10 ms·

Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid

293 points by frading 3y ago

I'm experimenting game mechanics that are usually seen on a typical grid, but transposed on an irregular one. This is a first game based on Minesweeper. The changes an irregular grid brings are that cells don't all have 8 neighbors. Some can have less, some can have more. So when you try and deduce if a tile has a mine, you have to pay closer attention at the number clues and which tiles neighbors it. My intention is to make a very classic game a bit more challenging & fun. I've also released a first version of Checkers/Draughts, and plan to test similar variants for Chess, Othello and Go.

dhimes 3y ago
What a cool idea! Nice job.
- frading 3y ago
  thanks a lot!
yeko 3y ago
The long press does not work on the Android mobile app, although it does work on the web page.
aredox 3y ago
This just screams to have an "einstein" (aperiodic monotile) tiling
minesweeper2024 3y ago
This is a game that I will continue to play in the future. I have a small feature request that would make it better. Could you add an option that will auto-reveal or mark cells that are unambiguous? That would save a lot of clicking, scrolling and time. You could limit it to reveal cells bordering the one you click to avoid solving the whole board.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Nice, if you are finding the whole Euclidean space thing a bit pedestrian though try https://cdn.warpedmines.com/ https://cdn.warpedmines.com/
netsharc 3y ago
Neat... but I'm missing the left+right click, in the Windows Minesweeper, say you have a square with 4, and you've marked 4 squares around it as bombs, you can left+right click on the 4-square and uncover all the unmarked squares around it, instead of going one by one. Also "undo" is cool, but "lose 60s" seems backwards, considering one would get 60 seconds added to one's time.
- umvi 3y ago
  left+right click reveal works for me (linux + chrome 120). Middle click also does the same as left+right click.
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot for trying it and the feedback. As a sibling comment said, left+right click should work (as well as middle click). Which OS/browser are you using? I like to fix this. And you're right for "lose 60s", It's not the ideal wording. I was thinking it in terms of the less time you end up with, the better your score is. But "gain 60s" wouldn't work either. I'll have a think, but curious to hear if anyone has suggestions for this.
  - baobun 3y ago
    "+60s"?
  - Szpadel 3y ago
    maybe "60s penalty" would be better wording?
    - frading 3y ago
      yes, that's indeed better, thanks a lot for your help, I appreciate.
    - frading 3y ago
      "60s penalty" wording is live! Thanks again
  - 3y ago
dorianmariefr 3y ago
I got tricked, nice https://gist.github.com/dorianmariefr/652c1c6c5b84cc242b66922e5da5dca7 https://gist.github.com/dorianmariefr/652c1c6c5b84cc242b6692...
- frading 3y ago
  Nice! Almost there. Still, you're now ready to move on the intermediate/expert grids :D
dorianmariefr 3y ago
And for the Checkers https://polyreplay.com/checkerstwist https://polyreplay.com/checkerstwist
pjsg 3y ago
I'd like to have the option to show "remaining" mines. I've played https://pwmarcz.pl/kaboom/ https://pwmarcz.pl/kaboom/ enough in "countdown mode" (i.e. where the numbers are the number of hidden mines) that I can't adjust to this....
- frading 3y ago
  On the left of the face emoji, in the top bar, you should see the number of remaining mines. It's not exactly like the version you linked, which should "number found / total", as what I show is simply "remaining mines". Is that what you mean? Although the number I show is actually a bit sneaky, as I subtract the number of flags placed to the total number of mines. So if you were to place more flags than mines, you'd see a negative number. (which I realise as I type that your version is similar, as the number can also go above the total).
  - pjsg 3y ago
    Actually I'm more interested in the game board. If a space has (say) 3 mines next to it, then the numeral 3 will appear (as today). However, when I add a flag next to it, then the count should go down to 2 -- i.e. the number is always the number of mines minus the number of flags. It takes a bit of getting used to when first using that mode, but it becomes much quicker after a while as there is no more checking that a cell with a '4' has 4 flags around it, so all the other adjacent cells are safe. The countdown rule means that a cell with 0 in it, all the open adjacent cells are safe (assuming that the flags are in the right place!!).
    - frading 3y ago
      Interesting. Thank you for explaining, I understand now. I'm more leaning toward not adding more options, as I'd like to keep the game as simple as possible, but nevertheless I'll have a think, it might be worth it.
mminer237 3y ago
Neat. Does this ensure there's no 50/50 guesses needed then? That seems easier when you can split a square in two.
- frading 3y ago
  It doesn't sadly. I had tried to implement that, but couldn't find a provable way to prevent 50/50. It's especially trickier as I can't use an algo with just rows and columns, it has to work on a graph. And it would need to be fast enough as to not slow the grid generation (which already takes a few seconds on the maximum size). So I'd love to add this ultimately, but not entirely sure I'll have the resources.
  - quectophoton 3y ago
    Also though they are rare, there are some nasty beginnings too, like this one: https://imgur.com/a/tjHg5if https://imgur.com/a/tjHg5if I might be overlooking something tho.
    - frading 3y ago
      ah yes, it's a nasty one. I can't see an obvious way to progress without luck either.
      - SnooSux 3y ago
        There are definitely ways to progress from here, but they may be more advanced? The 1 SouthEast of the bottom 2 touches two tiles, and the 1 immediately West touches a superset of those two. The difference between the larger and smaller set must be clear. And you can go further off of that.
        frading 3y ago
        ah yes, very well spotted! as the dev, I should really have seen that.
    - 3y ago
milicat 3y ago
This is really cool. Fascinating how the intuition maps neatly onto this grid As a notorious Minesweeper speedrunner I find the animation uncover animation when middle clicking to be a little slow as I find myself waiting it for it to finish for a second or so.
- frading 3y ago
  ah very interesting! I've done quite a few iterations of the speed at which they get uncovered, and it's definitely tricky to nail down. I've tried to find a middle ground between something that's rewarding/satisfying (so should take 1-2 seconds, long enough to be enjoyed), but also doesn't block you (so should be instant). And that animation would need to very different if it's revealing 10 tiles or less, or 500+. I realize this still isn't quite right. So thank you for saying that, I'll try and improve it.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    An idea (not sure if it will work well) - how about uncovering fields with a "wave" rather than one by one? So instead of linear time, make it linear-by-distance time. First reveal the original tile, then its neighbours, then their neighbours, ... It should still feel pretty fluid, but faster.
    - frading 3y ago
