Reflections.

December 5, 2001 1:27 PM

Reflections. A Flash game that just wasted some of my work day. Now you can waste some of yours. Align the mirrors to hit the lights, just don't hit the bombs.
posted by eyeballkid (52 comments total)

Reminds me of a scaled-down version of The Incredible Machine, one of my (and my kids') favorite PC games.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:31 PM on December 5, 2001

Thanks. Fun game.
posted by ColdChef at 1:44 PM on December 5, 2001

fun game. It's really not all that hard, untill later levels, I had my head scratching at 5. hehe. 6 looks fun.
posted by tiaka at 1:47 PM on December 5, 2001

I'm having trouble with level 18... I can get all but one and it is making me very angry...
posted by TacoConsumer at 1:51 PM on December 5, 2001

thank god more people are playing this, I have been at it since Zannah linked it the other day.

I have been stuck on level 17 for about 2 days. I have the password to get up there if anyone can help me. It's really stressing me out.
posted by remlapm at 2:00 PM on December 5, 2001

Heck, I can't seem to figure out level 8! I hadn't had any problems up until then.
posted by trox at 2:01 PM on December 5, 2001

oooh Taco, you are a god to me.
posted by remlapm at 2:02 PM on December 5, 2001

I managed to get to level 25... but that's only because I saw a pattern in the passwords, and guessed the proper password. heh.

It doesn't remind me of the Incredible Machine (ahh, fond memories from my 286 days) so much as some other identical game that I can't remember the name of... it was on some sort of puzzle game collection. That's about as non-vague as I can get.

Level 11 really bothered me.
posted by mkn at 2:06 PM on December 5, 2001

Level 17: Put a splitter right in front of the laser... one light lit. Then put a mirror on the other side to send the laser to the southeast. use another mirror to get the laser into that little room on the right. Then use a bunch of mirrors and a refractor to light the bulb from the right... warning... you will hit a bomb if you don't put a mirror to reflect the light up to the final bulb... hope that helped.
posted by TacoConsumer at 2:07 PM on December 5, 2001

Hmm.. Jewels of Oracle had a puzzle where you moved a toy beetle around a maze and got him to drop balls into holes and he had to do this only one at a time, if you make one wrong move, start over. It was fun, but not frustration the way this is becoming. Dammit, how can I get it to work with only 3 reflectors? Not possible I say!
posted by tiaka at 2:07 PM on December 5, 2001

I downloaded a game like this from download.com last summer. I haven't played all the way through this one, but the one I downloaded had different colors of light that you needed to mix/split to accomplish the levels. I'm digging around looking for it right now but I can't seem to find it...
posted by esch at 2:41 PM on December 5, 2001

Well, leave it me to be dumb. Right after I post the comment, I find the link. It's called Aargon. Very fun.
posted by esch at 2:44 PM on December 5, 2001

I've gotten through 18 but can't get past 19. ;)

Hints: the double mirrors are used for their ability to have a beam pass through them, not to reflect on both sides. The refractor has two beams hitting it (which end up going in opposite directions).
posted by caveday at 2:51 PM on December 5, 2001

Caveday... On 18, I can get all but the left-most bulb lit. Can you help me?
posted by TacoConsumer at 2:55 PM on December 5, 2001

I can't get past level one. How's that for bad? Apparently I'm missing something.
posted by jragon at 3:01 PM on December 5, 2001

I've breezed my way to level 23, where I finally hit a wall; I'm puzzling a bit because there are so many choices, but I'm confident I'll blow through to 25 soon. The trick is to think of the mathematics of the paths, like Euler did in his famous bridges problem. Here are my tips to solving these levels (if you want specific solutions, remind me of the password so I can see the level again- but it's more fun to figure it out):

First, look at every bulb, and ask the question "is this an endpoint?" where the laser can go but not come back (it's at the edge of the graph next to a block or bomb so you can only go through it in one direction)- obviously, there can only be as many endpoints as there are beams, and if you have x splitters, you have a total of x+1 beams to work with, potentially. In addition, this gives you an idea of which way the beam needs to go, so you can work backwards from the endpoint.

