Rules
Laser Chess is a two-player board game played with mirrors and lasers. Each player owns one laser that fires after every move. The beam travels in a straight line until it meets a piece. Mirrors bend or bounce it; any other side of a piece that it hits is destroyed. The first player whose King is hit loses.
The pieces
Each player has ten pieces:
- King (1): removed by a hit on any side.
- Laser (1): fires the beam. It cannot move and is never removed, but it can be turned.
- Splitter (1): a two-sided half mirror. The beam passes straight through and is also bent 90 degrees, so it becomes two beams. It is never removed.
- Triangle (5): a diagonal mirror on one side. A beam that meets the mirror turns 90 degrees.
- Square (2): a flat mirror on one side. A beam that meets the mirror goes straight back.
A turn
- Move one of your pieces one square in any of the eight directions, onto an empty square, or turn one of your pieces 90 degrees.
- Your laser fires. Every piece the beam hits on a side without a mirror is removed, yours or your opponent’s.
- If a King was hit, the game ends.
Our version
- The board is 8 by 8. The show did not publish its starting position, so ours is our own: each laser sits in a back corner and fires along an empty edge column, and the King starts behind a wall of two Squares.
- A coin flip decides who moves first.
- Pieces never capture by moving: a move is always onto an empty square.
- If your own laser hits your own King, you lose, even if it hits theirs in the same shot.
- 60 seconds a move; running out loses. Three repeats of a position, or 200 moves in total, is a draw.
- The last shot stays on the board as a red line, with a cross on every piece it removed. The Laser preview helper (on by default) shows where your laser points right now.
Strategy
Read both beams before you move. Your move changes your beam, and it can open a path for their beam on their next turn. Check both.
Guard the King with mirrors. A Square with its mirror facing the enemy sends their beam straight back. Two Squares and a Triangle in front of the King make a wall that is hard to break.
Turning is often stronger than moving. A quarter turn of one Triangle can send your beam down a whole new line.
Use the Splitter. It cannot be destroyed and it splits the beam in two, so it threatens two lines at once. Put it where both halves cross enemy pieces.
Watch your own pieces. Your beam does not care whose piece it hits. Before you turn a mirror, follow the beam all the way to its end.