      If I understand correctly what you're describing, it's more or less what's happening now. But it may not look like it if you're on the beginner grid, and may only look good/better on the larger grids (either expert size, or custom with very large size). But in short, when you uncover the first tile of this wave, at each frame I uncover only 1/60 of the total. So if you've uncovered 600 tiles, 10 should be uncovered on each frame, and it should be done in 1 second if your display is at 60FPS. But if you uncover 60 tiles only, it will uncover 1 per frame, and that can look pretty bland. Could it be what you see? If that's the case, I believe (with a good 60% certainty!) that I mostly need to revisit the method when it's for a small number of tiles.
ghostly_s 3y ago
Cool, thanks for making it mobile-friendly—though on my (small) phone screen, the tutorial dialog covers half the play board and couldn't he completed. the actual game works fine. Been awhile since I played actual minesweeper, but shouldn't revealing a tile with a number on it which otherwise has empty neighbors also uncover those neighbors? I could swear that's how the original works.
- frading 3y ago
  ah very sorry about the dialog being too large. Which phone have you used it on? I should really fix this. I've tested on an iphone mini, and even though the dialog is quite big on it, so I should indeed try and shrink it, it doesn't prevent completing the tutorial. But it looks like I wrongly assumed this would be the smallest phone I could test it on. And as far as I know, the empty tiles only gets uncovered if you uncover another empty one, so I followed this principle. If that was also the case when you uncover a number, this would reveal too much.
  - Riseed 3y ago
    Not the user who made the original report, but I had the same problem. I got stuck on the second mine because the tutorial textbox covered that shape and so I couldn’t flag the mine. iPhone SE, Safari
    - frading 3y ago
      Very good to know. I'll try and reproduce this bug, thank you for this. And if you're able to send a screenshot, that'll be super useful. As at the moment, when testing in chrome dev tools, with iphone SE selected, it looks like it doesn't display the right size of the phone (or maybe I've misconfigured the dev tools), as the dialog box doesn't prevent from completing the tutorial.
polygotdomain 3y ago
I love this, and it brings an interesting twist to an old favorite. What initially tripped me up is the cells at the points are considered a neighbor. Of course as I write that it makes perfect sense, but because of the irregular nature it's a bit harder for me to register them as such. Not a complaint, just an intriguing side effect of the irregular grid.
- frading 3y ago
  Yes, completely agree. It does take time to get used to it. And even after having playing many games of this one, I can still trip me up at times.
kaesve 3y ago
neat! I've wanted to add irregular grids to my infinite minesweeper. Playing your version, it definitely adds something. How do you generate your grid? Is it voronoi cells on top of blue noise?
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot. And I've had some thought about making this infinite, but it's a bit harder! The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid: - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit
quectophoton 3y ago
Looking at the high scores, is that "." a decimal separator? Are those scores for the beginner difficulty "one and a half seconds"?
- dmoy 3y ago
  Sub 0.5 second is world record for normal beginner minesweeper. So, could be, yea.
  - frading 3y ago
    interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Is there an official list?
    - dmoy 3y ago
      Yea somewhere, I forget exactly I played a bunch of minesweeper earlier and looked at the records, and still don't get how it's possible lol
- frading 3y ago
  Yes, you're correct, it's the decimal separator. I remember now that this is not international. I believe the comma is used in the US? Having grown up in France, I'm used to the dot. And that score is indeed suspicious, although there are some protections to prevent cheating. Someone would have to be quite motivated to go around them. But it might be possible, as you don't need to flag all the mines in order to win, you can wind by just uncovering the non-mines. I felt this could be allowed as this is really the same outcome. But I can see that if you're really lucky, the mines are placed in a very convenient way, a quick win could happen. But I assume this can only happen on the beginner grid, not on the larger ones. In any case, I'll reconsider this, and may force all mines to be flagged in order to win, that might be safer.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    > In any case, I'll reconsider this, and may force all mines to be flagged in order to win, that might be safer. That would make it less fun though, because an interesting variant is when you play without using flags.
rrr_oh_man 3y ago
Excellent on iPhone 12 mini. Love it. Thank you for sharing!! Q: Would it be possible to make the grids… even more random? What’s your gridding approach? I was almost a bit "disappointed" that the grids still looked like, well, grids.
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot to you for the kind words, that's great to read! And I explain the generation method in another comment, but here it is as well: -------------------- The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid: - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit -------------------- So even though you're currently seeing a flat grid, it's all 3D under the hood. So I'm also considering having those grids on a sphere, a torus, or even a custom 3D model. I had done some earlier test: https://polygonjs.com/gui/minesweeper_torus_sphere/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/minesweeper_torus_sphere/edit So it's technically possible, but there's more work to have this easy to navigate around, and to still look visually minimalist while still being pleasant. If the steam version becomes profitable, I'll definitely explore those directions. I agree this can be stretched further.
  - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
    Thank you, wow!
jyap 3y ago
Lol this kept me entertained for a bit. Found it a couple of weeks ago. Hoping my number 1 ranking on Intermediate stays up a while. I’ll need to see if I can crack that Expert high list. Cheers
- frading 3y ago
  ah welcome back! For the scores, right now, they all keep accumulating on the same page, but I may do weekly/monthly lists, so previous highscores won't stay on the main page for too long.
Rygian 3y ago
Bug report: https://ibb.co/Db44nWp https://ibb.co/Db44nWp The orange arrows point to a cell that should show "2" but shows "1." EDIT: Nevermind :-)
- ryannevius 3y ago
  There are a lot of bugs in that screenshot
  - city41 3y ago
    I think it's ok. One of the mine spots is incorrectly labeled. The spot that the upper orange arrow is touching is not a mine.
  - stuart73547373 3y ago
    actually none. 2nd flag from the top is wrong
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot for the feedback. Although I've received several bug reports like this, and unfortunately every time, it was the player who placed a flag incorrectly. So at the moment I'm more leaning to one of those 2 flags being incorrect. I think out of those 4 flags, the second from the top shouldn't have been placed. But my assumption can certainly be wrong! To be sure, could you take a screenshot of a loosing screen? as all the mines will be revealed then, and we can see if the number is indeed correct or not.
