic fortune teller, a mysterious girl, and the unsettling realization that your reflection isn't quite your own anymore.
With each passing day, you must navigate the halls of Pacific Crest High School while managing your ever-changing body and identity. Do you embrace the transformation or fight to stay the same? Who can you trust with your secret? And, as the lines blur between magic and reality, will you ever break the curse—or was it never really a curse to begin with?
Your choices shape your fate. Who will you become?
🔮A Fully Customizable Transformation System — Experience a modular paperdoll system where changes are reflected in Ethan's sprite.
🎭Dynamic CGs That Reflect Your Choices — Major scenes feature illustrated CGs that adapt to Ethan's current appearance.
📖 A Branching Narrative With Meaningful Choices — Will you fight the curse, embrace it, or carve out your own path? With multiple routes and diverging storylines, your decisions shape Ethan's journey.
🏫Slice-of-Life Meets Supernatural Mystery — Balancing high school life with the strange and unknown. You can join clubs, make friends, and unravel the truth behind your curse—all while keeping up with homework.
💡Multiple Paths, Multiple Outcomes — Pursue different routes, from cheerleading to theater, art, or even magic.
👗Fashion & Customization — Customize Ethan's outfits as his transformation unfolds.
Luke – The Loyal Best Friend
Ethan's childhood friend, Luke has always been the easygoing friend who's always there when you need him. As a football player with a big heart, he's the kind of guy who hypes up his friends, shares his snacks, and never hesitates to throw an arm around Ethan's shoulders.
Samantha – The Sharp-Tongued Ride-or-Die
If sarcasm were a sport, Samantha would be an Olympic gold medalist. She's the friend who roasts Ethan at every opportunity, rolls her eyes at his dumb remarks, and acts like she's way too cool to care. But beneath all the dry humor and biting remarks? She's the one who'd burn the whole world down for him if he needed her to.
Jessica – The Queen Bee
Effortlessly popular, flawlessly put together, and always in control—Jessica is the girl everyone wants to be or be with. She rules the school with a perfect smile and a cutting remark, and nothing ever seems to shake her. But perfection is a heavy crown to wear, and behind the designer outfits, there's a girl terrified of showing weakness.
Vincent — The Adorable Bookworm
Vincent is the kind of guy who always has his nose in a book, not because he's uninterested in the world, but because he's unsure how to exist in it. Soft-spoken and a little awkward, he's brilliant when talking about the things he loves but completely hopeless when it comes to confidence.
Aurora — The Witch with Secrets to Spare
Aurora walks the fine line between myth and reality. No one knows if she's actually a witch or just really committed to the aesthetic—but no one's brave enough to ask. With her piercing gaze, cryptic one-liners, and eerie knack for knowing things she shouldn't, most people keep their distance.
Jordan — The Ice-Cold Star Athlete
Jordan is the guy everyone knows but no one actually knows. A star athlete, good-looking, and seemingly untouchable, he carries himself with an air of cool detachment. Most people assume he's just naturally arrogant—but the truth is, he's exhausted.
A Mirror's Curse is a passion project, and almost everything—the writing, coding, story design, gameplay mechanics, production, and more—is done by me. Every choice, transformation, and branching path is handcrafted to create a unique experience for players.
However, the stunning artwork that truly brings the game to life is created by talented artists, who are fully credited in the game's dedicated credits section. Their work is essential in making Ethan's journey as visually appealing as possible.
This project is a labor of love, and I'm incredibly grateful for the community that's been built around it. Whether you're here for the story, the transformation, or the romance, thank you for being part of this journey.
TFGS | Patreon | Itch | Walkthrough | Changelog
Download
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Development log
- 0.23 Changelog19 days ago
- 0.22 Changelog50 days ago
- 0.21 Patched Changelog79 days ago
- 0.20 Patched Changelog94 days ago
- 0.19 April Fools ChangelogMar 31, 2025
- 0.19 Patched ChangelogMar 29, 2025
- 0.18 Patched ChangelogMar 08, 2025
- 0.17 Patched ChangelogFeb 18, 2025
Comments
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Made an account just to comment on this game.. its amazing, i love the way choices affect things and how characters and their problems feel..real?
I was wondering if you had stats on how many people chose each different club, and which is most popular?
What choices do you need to get the most changes?
It's all covered in the walk through
10/10
For a free experience I def would recommend.
