The Test Of Reflection

Gaze into a reflecting pool to gain insight into this elegant game of spatial reasoning. Connect floating bubbles into thin sheets, but take care never to break an existing sheet.

Overview

The goal of the test is to be the last person to make a move. If it is your turn, and no move is available to you, you are the loser.

To move, pick 3 bubbles to form a triangle. You may not intersect another triangle.

There is one special move that can be performed on the second move of the game to "switch sides".

This game may be comparable to the old game of Marriage (thus the need for the Special Move).

Strategy

At first, it appears there is little strategy involved, but there is. At the start there are (usually) 32 bubbles. The bubble count goes down by 3 each turn, as a triangle is completed. Therefore, by subtracting 6 from the current count repeatedly, you can see where the current player will end up.

If it will be your turn at 2 bubbles, then you will lose at 2. So, you must try and block off 3-5 bubbles so that when there are 5 left, there is no possible triangle. If it will be your turn at 5 bubbles, you can either:

1. Try to keep at least 3 bubbles unblocked, so a triangle can be completed at 5 left.
2. Try to block a very large ( 6-8 ) amount of bubbles, so that no triangle can be completed when 8 bubbles are left.

It is unlikely that all triangles can be blocked when 11 bubbles are left, so you are limited to the above strategies.

Player rankings on Reflection Rankings page

Images