g105b 3y ago
Love it. It feels great, and I particularly like that you can left-right click on the numbers like a pro!
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
This is really cool. I have wasted far too many hours playing minesweeper and this adds a bit of challenge back to a game that's become a bit too mundane for me(I mostly play it to fall asleep now). I will say though that it seems like the map ends up a bit empty, reducing the difficulty. Managed to get through the expert setting without encountering a single 5, for instance. And a question: Does this generate maps where guessing is necessary, like the original? I didn't come across any, and I was curious whether that was by accident or design. I hate those situations in what is supposed to be a logic game. Great work!
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot! And yes, the ratio of mines vs clear tiles may not be optimal, and is currently completely random, so guessing may be required at times. But there's an undo button so you won't have to restart a new level if you hit a mine. But I'd love to remove guessing ultimately. I just haven't found a reliable way to make it work yet, and would need to dedicate a fair amount of hours to it, which I've preferred allocating to the other games on my roadmap. Nevertheless, it still may happen. Could you maybe try the custom settings? You can change the ratio of mines. I'd be curious to know what quantity of mines you find works best.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    Simon Tatham has a completely guess free minesweeper in his portable puzzle collection: https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=mines.c;h=d8233417d9d540dfde618d6a7052f868a7345005;hb=HEAD https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=mines... The basic idea is he generates a grid, runs it through a deductive solver, and if it fails, heuristically changes the grid a little where it failed and tries again. I'll try some different ratios and get back to you! edit: I tried some runs with size 3 and 20% mines, that felt a lot more like expert difficulty Minesweeper too in terms of the sizes of the empty patches you uncover by uncovering a 0.
    - frading 3y ago
      Thanks a lot for taking the time to check this, that's very useful info. Although the reason I haven't set 20% as the default, is because I'm concerned this may create too many situations where guessing would be required. So I'd need to have the solver in place. So thank you for the link as well. Although now, I'm wondering if the solver can be smart enough to allow situations like this, where finding how to progress isn't quite obvious, like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234686
labster 3y ago
I couldn’t beat the tutorial on iPhone SE, the modal text covers where the game needs you to click
- frading 3y ago
  Thank you for letting me know. Would you be able to take a screenshot? I'm testing for the iPhone SE using chrome dev tools, and the display seems fine there, so what I see it most likely not accurate.
  - labster 3y ago
    Okay, I was able to progress, it's just a really small target to touch on screen. Though to be fair, probably a larger target than most advertising close X buttons. https://ibb.co/t4KjqtK https://ibb.co/t4KjqtK
Retr0id 3y ago
This is fun. I was playing classic minesweeper the other day and remarked on how I was basically playing on autopilot, I've internalized all the logic and playing is just muscle memory now. But playing this version, my intuition is all wrong! I lost my first 2 games, and now I'm going to have to force myself to slow down and think through things more carefully, rather than trying to rely on my now-incorrect intuitions.
- xlii 3y ago
  You might enjoy Bombe (on Steam) it’s all about Minesweeper automation and it gets to absurd levels.
- frading 3y ago
  That's great to hear, thank you! And yes, that's exactly the intention, it's a game designed to keep you on your toes.
  - samstave 3y ago
    This is great!. You know what would be fun, side scrolling mine sweeper - the field just keeps clicking several spots to the left each N seconds revealing new tiles to click - and maybe things like "Bomb Squad" perks that let you survive bomb damage when youre wrong. and whatever other mechanics could be layered into that - if you can get some tower defence mechanism where a shooting tower comes at you and you have to enclose it in toggle spots to kill it.... but it hops a few spots every time the field clicks to the next step... making him hard to catch. Get bomb squad points every time you get a correct answer, answer so many in a row, get a bomb suit (outlive one bomb). Get more point for the least number of unclicked tiles that expire to the scrolling of the field to the left... if you dont have any un-marked tiles moving through the filed moving click, then you get bomb squad points to next bomb suit.
    - frading 3y ago
      ahah, wow. I love when someone finds new ways to expand on game mechanics. I'm trying to visualize what you're describing, and I think I see some correctly, and it does sound fun. That'll make me think, certainly.
amenghra 3y ago
I think Battleship on a hex or irregular grid could be more interesting than a regular grid.
em-bee 3y ago
https://polyreplay.com/minesweepertwist?p=expert&s1=7&s2=43&r=0.13217325059829818 https://polyreplay.com/minesweepertwist?p=expert&s1=7&s2=43&... opening a shared url like this doesn't seem to work. i just get the beginner view. also i noticed that sometimes a tile is empty or white even though it should have bevels because there is actually a bomb under it. it's a cosmetic issue maybe caused by the algorithm to automatically uncover empty tiles.
- frading 3y ago
  ah, that share url is indeed a bug, thank you for finding it, I'll work on it. For the tile not having bevels when it should, would you be able to take a screenshot? That will help me understand when this happens. I haven't seen this yet, so I'm not entirely sure what could cause this.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    https://ibb.co/0fCPprF https://ibb.co/0fCPprF the tiles with missing bevels are marked with bombs
    - frading 3y ago
      Thanks a lot, I'll have a proper look at how this can happen.
Waterluvian 3y ago
I’m not sure why but that was the first game of Minesweeper I’ve ever finished, other than the ones I try to finish on huge maps with a single click.
bigmattystyles 3y ago
I had totally forgotten how fun and sometimes nerve-wracking even when your reasoning is sound this game is. I wonder how much they would charge on steam if this game was novel. This implementation is also really fun.
rightbyte 3y ago
Nice twist to it! I can't play it on autopilot like the original. And that is a good thing. I really like these kind of games. They are so meditating.
- frading 3y ago
  Excellent, great to hear, I really appreciate.
egypturnash 3y ago
MacOS, Safari: Tutorial breaks when I am asked to right click a cell, I just get the right click menu instead. MacOS, Firefox: Tutorial halfway breaks when I am asked to right click a cell, I get the right click menu over a flag being dropped. MacOS, Chrome: what the fuck the OS popped up a note when I launched this piece of surveillance capitalism adware that it just force-added a bunch of shit that runs in the background to my Login Items, fuck Chrome, anyway the right click actually works
