hall of mirrors

plural halls of mirrors

1. A carnival attraction with curved mirrors (funhouse mirrors) that distort the viewer's appearance.

   The hall of mirrors was her favorite attraction at the fair.

2. figurativelyA situation confusing for its false appearances, especially when they are compounded upon one another.

   The lies had become a hall of mirrors by the time the scam was exposed.

   1 more example

   It was clever and funny but insular: a hall of mirrors about authors and the publishing industry.

   2023 July 9, Alexandra Jacobs, “Grazed and Confused: In ‘The Vegan,’ a Guilty Hedge Funder Eats His Feelings”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

3. uncountablevideo gamesA glitch in some three-dimensional games where a missing texture prevents part of the scene from being rendered correctly, causing a trail of previously rendered frames to appear instead.

   Does anyone know about the Hall of Mirrors effect in the game of DOOM? I have recently been making my own levels of doom and in some places the hall of mirrors effect is in full effect. It happens especially in my biggest rooms that are very complex.

   1994, Josh Pearson, “DOOM hall of mirrors effect”, in bit.listserv.games-l (Usenet)

   1 more example

   Quake 1, on the other hand, wouldn't run properly. Quake 1 1.09 3dfx failed to load, and Quake 1 1.09 RAVE was just ... wierd^([sic]). Video adjustment was almost non-existent, and no matter what settings I chose (trashing Prefs and the texture cache between attempts) I either got a lock-up, or the screen wouldn't change resolution, or if I called up the Options from the main menu I would see nothing, and when the startup demo was running, it was all 'hall of mirrors' stuff. Completely unusable.

   2000, Brains, “3dfx 1.0.1 + Voodoo3/2k + Quake 1 = blergh”, in comp.sys.mac.games.action (Usenet)