Entry 82- Week 37: Mirror, Mirror

        Mirror, mirror, on the wall who has the red letter that needs to be delivered to the Princess? I had you going there for a second didn’t I. This week’s game is a simple two player chess and checker-like game with a twist. The whole objective is to find your opponent’s piece that is carrying the red letter and not to have your discovered. Sounds good so far, well, let’s see what Mirror, Mirror is all about. 

MIRROR, MIRROR (2011) 

BGG Description 

Game description from the publisher: 

You've entrusted your nine courtiers to deliver a beautiful love letter to Princess Persephone, but your opponent also has nine courtiers delivering an equally moving love letter to the same princess! In each case, eight letters are decoys and only the letter with the red seal is the "true" love letter. Intercept your rival's true love letter to make sure that only your letter sways her affections. 

In Mirror, Mirror each of the three types of Character pieces carries a letter, has a mirror on the back of the piece, and has a special way of moving on the board similar to chess. When your piece lands on an opponent's piece, you must say what color seal is on its letter. If correct, that piece is removed from play; otherwise your piece is removed from play. Choose carefully and make liberal use of your mirrors to discover the color of the seals on your opponent's pieces before venturing to intercept their letters. 

Weight 2.0/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game is played on a 6 square by 8 square checkered board with each player having nine pieces of three different types. 

        Let’s examine each type of character and what they can do: 

• Masters: Each player has two masters that can move one space in any direction. 

• Knights: Each player has three knights and they move like the chess knight in a “L” shape. 

 • Ladies: Each player has four ladies that moves like a checkers piece by only jumping over other pieces. 

        Each player receives one red seal letter, and four of each of the blue and gold sealed letters to place on the mirror side of the game pieces. 

        The above BGG description describes the objective of the game well, but you may be asking about the mirrors and why we have them. Once one of your pieces moves past your opponents you (and your opponent) can look from whatever angles you can on your side of the board to see what color letter the other pieces are carrying. 

        Again, the objective of the game is to find the other player’s red sealed letter to win the game. 

What we like about the game 

        We do like that there are only three types of game pieces to learn which allows for a smaller learning curve. The use of the mirrors is also a neat and unique aspect to the game (we don’t recall any other game using this). It doesn’t take long to play the game at all even if you are new to chess and/or checkers. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        If you have short-term memory issues, trying to remember what you had seen in the mirrors or if you guessed wrong on a certain piece and later come back to it may prove difficult for you. The work-around to this is always having paper and something to write with to take notes but that takes more effort for this simplistic game.

        For once, the artwork in the game is minimal. It doesn’t draw us into playing the game. If the game board wasn’t so plain, we might feel differently about it. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        If you are not a fan of chess and/or checkers, you probably would not like the game. It requires you to plan and strategize what movement you are doing and the possible movements of your opponents. 

        That being said, if you want a simple two player game that is easy to learn and takes up very little space (a TV tray will fit this game) then this would be a neat game for your collection. You can find some new ones on the secondary market for between twenty and thirty dollars.