- frading 3y ago
  Looks like a few people mention the context menu displaying on some browsers. I'll take a proper look at this, thank you for mentioning it.
trevyn 3y ago
For a HN twist on Minesweeper, Bombe is a must-try.
- vermilingua 3y ago
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/2262930/Bombe/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2262930/Bombe/
pfedak 3y ago
Tametsi explores a similar concept, although with mostly-regular non-square grids http://store.steampowered.com/app/709920/Tametsi/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/709920/Tametsi/
dqft 3y ago
Try recursive grids https://ataraxia-mechanica.itch.io/infinisweeper https://ataraxia-mechanica.itch.io/infinisweeper
- frading 3y ago
  Ah yes, I had seen that one, it's indeed a great idea.
mperham 3y ago
Can you explain the “Data Tracked and Linked to You” in the App Store? The game looks fun but I’m hoping to see something a little more privacy friendly, that isn’t collecting and selling my data. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minesweeper-twist/id6473121693 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minesweeper-twist/id6473121693
- frading 3y ago
  It's only because I've added admob on the iOS and android versions. I personally don't collect data, but admob does. And when using those apps, you'll see a banner at the top, and a reward video if you press undo. The steam version will be ad free, but there isn't a iOS/android paid and ad-free version yet. I'm considering it, though. But I'm also looking for alternative ad providers, that would allow displaying ads while being privacy friendly. For instance, banners that redirect to a board game shop when clicked, and that track absolutely nothing except visits to their site, would be ideal. Surely those should exist, but I haven't found them yet. If anybody has recommendation, I'd love to hear, I'm learning about this space at the moment.
  - opyate 3y ago
    I don't see the usual "contains ads" disclaimer on Google Play... Anyway, great game. Would happily pay for this sans ads.
    - frading 3y ago
      Thank you for the feedback. I admit not being sure how that disclaimer should be activated on google play. I would have thought that given the lengthy process required to publish an app, something would have triggered it. I'll take a look.
- arealaccount 3y ago
  Id happily pay a couple bucks to support the creators before Id download an app with those settings.
anotherevan 3y ago
A long time ago a friend of a friend wrote a minesweeper game (in DOS!) that was on an hexagonal grid. It was surprisingly enjoyable and relaxing to play. I probably still have it somewhere if I grep through my drive.
eganist 3y ago
Is there a paid version without ads? Or all the tracking in the permissions?
- frading 3y ago
  Currently the only paid version without ads will be the steam one. But as I said in another comment, I'm looking for ad providers that are privacy friendly. I keep my hopes up that such provider much exist. Or that I can maybe skip providers and display banners to publishers directly, where tracking only occurs if the ad is clicked. And I'm also considering released paid ad-free iOS and android versions, it just won't happen right away. And at the moment, there is no tracking at all on the website (except if you create an account, there are just cookies to save scores)
mkimball 3y ago
'Delete' is an interesting take on Minesweeper, played on the surface of irregular 3D objects: https://store.steampowered.com/app/773670/Delete/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/773670/Delete/
mkl 3y ago
Neat! A Voronoi tesselation [1] based on Poisson disc sampling [2] would probably lead to more varied and interesting boards, but would lose the all-quads feature. Here's one someone made (that looks like it uses uniform sampling rather than something nicely spaced): https://babelthuap.github.io/voronoi-mines/ https://babelthuap.github.io/voronoi-mines/. That has a good hover-for-neighbours idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram [2] e.g. https://www.jasondavies.com/poisson-disc/ https://www.jasondavies.com/poisson-disc/ (the Bridson paper there is easier to implement than Dunbar and Humphreys)
ta2112 3y ago
Well, that's as addicting as the original. Kudos!
- frading 3y ago
  Great to hear, thanks a lot!
omoikane 3y ago
The non-rectangular grid idea was great but didn't feel as fun for me. I wish the grid was non-rectangular but regular, like the alternative grid types available in Loopy: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/loopy.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/loop...
Procrastic 3y ago
On the iOS app, when zoomed in, I want to be able to pan across by using one finger on either the outside of the map, or revealed tiles. I also want to be able to double tap a number to reveal all un-flagged tiles adjacent. (For extra safety, this should only work if the number of flags adjacent are equal or greater to the cell’s value) Also, the ‘rate this game’ shortcut doesn’t work. Maybe because I’ve disabled rating pestering.
- frading 3y ago
  Ah, I haven't thought about allowing pan with 1 finger when you start on a revealed tile, that's a good idea, I'll try to add this. Revealing neighbors is currently desktop only, as it seemed risky to have that on a small screen, but maybe double tap will do just fine. I'll take a look as well. And the extra safety you mention is already there, so that's a start. Thank you for mentioning that the "rate this game" being broken. Looks like a big missed opportunity for me then... I'll take a look as well. (But I definitely don't plan to nag a player with "rate me" pop up, that will only show up if you click on the menu entry in the settings.) But hopefully that did not prevent you from rating from the store page!
anoncow 3y ago
All the best scores will be 61 seconds
air7 3y ago
Tried the game on mobile. Skipped the tutorial and instructions and naturally tried quick press to uncover, long press to mark a mine. Good job for coming up with such an intuitive interface!
- frading 3y ago
  Great to hear, thanks a lot! And I have to admit that the original game already had a good interface to draw inspiration from.
tasuki 3y ago
I made a version of go without the grid. It is spectacularly unplayable, but I don't want to give up on the idea...
Springtime 3y ago
Since some have posted favorite twists on the genre, a delightful one I discovered recently, Dungeon Sweeper[1], is themed like an isometric city builder, where the mines are dungeons and the clues are graveyards around them. Uses hexagonal tiles. [1] https://setamopixel.itch.io/dungeon-sweeper https://setamopixel.itch.io/dungeon-sweeper
CGamesPlay 3y ago
I tried it out and downloaded the iOS version, but unfortunately it doesn’t save between sessions. That sucks, especially for a game in the puzzle genre. Also, the ads offset the display but the taps still go to the original positions. Hope these can be fixed!
- frading 3y ago
  Thanks a lot for this feedback. I have indeed not thought about saving between sessions, I'll try and add it, I agree it is important. For the clicks being offset because of the banner, I'm surprised and did not see the issue when developing. I'll double check, so thank you for that.

