MirrorMoon EP: Achievements and Walk Through

Disclaimer: This guide includes spoilers.

Part of the fun of MirrorMoon EP is not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing, and figuring things out for yourself. This is very possible by just trying things out, and observing what happens. I strongly recommend going and trying at least the first planet, and only coming back to this guide if you’re so stuck that you’re not having fun. Spend some time looking around, trying to click on everything, trying to move things, listening, and watching.

That aside, I understand that this kind of challenge isn’t fun for everyone, and that making no progress for long periods of time isn’t fun for many people! Plus, once you’ve solved the first planet the game makes a bit more sense.

Select New Game.

In New Game Settings you can choose to play with multiplayer enabled or disabled. As far as I can tell, the only thing that happens when you enable multiplayer is that you can see the names of stars, as named by other players who have visited them.

You’re best choosing the latest season to experience the game properly.

Start new game.

Side A is where you’ll start automatically. Although it mostly leaves the player to figure things out for themselves, it also functions as a kind of tutorial, teaching you how to play. This will be the longest part of the guide.

With little to no fanfare and absolutely no explanation, you find yourself on what I’ll call The Craft. There are some controls visible, but all are dark or greyed out. The only one with which you can interact is a big red button. Tell me you at least tried this before coming to this guide? Ok, cool.

Press the big red button.

Two more red buttons will illuminate. Press both of them.

Five small red buttons will illuminate. Press all five.

Now, a square red button will illuminate. Press it.

Congratulations, you’re on a planet! I’ll call this the Red Planet.

Take a look around. The text in the lower left corner will tell you that you can move using WSAD. You’ll also note that you can’t move your view. Sorry. I’m as annoyed as you are.

Look up (yeah, I know you can’t change your view, I mean you, the player, please observe the upper half of the screen). See the planet in the sky? Remember how this game is called MirrorMoon EP? I’ll refer to that as the Moon.

On the Moon you’ll see highlighted landmarks and a cursor icon. The cursor icon indicates your location. There’s one landmark close to the cursor, right ahead of you, and you can see a corresponding blue pyramid structure on the surface. Use WASD to go to the pyramid structure and walk straight into the floating red prism (this is a “key”). It should stick to your gun. The text in the lower left corner will update to tell you how this key allows you to rotate the Moon view.

If you need to orient yourself, move around until you can see the Moon in the sky again, and rotate the Moon so you can see the other blue highlighted landmark. Head over to that landmark. Walk through the pillars to the centre, where you’ll see a pronged cylinder thing (the second key). Walk into it, and it will also attach itself to your gun.

The lower left corner text will update again. This second key means that clicking now does something.

Move around until you can see the Moon in the sky again, and click it. A beam of light should appear on the Red planet, at the point corresponding to where you clicked on the Moon. This is helpful as a navigational tool but can also be used to interact with some things.

Time to consider the third landmark. It’s red rather than blue and is kind of horse shoe-shaped. Click on it on the Moon to put a light beam there and activate it, turning it blue. Head over there and run into it, collecting the blue disc (the third key).

The third key allows you to move the position of the Moon in the sky. Click and drag (as instructed by the lower left corner text) to move the Moon across the sky, so that it’s no longer blocking light from the nearby star, causing light to flood the Red Planet. Unhelpfully, your cursor icon on the moon will no longer be visible.

The Moon will show some new landmarks. We’re going to visit all of them. Shooting light beams at their locations on the Moon will generate helpful beams on the planet so you can navigate to them easily. When you arrive at one, you’ll find it’s a dark grey monolith (although the game calls them “pillars”). You need to activate it. Do so by shooting it or walking into it. Each pillar will turn white and will make a low electrical-sounding hum when activated.

Look back at the Moon when all of the pillars have been activated. You should see circular waves radiating outwards from a central point (you might need to rotate the Moon to see this). Guess where we’re going? If you said: “The central point”, you were correct! Before heading over there though, drag the Moon back over the star so the Red Planet is in shadow.

Once at the central point, you’ll find a new landmark. If you go close enough, the second key will automatically be removed from your gun and added to the structure to activate a beacon. Do this.

Head back to a position where you can see the Moon again. Move the Moon away from the star to light up the Red Planet. Now try rotating and moving the Moon, observe the beacon extending from it’s surface, and listen. As you move around, you’ll see the beacon extending from the Moon growing longer or shorter, and you’ll hear noises kind of like radio static. We need to move the Moon so that the beam extending from the Moon meets the beam extending from the beacon on the Red Planet’s surface. This can be a bit finicky, but walking around a bit and rotating the Moon a bit should do it.

Debris will now levitate above the Red Planet’s surface, and you should see three pulses of light being emitted from the beacon structure, and travelling across the surface of the Red Planet in three directions. Move the Moon back over the star and follow the central beam to the point where it stops. The beam will meet another new structure, briefly activating it. Walk into this new structure while it is lit up. The result is a model of a Moon orbiting a Planet, and that is now what’s happening – the Moon you have been controlling now moves in orbit around the Red Planet. Sadly, that means you can no longer change the position of the Moon (you can still rotate it though). The debris will now lift from the surface of the Red Planet, when the Moon is nearby. This is a clue.

