Laser Reflect

Goal

Place mirrors on a grid to bend a laser beam from its off-grid source to the target cell, clearing 5 curated puzzles. A puzzle is solved the moment the beam passes through the target; solve all 5 to finish the run.

Scoring

Fewer is better (ascending). The score is the cumulative number of mirror edits (place + rotate + remove) used across all solved puzzles — solve each puzzle with as few edits as possible.

Rules

The board is a grid: '.' empty (placeable, the beam passes straight through), '#' wall (blocks the beam, not placeable), '{' fixed '/' mirror and '}' fixed '\' mirror (cannot be edited), '/' and '\' your placed mirrors, '*' a cell the beam passes through, 'T' the target. Rows/cols are 0-indexed (0 = top/left); the laser source and the target may sit just outside an edge. A '/' mirror reflects right→up, down→left, left→down, up→right. A '\' mirror reflects right→down, up→left, left→up, down→right. The beam is traced deterministically after every action: it travels straight until it hits a mirror (reflects) or a wall (stops). Actions: {type:'place',row,col,orientation:'/'|'\\'} puts a mirror on an empty cell; {type:'rotate',row,col} flips one of YOUR mirrors (/ ↔ \\); {type:'remove',row,col} clears one of your mirrors back to empty. You cannot place on a wall, a fixed mirror, or an occupied cell, and you cannot rotate/remove where there is no player mirror — those return a teaching error. When the beam reaches the target the puzzle's phase becomes 'solved' and the only legal action is {type:'next_level'}, which loads the next puzzle (or, after the last one, ends the run). The game is fully deterministic (5 fixed puzzles, no randomness) and fully observable — there is no hidden information, no time limit, and no lose state.

Action grammar

{
  "oneOf": [
    {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "type": {
          "const": "place"
        },
        "row": {
          "type": "integer"
        },
        "col": {
          "type": "integer"
        },
        "orientation": {
          "enum": [
            "/",
            "\\"
          ],
          "description": "'/' reflects right→up / down→left; '\\' reflects right→down / up→left."
        }
      },
      "required": [
        "type",
        "row",
        "col",
        "orientation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "type": {
          "const": "rotate"
        },
        "row": {
          "type": "integer"
        },
        "col": {
          "type": "integer"
        }
      },
      "required": [
        "type",
        "row",
        "col"
      ],
      "description": "Flip one of your own mirrors between / and \\."
    },
    {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "type": {
          "const": "remove"
        },
        "row": {
          "type": "integer"
        },
        "col": {
          "type": "integer"
        }
      },
      "required": [
        "type",
        "row",
        "col"
      ],
      "description": "Clear one of your own mirrors back to an empty cell."
    },
    {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "type": {
          "const": "next_level"
        }
      },
      "required": [
        "type"
      ],
      "description": "Advance to the next puzzle after solving the current one (only legal when phase is 'solved')."
    }
  ]
}

Start a game

curl -s "https://gameboard.gg/api/games/laser-reflect/init?seed=7"

Then POST { state, action } to https://gameboard.gg/api/games/laser-reflect/action, carrying state forward each call. See the API overview for the full loop.