293 points by frading 3y ago

dhimes 3y ago

What a cool idea! Nice job.

frading 3y ago
thanks a lot!

yeko 3y ago

The long press does not work on the Android mobile app, although it does work on the web page.

aredox 3y ago

This just screams to have an "einstein" (aperiodic monotile) tiling

minesweeper2024 3y ago

This is a game that I will continue to play in the future. I have a small feature request that would make it better. Could you add an option that will auto-reveal or mark cells that are unambiguous? That would save a lot of clicking, scrolling and time. You could limit it to reveal cells bordering the one you click to avoid solving the whole board.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Nice, if you are finding the whole Euclidean space thing a bit pedestrian though try https://cdn.warpedmines.com/ https://cdn.warpedmines.com/

netsharc 3y ago

Neat... but I'm missing the left+right click, in the Windows Minesweeper, say you have a square with 4, and you've marked 4 squares around it as bombs, you can left+right click on the 4-square and uncover all the unmarked squares around it, instead of going one by one. Also "undo" is cool, but "lose 60s" seems backwards, considering one would get 60 seconds added to one's time.

umvi 3y ago
left+right click reveal works for me (linux + chrome 120). Middle click also does the same as left+right click.
frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot for trying it and the feedback. As a sibling comment said, left+right click should work (as well as middle click). Which OS/browser are you using? I like to fix this. And you're right for "lose 60s", It's not the ideal wording. I was thinking it in terms of the less time you end up with, the better your score is. But "gain 60s" wouldn't work either. I'll have a think, but curious to hear if anyone has suggestions for this.
- baobun 3y ago
  "+60s"?
- Szpadel 3y ago
  maybe "60s penalty" would be better wording?
  - frading 3y ago
    yes, that's indeed better, thanks a lot for your help, I appreciate.
  - frading 3y ago
    "60s penalty" wording is live! Thanks again
- 3y ago

dorianmariefr 3y ago

I got tricked, nice https://gist.github.com/dorianmariefr/652c1c6c5b84cc242b66922e5da5dca7 https://gist.github.com/dorianmariefr/652c1c6c5b84cc242b6692...

frading 3y ago
Nice! Almost there. Still, you're now ready to move on the intermediate/expert grids :D

dorianmariefr 3y ago

And for the Checkers https://polyreplay.com/checkerstwist https://polyreplay.com/checkerstwist

pjsg 3y ago

I'd like to have the option to show "remaining" mines. I've played https://pwmarcz.pl/kaboom/ https://pwmarcz.pl/kaboom/ enough in "countdown mode" (i.e. where the numbers are the number of hidden mines) that I can't adjust to this....

frading 3y ago
On the left of the face emoji, in the top bar, you should see the number of remaining mines. It's not exactly like the version you linked, which should "number found / total", as what I show is simply "remaining mines". Is that what you mean? Although the number I show is actually a bit sneaky, as I subtract the number of flags placed to the total number of mines. So if you were to place more flags than mines, you'd see a negative number. (which I realise as I type that your version is similar, as the number can also go above the total).
- pjsg 3y ago
  Actually I'm more interested in the game board. If a space has (say) 3 mines next to it, then the numeral 3 will appear (as today). However, when I add a flag next to it, then the count should go down to 2 -- i.e. the number is always the number of mines minus the number of flags. It takes a bit of getting used to when first using that mode, but it becomes much quicker after a while as there is no more checking that a cell with a '4' has 4 flags around it, so all the other adjacent cells are safe. The countdown rule means that a cell with 0 in it, all the open adjacent cells are safe (assuming that the flags are in the right place!!).
  - frading 3y ago
    Interesting. Thank you for explaining, I understand now. I'm more leaning toward not adding more options, as I'd like to keep the game as simple as possible, but nevertheless I'll have a think, it might be worth it.

mminer237 3y ago

Neat. Does this ensure there's no 50/50 guesses needed then? That seems easier when you can split a square in two.

frading 3y ago
It doesn't sadly. I had tried to implement that, but couldn't find a provable way to prevent 50/50. It's especially trickier as I can't use an algo with just rows and columns, it has to work on a graph. And it would need to be fast enough as to not slow the grid generation (which already takes a few seconds on the maximum size). So I'd love to add this ultimately, but not entirely sure I'll have the resources.
- quectophoton 3y ago
  Also though they are rare, there are some nasty beginnings too, like this one: https://imgur.com/a/tjHg5if https://imgur.com/a/tjHg5if I might be overlooking something tho.
  - frading 3y ago
    ah yes, it's a nasty one. I can't see an obvious way to progress without luck either.
    - SnooSux 3y ago
      There are definitely ways to progress from here, but they may be more advanced? The 1 SouthEast of the bottom 2 touches two tiles, and the 1 immediately West touches a superset of those two. The difference between the larger and smaller set must be clear. And you can go further off of that.
      - frading 3y ago
        ah yes, very well spotted! as the dev, I should really have seen that.
  - 3y ago

milicat 3y ago

This is really cool. Fascinating how the intuition maps neatly onto this grid As a notorious Minesweeper speedrunner I find the animation uncover animation when middle clicking to be a little slow as I find myself waiting it for it to finish for a second or so.

frading 3y ago
ah very interesting! I've done quite a few iterations of the speed at which they get uncovered, and it's definitely tricky to nail down. I've tried to find a middle ground between something that's rewarding/satisfying (so should take 1-2 seconds, long enough to be enjoyed), but also doesn't block you (so should be instant). And that animation would need to very different if it's revealing 10 tiles or less, or 500+. I realize this still isn't quite right. So thank you for saying that, I'll try and improve it.
- viraptor 3y ago
  An idea (not sure if it will work well) - how about uncovering fields with a "wave" rather than one by one? So instead of linear time, make it linear-by-distance time. First reveal the original tile, then its neighbours, then their neighbours, ... It should still feel pretty fluid, but faster.
  - frading 3y ago
    If I understand correctly what you're describing, it's more or less what's happening now. But it may not look like it if you're on the beginner grid, and may only look good/better on the larger grids (either expert size, or custom with very large size). But in short, when you uncover the first tile of this wave, at each frame I uncover only 1/60 of the total. So if you've uncovered 600 tiles, 10 should be uncovered on each frame, and it should be done in 1 second if your display is at 60FPS. But if you uncover 60 tiles only, it will uncover 1 per frame, and that can look pretty bland. Could it be what you see? If that's the case, I believe (with a good 60% certainty!) that I mostly need to revisit the method when it's for a small number of tiles.

