Mirror Mansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Game Components
• Setup
  • Before the First Game
  • Before Each Game
• Playing the Game
  • 1. Swap the Window Card
  • 2. Roll and Move Victor
  • 3. Swap Up to Three Mirrors
  • 4. For the Other Players: Place a Guess (Not in the First Round)
  • 5. Motif Found?
  • 6. Correct Guess?
• End of the Game
• Game Variants
  • 1. Do You Want to Make the Game Trickier?
  • 2. Do You Want to Make the Game EVEN Trickier?
  • 3. Are You True "Masters of the 1000 Mirrors"?
• Mirror Reflections: How It Works

Object of the Game

Help Victor find everything again. Look through the open window into the castle and use the mirrors that hang in the corridors. That way you can easily look into every corner and see what is hidden there.

Victor rewards your help with blue vampire drops. Collect as many vampire drops as possible to become "Master of the 1000 Mirrors"!

Game Components

For 2 to 4 players, ages 6 and up.

• 12 castle cards (including 1 window card with a hole)
• 4 mirrors
• 1 game board (printed on both sides, with and without light-ray guide lines)
• 1 Victor figure
• 30 "vampire drops" made of glass
• 1 die
• 8 hint cards
• 1 door

Setup

Before the First Game

Punch all parts out of the frame and break the circles and slots out of the game board. Put the Victor figure into its stand.

Ask an adult or an older sibling to read you the text on "Mirror Reflections" at the end of these rules. While they read, look at the mirrors in this game and try to work out how the reflection works.

Before Each Game

Play in a bright place. You need as much light as possible so that you can see the reflections in the castle well!

Take all of the game material out of the box.

Look at the game board. It is printed on both sides. On the side for the easier game, light rays are shown in the middle as guide lines that help you follow the reflections. The side for the vampire pros has no guide lines. Place the board on the yellow insert in the base of the box. For the first game the side with guide lines should face up. Then press the board down carefully so that it snaps into the four large and four small holders.

Around the edges of the board are 12 castle-card slots. The oldest player places the 12 castle cards, battlements upward, in any order into these slots. The fronts of the castle cards show different motifs (except for the window card with the hole); the backs show a window. The backs must face outward when the cards are inserted, so that the windows can be seen through the cut-outs in the box base. Try to remember where each motif is placed when you insert the cards.

In the middle of the board you can see 18 mirror slots, and every two of them cross. Put the four mirrors into any four of these slots so that only the bats are visible.

Place the box lid in the middle of the table with the printed side up. Then place the base of the box on top of it. Now your "Castle of the 1000 Mirrors" is built!

Place the Victor figure in any hole on the edge of the board, that is, on one of the 12 yellow movement fields.

Keep the 30 vampire drops beside the box as a supply.

Each player receives two hint cards (jubilant Victor and disappointed Victor), which have bat backs in the same colour. Each player lays them face down side by side in front of them. The door is only needed for the trickier game variant and is set aside for now.

Playing the Game

Play proceeds clockwise, starting with the youngest player.

Each turn proceeds as follows:

1. Swap the window card
2. Roll and move Victor
3. Swap up to three mirrors
4. For the other players: place a guess (except in the first round)
5. Motif found?
6. Correct guess?

When it is your turn, do the following.

1. Swap the Window Card

First find the castle card with the hole. That is the window card! Then swap the place of the window card with that of another castle card. To do so, pull both cards out of the board and put each one into the other card's slot. All players may see which motif is shown on the castle card.

Caution! The motifs on the castle cards must always face inward, and the pictures of the windows must face outward.

You may walk around the box, but you may not turn it! If the board lifts up when you pull out the card, press it gently downward until it sits firmly again.

2. Roll and Move Victor

Roll the die and move the Victor figure forward along the yellow movement fields in the direction of the arrows, according to the result. Then look at what Victor is thinking about, that is, which motif appears in the thought bubble of the field on which the figure has landed after rolling. This motif shows what Victor is currently looking for.

Example: Victor thinks, "Where is my sunglasses?"

If there is a question mark in the thought bubble, the absent-minded Victor has suddenly forgotten what he was looking for. Your left-hand neighbour reminds Victor and names one of the ten motifs that appear in Victor's thought bubbles on the board. You must now look for that motif.

3. Swap Up to Three Mirrors

Help Victor find the sought motif in the castle. That is quite tricky in such a huge castle! Fortunately, many mirrors hang in the corridors, with which you can look into every corner.

Caution! You may not yet look through the hole in the window card into the castle. First consider on which castle card the sought motif could be. Then try to swap the mirrors so that you can later see the sought motif through the hole in the window card.

When swapping:

• You may swap up to three times, that is, one, two or (at most) three mirrors.
• Swapping means either pulling a mirror out of the board and putting it into any other free mirror slot, or only turning the mirror's surface and putting the mirror back into the same slot.
• You must swap at least one mirror.
• At least one mirror must be placed in one of the six mirror slots that lie in a straight line with the window card. The motif must therefore be reflected in at least one mirror!

Tip: Follow the light rays on the board with your eyes! This makes it easier to work out how to swap the mirrors so that you can later see the sought motif through the hole in the window card.

When you do not want to, or are no longer allowed to, swap any more mirrors, call out: "Tippt mal!" ("Make your guesses!")