Second, the prisms that bend the light 45 degrees have two important properties: one, that they can be reused- at least one level I recall required a prism to be hit by a beam two times, acting not unlike the double-sided mirrors do. Second, the prisms change the beam's path from a horizontal grid to a diagonal lattice. Think of it like a chessboard: the rooks can move to any square going H or V; the bishops move diagonally, but are limited to either diagonal-white or diagonal-black. The same property is at work here: Looking at each bulb, you should be able to label it an endpoint and an "H", "V", and/or a "D" bulb, and if "D" determine which "D" grid it falls on. Group together the "D" only bulbs into which grid they lay on- this can help determine, again, the "sentence structure" of your beam's path.

Third, and this really pertained to only a couple of levels but it's a useful thing to know: it turns out that you _can_ hit a bulb more than once- if you hit it twice, as you know, the light turns back off- but hit it a third time, and it goes back on. I actually solved a level this way, and was surprised at that property.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, understand that many of the bulbs will be easy to reach one way or another- but there will be bulb clusters of two or three bulbs arranged in such a way that you can't see how to get all of them. When I start a level, I immediately start looking for these clusters; on one level, I can't recall which one, there are in the upper-middle section two bulbs next to each other, with another bulb 4 blocks over one of them that is an endpoint with a bomb to its left; once you solve the trick of hitting those two bulbs once and only once while hitting the one above it, the rest of the puzzle is a cakewalk. Focus on solving these sub-puzzles, and everything else falls into place. It's almost like the creator of the puzzles was a karate teacher, using seemingly complicated puzzles to teach simple properties in each level.
posted by hincandenza at 3:02 PM on December 5, 2001

When you are ready to give up, use Firewire
posted by riffola at 3:16 PM on December 5, 2001

Level 25 is horrid, isn't it?
posted by Mossy at 4:06 PM on December 5, 2001

someone mentioned this late last week, and i remember getting sucked into it VERY fast. i had to stop when i realized how much of my day the game was eating sometime around level 11 though. right now, cubicolor is where it's at. (sighted at zannah's.)
posted by lotsofno at 4:38 PM on December 5, 2001

Can anyone offer a hint on level 10? I'm dying over here (one left, and not enough tools ... what to DO???)
posted by Dirjy at 5:53 PM on December 5, 2001

Dirjy I am stuck on 10 too, the bulb directly above the laser is the only one left.
posted by riffola at 6:10 PM on December 5, 2001

The secret of number 10 is to think "outside the box"- literally. You've probably figured that you needed to bend the laser rightward immediately, then up through the first bulb, left through the topmost bulb, then 45 it down and use the splitter to hit the three left-side bulbs- leaving the middle bulb above the laser untouched, and two unused mirrors.

But notice: above and to the right of all the bricks and bulbs is a whole unused space... I'll leave the rest for you to figure out easily enough how you can hit that middle bulb after all.
posted by hincandenza at 6:49 PM on December 5, 2001

If you have done level 25, here's Level 26 with gravitational waves. (Free registration may be required). Or perhaps, Imaging with noise. Move a microscopic bead with optical tweezers. Somehow reading these makes me feel that it is not just a waste of time. How easily we deceive ourselves.
posted by Geo at 6:56 PM on December 5, 2001

hincandenza - Nope, still can't get it. I know I'm going to be kicking myself when I do figure it out.

In fact, that's how most of these have been so far -- figure it's impossible to finish and then find out that the solution is oh so easy.
posted by crawl at 7:18 PM on December 5, 2001

Crawl: Here's how to do it... you will kick yourself, because you may have been very close.
Let the laser go all the way up instead of bending it right away, then bend it right, then bend right again, then right again as if going back to the laser after tracing the outside of the bricks- except instead, bend it right/up through the rightmost bulb, left through the topmost bulb, and the prism to send the beam 45 degrees downward through the second middle bulb, using the splitter to hit the final two bulbs.
posted by hincandenza at 7:26 PM on December 5, 2001

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

OK, I'm not posting here anymore ;-)
posted by crawl at 7:33 PM on December 5, 2001

hincandenza: That's exactly what I said when I was trying level 10. "I need to think outside the box." And then I got it.