ghostly_s 3y ago

Cool, thanks for making it mobile-friendly—though on my (small) phone screen, the tutorial dialog covers half the play board and couldn't he completed. the actual game works fine. Been awhile since I played actual minesweeper, but shouldn't revealing a tile with a number on it which otherwise has empty neighbors also uncover those neighbors? I could swear that's how the original works.

frading 3y ago
ah very sorry about the dialog being too large. Which phone have you used it on? I should really fix this. I've tested on an iphone mini, and even though the dialog is quite big on it, so I should indeed try and shrink it, it doesn't prevent completing the tutorial. But it looks like I wrongly assumed this would be the smallest phone I could test it on. And as far as I know, the empty tiles only gets uncovered if you uncover another empty one, so I followed this principle. If that was also the case when you uncover a number, this would reveal too much.
- Riseed 3y ago
  Not the user who made the original report, but I had the same problem. I got stuck on the second mine because the tutorial textbox covered that shape and so I couldn’t flag the mine. iPhone SE, Safari
  - frading 3y ago
    Very good to know. I'll try and reproduce this bug, thank you for this. And if you're able to send a screenshot, that'll be super useful. As at the moment, when testing in chrome dev tools, with iphone SE selected, it looks like it doesn't display the right size of the phone (or maybe I've misconfigured the dev tools), as the dialog box doesn't prevent from completing the tutorial.

polygotdomain 3y ago

I love this, and it brings an interesting twist to an old favorite. What initially tripped me up is the cells at the points are considered a neighbor. Of course as I write that it makes perfect sense, but because of the irregular nature it's a bit harder for me to register them as such. Not a complaint, just an intriguing side effect of the irregular grid.

frading 3y ago
Yes, completely agree. It does take time to get used to it. And even after having playing many games of this one, I can still trip me up at times.

kaesve 3y ago

neat! I've wanted to add irregular grids to my infinite minesweeper. Playing your version, it definitely adds something. How do you generate your grid? Is it voronoi cells on top of blue noise?

frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot. And I've had some thought about making this infinite, but it's a bit harder! The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid: - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit

quectophoton 3y ago

Looking at the high scores, is that "." a decimal separator? Are those scores for the beginner difficulty "one and a half seconds"?

dmoy 3y ago
Sub 0.5 second is world record for normal beginner minesweeper. So, could be, yea.
- frading 3y ago
  interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Is there an official list?
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Yea somewhere, I forget exactly I played a bunch of minesweeper earlier and looked at the records, and still don't get how it's possible lol
frading 3y ago
Yes, you're correct, it's the decimal separator. I remember now that this is not international. I believe the comma is used in the US? Having grown up in France, I'm used to the dot. And that score is indeed suspicious, although there are some protections to prevent cheating. Someone would have to be quite motivated to go around them. But it might be possible, as you don't need to flag all the mines in order to win, you can wind by just uncovering the non-mines. I felt this could be allowed as this is really the same outcome. But I can see that if you're really lucky, the mines are placed in a very convenient way, a quick win could happen. But I assume this can only happen on the beginner grid, not on the larger ones. In any case, I'll reconsider this, and may force all mines to be flagged in order to win, that might be safer.
- dmoy 3y ago
  > In any case, I'll reconsider this, and may force all mines to be flagged in order to win, that might be safer. That would make it less fun though, because an interesting variant is when you play without using flags.

rrr_oh_man 3y ago

Excellent on iPhone 12 mini. Love it. Thank you for sharing!! Q: Would it be possible to make the grids… even more random? What’s your gridding approach? I was almost a bit "disappointed" that the grids still looked like, well, grids.

frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot to you for the kind words, that's great to read! And I explain the generation method in another comment, but here it is as well: -------------------- The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428 I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid: - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit -------------------- So even though you're currently seeing a flat grid, it's all 3D under the hood. So I'm also considering having those grids on a sphere, a torus, or even a custom 3D model. I had done some earlier test: https://polygonjs.com/gui/minesweeper_torus_sphere/edit https://polygonjs.com/gui/minesweeper_torus_sphere/edit So it's technically possible, but there's more work to have this easy to navigate around, and to still look visually minimalist while still being pleasant. If the steam version becomes profitable, I'll definitely explore those directions. I agree this can be stretched further.
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  Thank you, wow!

jyap 3y ago

Lol this kept me entertained for a bit. Found it a couple of weeks ago. Hoping my number 1 ranking on Intermediate stays up a while. I’ll need to see if I can crack that Expert high list. Cheers

frading 3y ago
ah welcome back! For the scores, right now, they all keep accumulating on the same page, but I may do weekly/monthly lists, so previous highscores won't stay on the main page for too long.

Rygian 3y ago

Bug report: https://ibb.co/Db44nWp https://ibb.co/Db44nWp The orange arrows point to a cell that should show "2" but shows "1." EDIT: Nevermind :-)

ryannevius 3y ago
There are a lot of bugs in that screenshot
- city41 3y ago
  I think it's ok. One of the mine spots is incorrectly labeled. The spot that the upper orange arrow is touching is not a mine.
- stuart73547373 3y ago
  actually none. 2nd flag from the top is wrong
frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Although I've received several bug reports like this, and unfortunately every time, it was the player who placed a flag incorrectly. So at the moment I'm more leaning to one of those 2 flags being incorrect. I think out of those 4 flags, the second from the top shouldn't have been placed. But my assumption can certainly be wrong! To be sure, could you take a screenshot of a loosing screen? as all the mines will be revealed then, and we can see if the number is indeed correct or not.

g105b 3y ago

Love it. It feels great, and I particularly like that you can left-right click on the numbers like a pro!