Will most certainly be financially supporting the developer :>
I absolutely love the freedom of choice and ability for the user to freely choose how they route their journey. It adds so much power to each individual choice, that despite knowing which path I am going to choose, makes fighting for it that much more eventful and meaningful.
The disperse and complex use of words and expressions makes me linger on aspects of the text that are menial. It gives such a profound look on the bland and ordinary and makes the main events shine even brighter because of it. When a game actually takes the time and focus to not only care about what you came here for, but to enlighten and fill in the world in mannerisms and aspects you necessarily may not have come here for, but definitely welcome, it gives an appreciative immersion so many other games like this fail to encapsulate. It brandishes a day-by-day bland-yet-eventful story driven notion I have only ever seen kindled such as in Re:Dreamer. And as much respect as I have for that developer for such, that really means a lot!
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Waring: Slight spoilers ahead I suppose for those who haven't played..
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I guess if I had something to nitpick it would be the overall collective vernacular of each and every character -- and each and every scene.
The tone described in each and every scene does not always seem to individualistically or appropriately align with the intention/emotion of the scene or character it is conveying.
For example, it seems uncharacteristic for Luke to know and use the term "androgyne" accurately despite definitely not being the type of guy to study gender theory or Greek etymology.
Relating to the same word: it feels uncharacteristic of so many characters throughout the game to use that term. Androgyne. It's not a commonly used word to describe people who look neither male nor female, or equally both, and it feels especially uncharacteristic for the characters that do not speak relatively complicatedly in normal circumstances. I would 100% understand why Jessica would use it, but not particularly Lily.
Another: angry, happy, unsure, no matter the mood, the word usage doesn't seem to be applicatively affected by these emotional shifts within the story consistently or appropriately. And it's not that the tone set within the story is incapable of accurately portraying a multitude of emotions differently, in-fact standalone I think it does extremely well.
I feel it becomes noticeable when you have a project such as this attempt to portray such a variety of emotion through a single experience. Sadness, happiness, anger, etc. When you have such antipodal emotions displayed in the same, immersive experience, it has a numbing effect when you splay them out in the same manner consecutively.
I guess, to draw a point, I believe there should be more variety and individuality to the way characters and scenes are displayed in text to accurately and effectively convey the feeling/message being shown in a surreal, more immersive, and unique manner that doesn't feel atleast somewhat familiar to the reader.
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I don't have anything against the game because of my minor complaints, though. If anything I would love to see the game prosper even further than it has already come!!
And I love this game ^v^
10/10 it makes my trans heart go spinnn!!!!
O-kay. Now that I'm quite a bit farther into the game (Day 12) some sectors seem oddly linguistically repetitive or antithetical. (Mainly the cheerleading after-game hangout sector)
Every author has their boundaries when it comes to topics they won't delve into through their work, but when I can noticeably see the text consistently draw itself lines it does not follow, I can't help but think that that's only really a mistake AI would follow so consistently.
"But we need to set some ground rules if we're doing this. No spreading anything mean or serious, alright? Only fun stuff."
--Followed by--
"Yeah, like how to freak people the fuck out by just standing there."
It's incredibly inconsistent and the text throughout concurrent late-game (Day 10+) creates so so so many more notions it does not only not follow through with, but entirely conflict.
There's probably a lot more during earlier portions polished up by the length of which it has been there...
These short-term inconsistencies followed with the almost-inhuman tone consistency drawn throughout the whole game makes me believe this game is in some mannerism utilizing AI to create it-which is fine-I just think games like this need to be more open about it, because the only potential mentions of such I heard to be so were through the Discord -.-
It does heavily break my immersion learning about this, and it does sadden me quite a bit :<I don't mean to be accusatory, I am just sharing what I genuinely believe as a consumer from my perspective without filter.
This game has a LOT of love put into it. And whether it utilizes AI text to cut some corners in its early writing process doesn't take away from that.
The amount of effort it takes to code, manage art commissions, make sure current story leads up smoothly with prior plot, make sure current story will lead smoothly into future plot, test-through with your game before the publish of the next update, and still not even beginning to mention about the volume to which it does so.
That being that the developer adds, on average, just a little over 1,000 finalized words into the story each and every day.
To create that volume, at a consistent rate, in high quality as a sole developer takes an astronomical amount of effort,
-assisted or not.
There is real pain and real love etched by a soul who cares for its development. That is a project worth supporting.