I got stuck on 11 and 17. I was on 17 for something like 5 hours and then had to look up the solution on fark. :(
posted by ODiV at 8:26 PM on December 5, 2001

11 is a ho. Anyone have a screen shot of the solution?
posted by catatonic at 8:35 PM on December 5, 2001

Ok I've kicked myself a few times because of #10. Thanks :)
posted by riffola at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2001

I hate asking for answers, but I'm hung on 11, too. I just need to know if the bulb closest to the laser should be last or not. I can get all of the bulbs except that one.
posted by mccreath at 10:11 PM on December 5, 2001

woooo! I'm proud as all get-out... I got 17 (w/o the tip above) without using the double mirror. For all I know that may be the only way to do it, but I'm still proud. It's not sad that that was the best part of my day, right? right?
posted by krakedhalo at 10:15 PM on December 5, 2001

mccreath - there could be other ways, but I had the bulb closest to the laser (bottom right) FIRST. hope that helps.
posted by krakedhalo at 10:18 PM on December 5, 2001

gawwwd, 11 was painful

I feel like running a victory lap
posted by billder at 11:06 PM on December 5, 2001

And I'm stuck at level 8. Anyone care to help? (Yes. I'm pathetic. :))
posted by juliebug at 11:08 PM on December 5, 2001

julie: For #8 after the light passes through the two bulbs in line with the laser, you arrange two splitters and the refractor such that the 3 bulbs in the diagnol row are lit, put the last splitter near the topmost lit bulb such that all the bulbs will be lit.
posted by riffola at 11:38 PM on December 5, 2001

Any help for number 11? I can get all but one bulb, two different ways.
posted by chiheisen at 11:42 PM on December 5, 2001

chiheisen: look up :)
posted by riffola at 11:49 PM on December 5, 2001

oops! linked his profile. Here's the method
posted by riffola at 11:50 PM on December 5, 2001

riffola, that's #10. I'm stuck on #11...


This is what I do instead of work. Good thing nobody ever pays attention to me....
posted by chiheisen at 12:00 AM on December 6, 2001

riffola, thanks. I finally figured it out on my own. Stupid little bugger. Got through 9 and 10 and am now agonizing through 11. Maybe I'll go to bed.

Damn, I'm going to be dreaming about lasers and mirrors. :P
posted by juliebug at 12:17 AM on December 6, 2001

chiheisen: (and Juliebug) whoo, I'm drunk- just got back from Karaoke at the Little Red Hen... urp...

Level 11 is a case of understanding the "lattice" as in my above thesis. :) The trick is when to use the splitter. Labelling each bulb in the sections 1, 2, 3, 4 (left to right) and "1Up and 1Down", I first do a 90-degree bend through bulb 1D, then bend it upwards using the prism to get onto the diagonal lattice. A quick reflection down through bulb 2U through bulb 3U, then use the splitter. The left side of the splitter goes diagonally up through 4D and is reflected with mirror #2 through 4U. The right side of the splitter is sent diagonally down/left and reflected with mirror #3 to shoot all the way back through 3D, 2D, and finally 1U all the way back on the left.

Hopefully, that made sense. Meanwhile, now that I'm thoroughly drunk with goldschlager and jaegermeister, I'm going to go to bed and when I wake up ideally know how to solve level #23- I'm soooo close, last time I tried it this afternoon I needed just one more mirror to do it all, so I think I'm gonna solve it if I can just... get... sober.
posted by hincandenza at 12:32 AM on December 6, 2001

can someone help me with #11? i keep leaving one bulb unlit.
posted by arrowhead at 12:33 AM on December 6, 2001

oh got it. thanks, hincandenza.
posted by arrowhead at 12:35 AM on December 6, 2001

It's nice to see a posting for a Flash game that's a puzzle instead of just an animated playground. I feel, somehow, less bad about wasting so much time on it (I'm excercising my brain, right?)...yeah, that's the ticket!
posted by BT at 7:09 AM on December 6, 2001

I keep having leftover pieces. Is that normal?
posted by dwivian at 7:20 AM on December 6, 2001

You can give them to me. I could use them on level 12.
posted by fidelity at 8:08 AM on December 6, 2001

I must really suck, cuz I'm stuck on Level 4!
posted by dnash at 9:43 AM on December 6, 2001

I'm jammed on #19....damn time waster!
posted by dwivian at 1:34 PM on December 6, 2001

You know after playing aargon again, it turns out that some of the levels on relfection are blatant rip-offs.
posted by esch at 1:57 PM on December 6, 2001

Here is the Fark thread for this game.

Warning: there are spoilers, so don't go there unless you're a cheater like me.
posted by catatonic at 11:44 PM on December 6, 2001

Martha Focker!

Damn site was taken down due to excess server traffic...

Damn Mefi'ers
posted by stew560 at 8:12 AM on December 17, 2001

Reflections is back!!!!
posted by ashbury at 2:09 PM on December 19, 2001