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago

This is really cool. I have wasted far too many hours playing minesweeper and this adds a bit of challenge back to a game that's become a bit too mundane for me(I mostly play it to fall asleep now). I will say though that it seems like the map ends up a bit empty, reducing the difficulty. Managed to get through the expert setting without encountering a single 5, for instance. And a question: Does this generate maps where guessing is necessary, like the original? I didn't come across any, and I was curious whether that was by accident or design. I hate those situations in what is supposed to be a logic game. Great work!

frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot! And yes, the ratio of mines vs clear tiles may not be optimal, and is currently completely random, so guessing may be required at times. But there's an undo button so you won't have to restart a new level if you hit a mine. But I'd love to remove guessing ultimately. I just haven't found a reliable way to make it work yet, and would need to dedicate a fair amount of hours to it, which I've preferred allocating to the other games on my roadmap. Nevertheless, it still may happen. Could you maybe try the custom settings? You can change the ratio of mines. I'd be curious to know what quantity of mines you find works best.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Simon Tatham has a completely guess free minesweeper in his portable puzzle collection: https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=mines.c;h=d8233417d9d540dfde618d6a7052f868a7345005;hb=HEAD https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=mines... The basic idea is he generates a grid, runs it through a deductive solver, and if it fails, heuristically changes the grid a little where it failed and tries again. I'll try some different ratios and get back to you! edit: I tried some runs with size 3 and 20% mines, that felt a lot more like expert difficulty Minesweeper too in terms of the sizes of the empty patches you uncover by uncovering a 0.
  - frading 3y ago
    Thanks a lot for taking the time to check this, that's very useful info. Although the reason I haven't set 20% as the default, is because I'm concerned this may create too many situations where guessing would be required. So I'd need to have the solver in place. So thank you for the link as well. Although now, I'm wondering if the solver can be smart enough to allow situations like this, where finding how to progress isn't quite obvious, like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234686

labster 3y ago

I couldn’t beat the tutorial on iPhone SE, the modal text covers where the game needs you to click

frading 3y ago
Thank you for letting me know. Would you be able to take a screenshot? I'm testing for the iPhone SE using chrome dev tools, and the display seems fine there, so what I see it most likely not accurate.
- labster 3y ago
  Okay, I was able to progress, it's just a really small target to touch on screen. Though to be fair, probably a larger target than most advertising close X buttons. https://ibb.co/t4KjqtK https://ibb.co/t4KjqtK

Retr0id 3y ago

This is fun. I was playing classic minesweeper the other day and remarked on how I was basically playing on autopilot, I've internalized all the logic and playing is just muscle memory now. But playing this version, my intuition is all wrong! I lost my first 2 games, and now I'm going to have to force myself to slow down and think through things more carefully, rather than trying to rely on my now-incorrect intuitions.

xlii 3y ago
You might enjoy Bombe (on Steam) it’s all about Minesweeper automation and it gets to absurd levels.
frading 3y ago
That's great to hear, thank you! And yes, that's exactly the intention, it's a game designed to keep you on your toes.
- samstave 3y ago
  This is great!. You know what would be fun, side scrolling mine sweeper - the field just keeps clicking several spots to the left each N seconds revealing new tiles to click - and maybe things like "Bomb Squad" perks that let you survive bomb damage when youre wrong. and whatever other mechanics could be layered into that - if you can get some tower defence mechanism where a shooting tower comes at you and you have to enclose it in toggle spots to kill it.... but it hops a few spots every time the field clicks to the next step... making him hard to catch. Get bomb squad points every time you get a correct answer, answer so many in a row, get a bomb suit (outlive one bomb). Get more point for the least number of unclicked tiles that expire to the scrolling of the field to the left... if you dont have any un-marked tiles moving through the filed moving click, then you get bomb squad points to next bomb suit.
  - frading 3y ago
    ahah, wow. I love when someone finds new ways to expand on game mechanics. I'm trying to visualize what you're describing, and I think I see some correctly, and it does sound fun. That'll make me think, certainly.

amenghra 3y ago

I think Battleship on a hex or irregular grid could be more interesting than a regular grid.

em-bee 3y ago

https://polyreplay.com/minesweepertwist?p=expert&s1=7&s2=43&r=0.13217325059829818 https://polyreplay.com/minesweepertwist?p=expert&s1=7&s2=43&... opening a shared url like this doesn't seem to work. i just get the beginner view. also i noticed that sometimes a tile is empty or white even though it should have bevels because there is actually a bomb under it. it's a cosmetic issue maybe caused by the algorithm to automatically uncover empty tiles.

frading 3y ago
ah, that share url is indeed a bug, thank you for finding it, I'll work on it. For the tile not having bevels when it should, would you be able to take a screenshot? That will help me understand when this happens. I haven't seen this yet, so I'm not entirely sure what could cause this.
- em-bee 3y ago
  https://ibb.co/0fCPprF https://ibb.co/0fCPprF the tiles with missing bevels are marked with bombs
  - frading 3y ago
    Thanks a lot, I'll have a proper look at how this can happen.

Waterluvian 3y ago

I’m not sure why but that was the first game of Minesweeper I’ve ever finished, other than the ones I try to finish on huge maps with a single click.

bigmattystyles 3y ago

I had totally forgotten how fun and sometimes nerve-wracking even when your reasoning is sound this game is. I wonder how much they would charge on steam if this game was novel. This implementation is also really fun.

rightbyte 3y ago

Nice twist to it! I can't play it on autopilot like the original. And that is a good thing. I really like these kind of games. They are so meditating.

frading 3y ago
Excellent, great to hear, I really appreciate.

egypturnash 3y ago

MacOS, Safari: Tutorial breaks when I am asked to right click a cell, I just get the right click menu instead. MacOS, Firefox: Tutorial halfway breaks when I am asked to right click a cell, I get the right click menu over a flag being dropped. MacOS, Chrome: what the fuck the OS popped up a note when I launched this piece of surveillance capitalism adware that it just force-added a bunch of shit that runs in the background to my Login Items, fuck Chrome, anyway the right click actually works

frading 3y ago
Looks like a few people mention the context menu displaying on some browsers. I'll take a proper look at this, thank you for mentioning it.