There is major quality, and the author goes to incredible lengths to make sure quality art is sustained AI-free.
I've joined the Patreon for the development of this game and I strongly encourage whoever reading to do so aswell :>
TW!: English is not my first language lol
The game is fantastic! I'm currently obsessed with it! After finishing the playthrough, I can tell how much love the devs put into the game! I love how the game doesn't jump right into the "steamy" part, but instead take the reader slowly into it, that way I feel like it wasn't rushed at all and make the game rather enjoyable than most of the game we have in the market that follow the same genre and it's refreshing! I also love that the game gives the characters actual personality, rather than just catering to the readers. This way, readers, or I, want to learn more about them and fall in love with their characters.
Anyways, I'm so excited for the next update! Keep up the good work and don't forget to look after yourself! :) (PLEASE don't abandon this project).
I absolutely love this game and I really hope to see more of it as the game develops!!!!!!! Please keep working on this I don’t have much money right now but when the full game is available I will definitely be putting in at least 20 dollars!!! Thanks for posting this game I absolutely love it!
Thank you for enjoying!
What's the estimated length of the game? I kind of doubt that the whole year is doable, so is there a earlier end date planned?
I wouldn’t be surprised if amaty did some time jump for the short term but then after a while and a bunch of updates later they put it as a flashback that you could play through.?
It will be the whole year, but there will be timeskips.
not going to lie I kind of called it, though not exactly, I did call it!
it keep saying the default is the best
Please try out my personal website, https://amaty.space/. You can also download and try to run it on joiplay or another app. Otherwise, I am not sure. Nobody else has reported this issue.
I try all of the wedsite
It's probably an issue with your device then.
I think when I save the last ver before the update it maybe a bug that might to be fix and thank you for ever thing keep it up
It do not work I am in the 1st chose it keep refrshing
I came across your game not so long ago and it looks like I've already fallen in love with it. It's not often possible to empathize or even get used to the main character. I look forward to the further development of the game.
And I almost forgot. After looking at the change reports, I saw that there are a lot of clothes for customizing the hero, the same skirts. Can anyone tell me how to open them?
I think they might be coming on the shopping update, that's only available on patreon right now, other than that you can wear a skirt on the cheerleader practice but i think that's it fo now
you can also wear a dress during the Truth or Dare game during the party after the football game.
Also during the 2nd fashion club event you can wear a dress.
You can access a lot of them in the next public release, which is the shopping update.
Hello. I find your game to be very heartwarming. I'm not a big fan of the adult content, so I'm happy that there is a warning and an option to disable it. There aren't many visual novels with really exceptional dialogue and prose, but yours does have it. It must take a lot out of you to keep bouncing your imagination between perspectives when you're writing scenes. Your process must be quite special, and I'm glad you're sharing it with us.
The artwork does, as you say, make everything more special - but the core of it is your writing and your skill at characterization. You should be very proud of yourself and what you've created, and *I* am proud of you for sharing what must be a very personal and close-to-your-core narrative. It's always special when a person lets you in a bit, and when someone does it on such a grand scale - like an emotional open house... that's brave. I couldn't ever.
I'm excited to see what is in store for Ethan. I can't support you right now because I'm in a somewhat desperate situation, but what I've been able to access already has made me excited to see what will be waiting when I come back to check sometime in the future.
I believe in you. Don't give up.
I truly appreciate your words here. I really do my best to make sure the game has a strong narrative and kind characters. Thank you for leaving this message. I hope you continue to enjoy my game.
i am crying because it makes my so happy and question shit i was 100% shore i was a dude but now im over thinking because it was to relatable. good job amaty
Thank you for the kind words :) I hope you come to a good conclusion about your gender identity.
I can't explain how much I love Jordan's route. It's just so sweet and fluffy. Love this game in general and can't wait for more!
His popularity has gone up a lot!! I'm glad to hear you like him.
Keep up the good work Amaty! This update came right in time for a hard day, lifted me up off the floor!
That's great to hear! I hope you feel better now :)
Thanks for the update. Ran out of content fast but a good narrative is worth the wait.
Each update tends to be about an hour at an average reading pace! It also takes a lot of writing, since it's interactive fiction. There are a ton of passages most people never read.
I understand this. A lot of work going into writing the dialogue considering all the choices which impact upon the dialogue. Which is why i ended with a good narrative is worth the wait, can't rush a good narrative. I'm getting over an hour out of the update though as I'm running multiple saves, I'm trying to see how the different options impact the story. You're doing a great job and your effort is appreciated.
v gud :)
Thank you.