4. For the Other Players: Place a Guess (Not in the First Round)

This action is skipped in the first round! Only after every player has had a turn do the hint cards come into play.

After the player has called "Tippt mal!", the other players may place a guess using the hint cards lying face down in front of them.

• Anyone who believes that the player has placed the mirrors correctly, that is, who believes the player will see the sought motif when looking through the hole in the window card into the castle, places one hand on their hint card with the jubilant Victor.
• Anyone who believes that the player has placed the mirrors incorrectly, that is, who believes the player will NOT see the sought motif, places one hand on their hint card with the disappointed Victor.

The other players may look under their own hint cards to make their choice, but the other players must not see which Victor is hidden under which card. The cards stay face down.

Only when all the other players have placed a hand on a hint card does the player ask "Gefunden?" ("Found it?"). The other players then uncover, in turn, the hint card under their hand and leave it face up. The second, unselected hint card stays face down.

5. Motif Found?

Now it is the player's turn again. Look through the open window, that is, the hole in the window card, into the castle!

Caution, important note on looking into the castle! It is always allowed to walk around the castle and to lift the box with the board in order to look into the castle. But you must not turn the box with the board!

What do you see through the open window in the castle? Do you see the sought motif?

If you see the sought motif: Say so aloud. (The other players may check this by also looking into the castle.) As a reward, take one vampire drop from the supply and place it in front of you. Then pull out the castle card that you think you saw through the open window, that is, hopefully the card that shows the sought motif.

• If the sought motif is actually shown on this card, you may take one additional vampire drop from the supply and place it in front of you.
• If the sought motif is NOT shown on this card, you get no additional vampire drop.

If you do NOT see the sought motif: You may not pull any castle card out of the board. Tell your fellow players aloud which motif you see through the open window.

• Did you see the garlic? Yuck, yuck! When Victor dislikes something, it is this nasty garlic! You must quickly give one of your vampire drops to Victor so that he is cheerful again: return one of your vampire drops to the supply. If you do not have a vampire drop yet, Victor turns a blind eye and you need not give up anything.
• Did you see a different motif? Then you go empty-handed this time and receive no vampire drops, but you also do not have to give any of your drops to Victor.

If they wish, your fellow players may now look into the castle themselves and check what you saw. Remember that you must not turn the box with the board while doing so!

6. Correct Guess?

Now check which of your fellow players guessed correctly. For each fellow player who guessed correctly, give that player one vampire drop from the supply. Players who guessed incorrectly get nothing.

Then all players lay their two hint cards face down side by side in front of them again and shuffle them briefly.

All actions completed? Then your turn ends and the next player is up. That player swaps the places of the window card and any castle card, and continues their turn as described above.

End of the Game

The game ends immediately when a player has collected a certain number of vampire drops, depending on the number of players:

• In a game of four players, the game ends when a player has collected 8 drops.
• In a game of three players, the game ends when a player has collected 10 drops.
• In a game of two players, the game ends when a player has collected 12 drops.

(For a longer game you may agree to play until 15 drops.)

That player is named "Master of the 1000 Mirrors" by Victor, and wins the game! In case of a tie, there are several winners.

Game Variants

1. Do You Want to Make the Game Trickier?

Then play with the side of the board that has no light rays, that is, without the guide lines. In addition, at the start of the game you may insert the castle cards into the board without looking, and without remembering where each motif is. Or you may ask someone who is not playing to insert the castle cards into the board for you, so that you cannot see the motifs.

2. Do You Want to Make the Game EVEN Trickier?

Then add the door! The left-hand neighbour of the player whose turn it is places the door in front of them. The neighbour sets the door in place after the player has swapped the window card, rolled and moved Victor, that is, BEFORE the player may swap the mirrors. The neighbour then knows which motif Victor and the player are looking for, and can place the door into the castle as an obstacle. The neighbour may place the door into one of the free mirror slots, but only into a slot that does NOT lie in a straight line with the window card.

Only after that may the player swap one, two or three times. This time, however, they must take care that the door does not block their view of the sought motif.

The player may either swap one to three mirrors, OR swap one to two mirrors and the door. The player therefore still may not swap more than three times!

3. Are You True "Masters of the 1000 Mirrors"?

Then agree before the game that the part of the box with the board may be turned when the window card is swapped and/or when looking into the castle. That makes it vampirically difficult to remember where each motif is!

Mirror Reflections: How It Works

Quite puzzling! Although some things are hidden in a corner of the castle, we can see them, but only in the mirror! Would you like to know how that works?

All images that we see are created by light rays. Light rays hit an object and are passed on from it to our eye.

When light rays hit a mirror or another smooth surface, the mirror passes them on. You see the image in the mirror when these rays reach your eye. This also works when the object is not directly in front of the mirror, but to the side of it or further away.

An object is reflected at the angle at which it stands to the mirror. [Diagram not reproduced.]

To our eye it seems as if the object were in a straight line directly behind the mirror. In reality, however, the light rays, and with them the image of the object, are redirected by the mirror. The rays "bend away", so to speak.

The image appears reversed in the mirror. We call this a "mirror image".

If another mirror is used, the mirror image is reflected again, and so on.

The further an object is from the first mirror, the more mirrors are used, and the further apart the mirrors stand, the smaller the image becomes.