Follow the Moon as it orbits. It will pass over a structure which will lift out of the surface of the Red Planet due to the Moon’s gravitational pull. Enter the structure as it is raised. Doing so will automatically remove the first key from your gun and cause and will stop the orbit, with the Red Planet in shadow. Since your prism is gone, you can no longer rotate the Moon. The cursor indicating your position is back, though.

There’s yet another new structure now visible on the Moon. Go find it on the Red Planet. You’ll see a central piece with a keyhole-shaped hole in it. If you walk through that shape, you’ll hear a sound. There are some other walls beyond it which also have holes in – if you walk through those you’ll hear sounds of other tones. Start from the one furthest from centre, and run directly through all three.

Your screen will split to show two views and a bridge linking the Red Planet to the Moon. Trippy. Go towards the Moon.

After a moment of white screen and some text, you’ll find yourself back in the Craft. You have some new red buttons that you can interactive with. The most important ones are on your right and include a prism, a kind of cylinder-ish thing, and a toggle switch. The prism and the cylinder mimic the keys of your gun when you were on the Red Planet and allow you to navigate. Moving them will move the target on your main screen, or the view the main screen display. Note that this screen displays a 2D projection of a 3D space. Smaller dots indicate stars that are further away; larger dots indicate stars that are closer.

Side B is now unlocked.

We need to go to a new star. For your first star, you need to pick something close to your starting position. I’m not sure why.

Move the pointer on the screen over a star and pull down the red toggle switch on the right to travel to it (which will take a moment). Click the red cuboid cartridge to move it into the other port, and then click the square button to input the disc and go to the planet.

From here, I can’t tell you how to solve the puzzles because they vary from planet to planet. The rules are the same, though: Collect keys where available and use them to rotate the moon, to move it, and to shoot light beams. Look for landmarks and try to interact with them. Follow beams of light. Move the Moon over the star, or away from it, and watch what changes.

When you solve a planet a fractured orb in a tower structure will become whole when you walk into it. Walk into it again and you’ll be transported back to the Craft. If you’re the first to solve a star, you can name it. If you go to a star which already has a name (rather than a label like “AHG/78”), that means another player has visited before you, and they named it.

Once you solve your first planet, you can travel to any star you like.

Now the goal is to find the “Anomaly”. It’s one of the stars. You might stumble across it by accident, but that’s a little unlikely. When you find the Anomaly, you’ll know, because you’ll be presented with another white screen with some text, and then the credits will roll (and then the achievement will pop). There are several approaches other than relying on pure luck, here is one:

Visit stars until you find some “Observatories”. Other players will often name these something like “observ”, “obs”, “maps”, “charts”, etc. On these planets, the Anomaly will be ringed in the sky. On some of them, you will also be given constellations, with other stars named. Using constellations, it is possible to either triangulate on the position of the Anomaly, or to at least get an idea of it’s approximate position and visit stars in that area until you get to it.

The first person who finds the Anomaly can also name it. In some seasons, players will name it something while tells you what it is. “Anomly” for example. If you look at old the discussion topics for the game, you’ll find people talking about what the Anomaly is named, and sometimes its coordinates, for previous seasons. It means losing your progress, but you could start a new game and play an old season where someone has already shared the name (to make things easier using the observatories mentioned above) or the location (to remove all challenge).

From here, the rest of the achievements should be more straightforward.

Side A

The Other Way Round
Here you have to lose the keys in the other order to the one I gave for Side A. Instead of activating the model of the Moon Orbiting the Planet first, instead drag the Moon over the surface until its gravitation pull lifts the structure. Then go back and activate the model. When you finish the puzzles and leave via the Bridge, the achievement will pop.

Two Moons One Beacon
To get this, you may only shoot with the second key once, which you’ll do to activate the red structure. This makes navigation trickier, but the planet isn’t all that big. When you finish the puzzles and leave via the Bridge, the achievement will pop.

Side B

Edwin
Visit a star named by another player. You’ll probably get this early on while searching for the Anomaly. If a new season has recently started and you can’t find any, go back to an earlier season.

Vespucci
Travel to a star that has not yet been named. Again, you’ll probably get this pretty quickly. Solve the puzzles as described earlier in this guide. Collect the orb. Land back in the craft. Type a 6-character name for your star and hit enter. If you can’t find an un-named star, choose a later season.

Eco Friendly
For this we need to interact with a few more controls. I did it by running the engine on low power (you can change this using the dial on the left of the screen) and switching off the lights (the five buttons) when travelling to a star. It either pops when you get there, or when you complete the puzzles on the planet.

Observatory
If you visited observatories to find the Anomaly, you’ll already have this. If not, go find one (either by lucking into it or finding one named helpfully by another player). This popped for me after I visited an observatory planet, did a puzzle, and noticed the constellations in the sky, and only popped when I was back in the Craft.

AFK BRB
Choose a star far away from you and navigate to it. The second display next to your main screen tells you how much time it takes to travel to a star. If you’re having trouble, you can reduce the engine power to slow down (see Eco Friendly). It either pops when you get there, or when you complete the puzzles on the planet.

Alexander
Travel to 10 unnamed stars, solve the puzzles, and name them. I don’t believe this needs to be done in a single play-through.

Thank you for reading!

This is the first guide I’ve made. I’m not sure how many people are playing this weird little indie game over ten years after its release, but I hope someone finds the guide helpful!