trevyn 3y ago

For a HN twist on Minesweeper, Bombe is a must-try.

vermilingua 3y ago
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2262930/Bombe/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2262930/Bombe/

pfedak 3y ago

Tametsi explores a similar concept, although with mostly-regular non-square grids http://store.steampowered.com/app/709920/Tametsi/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/709920/Tametsi/

dqft 3y ago

Try recursive grids https://ataraxia-mechanica.itch.io/infinisweeper https://ataraxia-mechanica.itch.io/infinisweeper

frading 3y ago
Ah yes, I had seen that one, it's indeed a great idea.

mperham 3y ago

Can you explain the “Data Tracked and Linked to You” in the App Store? The game looks fun but I’m hoping to see something a little more privacy friendly, that isn’t collecting and selling my data. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minesweeper-twist/id6473121693 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minesweeper-twist/id6473121693

frading 3y ago
It's only because I've added admob on the iOS and android versions. I personally don't collect data, but admob does. And when using those apps, you'll see a banner at the top, and a reward video if you press undo. The steam version will be ad free, but there isn't a iOS/android paid and ad-free version yet. I'm considering it, though. But I'm also looking for alternative ad providers, that would allow displaying ads while being privacy friendly. For instance, banners that redirect to a board game shop when clicked, and that track absolutely nothing except visits to their site, would be ideal. Surely those should exist, but I haven't found them yet. If anybody has recommendation, I'd love to hear, I'm learning about this space at the moment.
- opyate 3y ago
  I don't see the usual "contains ads" disclaimer on Google Play... Anyway, great game. Would happily pay for this sans ads.
  - frading 3y ago
    Thank you for the feedback. I admit not being sure how that disclaimer should be activated on google play. I would have thought that given the lengthy process required to publish an app, something would have triggered it. I'll take a look.
arealaccount 3y ago
Id happily pay a couple bucks to support the creators before Id download an app with those settings.

anotherevan 3y ago

A long time ago a friend of a friend wrote a minesweeper game (in DOS!) that was on an hexagonal grid. It was surprisingly enjoyable and relaxing to play. I probably still have it somewhere if I grep through my drive.

eganist 3y ago

Is there a paid version without ads? Or all the tracking in the permissions?

frading 3y ago
Currently the only paid version without ads will be the steam one. But as I said in another comment, I'm looking for ad providers that are privacy friendly. I keep my hopes up that such provider much exist. Or that I can maybe skip providers and display banners to publishers directly, where tracking only occurs if the ad is clicked. And I'm also considering released paid ad-free iOS and android versions, it just won't happen right away. And at the moment, there is no tracking at all on the website (except if you create an account, there are just cookies to save scores)

mkimball 3y ago

'Delete' is an interesting take on Minesweeper, played on the surface of irregular 3D objects: https://store.steampowered.com/app/773670/Delete/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/773670/Delete/

mkl 3y ago

Neat! A Voronoi tesselation [1] based on Poisson disc sampling [2] would probably lead to more varied and interesting boards, but would lose the all-quads feature. Here's one someone made (that looks like it uses uniform sampling rather than something nicely spaced): https://babelthuap.github.io/voronoi-mines/ https://babelthuap.github.io/voronoi-mines/. That has a good hover-for-neighbours idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram [2] e.g. https://www.jasondavies.com/poisson-disc/ https://www.jasondavies.com/poisson-disc/ (the Bridson paper there is easier to implement than Dunbar and Humphreys)

ta2112 3y ago

Well, that's as addicting as the original. Kudos!

frading 3y ago
Great to hear, thanks a lot!

omoikane 3y ago

The non-rectangular grid idea was great but didn't feel as fun for me. I wish the grid was non-rectangular but regular, like the alternative grid types available in Loopy: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/loopy.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/loop...

Procrastic 3y ago

On the iOS app, when zoomed in, I want to be able to pan across by using one finger on either the outside of the map, or revealed tiles. I also want to be able to double tap a number to reveal all un-flagged tiles adjacent. (For extra safety, this should only work if the number of flags adjacent are equal or greater to the cell’s value) Also, the ‘rate this game’ shortcut doesn’t work. Maybe because I’ve disabled rating pestering.

frading 3y ago
Ah, I haven't thought about allowing pan with 1 finger when you start on a revealed tile, that's a good idea, I'll try to add this. Revealing neighbors is currently desktop only, as it seemed risky to have that on a small screen, but maybe double tap will do just fine. I'll take a look as well. And the extra safety you mention is already there, so that's a start. Thank you for mentioning that the "rate this game" being broken. Looks like a big missed opportunity for me then... I'll take a look as well. (But I definitely don't plan to nag a player with "rate me" pop up, that will only show up if you click on the menu entry in the settings.) But hopefully that did not prevent you from rating from the store page!

anoncow 3y ago

All the best scores will be 61 seconds

air7 3y ago

Tried the game on mobile. Skipped the tutorial and instructions and naturally tried quick press to uncover, long press to mark a mine. Good job for coming up with such an intuitive interface!

frading 3y ago
Great to hear, thanks a lot! And I have to admit that the original game already had a good interface to draw inspiration from.

tasuki 3y ago

I made a version of go without the grid. It is spectacularly unplayable, but I don't want to give up on the idea...

Springtime 3y ago

Since some have posted favorite twists on the genre, a delightful one I discovered recently, Dungeon Sweeper[1], is themed like an isometric city builder, where the mines are dungeons and the clues are graveyards around them. Uses hexagonal tiles. [1] https://setamopixel.itch.io/dungeon-sweeper https://setamopixel.itch.io/dungeon-sweeper

CGamesPlay 3y ago

I tried it out and downloaded the iOS version, but unfortunately it doesn’t save between sessions. That sucks, especially for a game in the puzzle genre. Also, the ads offset the display but the taps still go to the original positions. Hope these can be fixed!

frading 3y ago
Thanks a lot for this feedback. I have indeed not thought about saving between sessions, I'll try and add it, I agree it is important. For the clicks being offset because of the banner, I'm surprised and did not see the issue when developing. I'll double check, so thank you for that.