Is it possible to get a bigger breast size than average? The game files have it, but the game itself doesn't have that option.
Currently, above average breast sizes are not available in the game, but they will be in a future update
Not yet. They will slowly be rolled out.
I've been really enjoying this game for the last week, and have subscribed to your patreon recently. I've been looking through earlier posts and saw a very nice traditional Korean outfit. Any chance that something like it will turn up in game? I'm totally intending to go for a traditional Korean name when it comes time to change Ethan. Is Ethan mixed heritage? I don't think I've noticed it being spelled out.
Ethan is Korean-American. There probably won't be a canon traditional Korean name, but you will be able to enter your own name when the time comes :)
I should have said something about this game sooner. I've been following it since one of the very first releases, and the quality of the writing is absolutely bonkers. For context, I've played a lot of transformation games - I would assume that you have too, and I've seen a lot of the good and the bad of those games. It truly feels like A Mirror's Curse builds off of all of the other games of it's type. (For example I assume there's huge YTLAG inspo here). But yet it supersedes them in many ways, most notably by being unabashedly wholesome. Most TFGames are pretty fetishy, and that ultimately does a huge disservice to one of the primary, though likely unintended audiences, that being trans people. I guess that's to say, it genuinely does feel like this game was made for me, and I don't know if I'll ever make a game like this myself - I've certainly tried, but if I do, at the very least, I'll have one more place to look. Also, the rate you push out new updates is genuinely insanely impressive. You show more dedication to this game then I've shown for any of my AO3 fanfic (mentioning that is maybe unnecessary but idk), and I wish I could support you, but... I'm broke. Maybe one day. I just want you to know I'm really thankful for this!
Thank you for your kind words! This is one of the few TFGS projects that is by a trans woman for trans women. I appreciate other demographics that enjoy this game, but I am writing this for my fellow trans women. Thank you.
Wanna see more even more of the future of our character we are playing maybe he's becoming in his female self a mother who knows but anyways keep it up I'm hyped to see what next updates are coming for this game
There won't be any pregnancy here but thank you.
you're welcome I know I was just joking but I'm still interested what would happen next keep it up
I wanna throw hands w/ the principal
[Rhetorically, of course, i am not strong enough to do so]
You allone May Not be strong enough but you have an Advantage. You are Not allone. You have literaly every other Person who played this Game on your Side so lets beat that fuck into the next Millenium
...Millennium, huh?
PRINCIPAL
Let's Play A [Shadow] Game.
I do Not understand that reference but If The principal suffers for His dickass Views i'm in
You're a hecking witch, there's a scene in this game where just releasing your pent up mana fucking bends trees, you could bend this mans fucking spine.
Boxing arc...
BOXING ARC!
that principal can go to hell
He's definitely not a great guy...
Enjoyable sweet game. Looking forward to future updates.
Thank you!
Is there no downloadable version?
You can download A Mirror’s Curse from its TFgames page
There's a way to download it, my itch does report a significant portion do download, but I don't know how they do that as I'm on the creator end.
Here's a download link.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5k5d52x7nr1a61p/A_Mirror%2527s_Curse_0.22.zip/fil...
Thanks, this worked w/o problems.
Somehow TFgames doesn't work for me atm.
where will it update I love this game
Looking at the changelog dates, I'd say anywhere between 15 & 29 days
thank tou
It updates on itch/tfgs/f95. Some other sites reupload the game, but that's not me doing that.
If you meant when, probably before the end of the month.
try looking into procedural generation it could prove useful.
Ps. I love the game keep up the good work!
Procedural generation for an interactive fiction game? lol
What is the max amount of transformation points you can get, and how?
Currently, there are 15 transformation points in the free version, and the best way to find out how to get them is by watching the walkthrough in the social section of this page.
It just seems that one transformation point is missing from the walkthrough: on the 2nd day, if you choose "Brush your hair again" as your first choice, you’ll get 1 transformation point.
The walkthrough has all the transformation points and a few other hints.
Thanks! On a somewhat unrelated note, I think there's a minor issue where with the portrait, when it's on the undergarment setting, if your currently wearing a bra it won't show up.
how do you get the hidden assets?
I’m not sure if it’s part of the hidden assets, but in 0.23, if you’re in the Fashion Club, you can get an exclusive blue dress.
The other hidden assets will be available starting from 0.24.
This is the answer.
I reached the neutral ending and started crying. I am genderfluid, and played the game the way I lived during that era; curious, changing, but resistant to my own growing sense of something more. And I've stayed basically closeted as cis since then, too. It hit hard, but in a well-written way, not like a cheap shot.
I will play again, and make sure to allow more change to avoid that ending, because I want to see more. But in the now, I feel seen in a bittersweet way.
I have not yet went neutral, I have only done as much transforming as possible. What happens in the neutral route?
literally nothing, the game just ends with some sequal stuff
This is a really interesting perspective! Thank you for sharing. Most people who got the neutral ending were people not interested in TGTF who stumbled upon this game.
Honestly, I wish it could go either way for more diversity. It would be fun if MC could go from female to male, too. Creator wouldn't have the change the name, either, since Ethan is already somewhat of a girls name.
that would take a lot more time for updates, also you can change your name anyway so I dont see how that really matters
What? This game has a very specific audience I'm writing this game for. And trust me, changing the name wouldn't be the hard part. Your suggestion would be a whole new game.
That talk with the principal made me want to just rebel against him and make a grand spectacle of MC's transition.
Like an actionary way of saying "You want to play like that, fine. Here's an event you can have paperwork about asshole."
Amazing writing to make me hate a character so quickly.
Mission: Gather your Allies
The MC just goes around calling favors like john wick
Who knows, maybe you'll be able to do that in future updates. :p
Question, HOW THE HECK DO YOU GET THE HIDDEN ASSETS? lol, but seriously, I didn’t even know they existed until I looked at the change log, how do I get them?
Many of them are avaliable to buy starting from 0.24, part one of the shopping update.
Congratulations you made me hate a character within 2 scenes of dialogue
THOMPSON YOU IS A MOTHERFUCKER
I think I should be glad that I got this visceral of a reaction from you? Lol, thanks for playing.
If your goal was to make a dislikable character, then you succeeded tremendously
The bastard reminded me of my primary school principal. Total asshole looking for someone to bully. Even getting teachers to report fits the character. Looking forward to him getting what he deserves.
i fucking love this game but i got to the end of the content and have to wait so does anyone have a game or book like this one
I have a Scribblehub, and there are also great writers there that write trans fiction.
https://www.scribblehub.com/profile/110443/amaty/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/310228/performative-masculinity/
Please consider offering your completed stories here on itch.io as well as on Scribblehub? SH is great but it’s also nice to be able to read stories offline and/or using one’s preferred ereader apps — and it can be a way for your reader to provide some financial support, too!
I do not want my previous works on this itch account. I'm far too ashamed of them.
1) You should not be ashamed of them. Not even a tiny bit. Even if you don’t think they’re any good, they are a part of the path you took on your way to where you are now.
2) you could make another account to publish them on and just link it. Something like “OldStuffByTotallyNotAmaty”
a bit of a wierd question ig but, i have tried a few things but how do you get two chest tf's before the gym scene? i can't seem to figure it out
Talk to aurora during the weekend after you get enough transformations up to that point
It's in the game's walkthrough!
ok guys i did it W game you gotta pick "Accept" during the dream at the end of the prologue (obv) and also during self reflection in home room you gotta choose the option thats like "im changing" and theres also something else but around the end of the first chapter you should have 20% trans stat
DUDE I GOT THE CIS ENDING THIS TIME WHY IS THIS GAME SO HARD I LIGRNEJJsjJSJS THIS GODDAMN CHARACTER IS SAYING THINGS I DONT WANT THEM TO
man im kinda upset i spent hours on my playthrough but got the neutral ending and had to restart from the beginning. I liked the route I was on but I wasn't exclusively going for girly options and I think its kind of lame to be forced into a cis route just because i dont want to play "critter crossing" grrr let me be a transfem tomboy
You just have to transform enough, the other route had to be cut due to budget and time constraints. I am a solo dev.
Yeah i gotcha i was just frustrated when i was writing this because i had to restart the entire game 😭 why even make a cis route though, if the game is about being trans?
By the way I love your game if I havent already said so.🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🗣🗣
I don't know, I guess I was just trying to accommodate every playstyle. I didn't realize how much work would go into this game. Now that we're further in development, I'm planning on focusing on the mtf trans experience with this project.
hello I think there is a bug in your game I can'r pick any chosses