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Show HN: Reverse Minesweeper
- da-x 2mo agoAwesome idea
- pompomsheep 2mo agoThanks! Not perfect yet but I think it has potential. Would love any feedback
- Kuinox 2mo agoI jumped directly to insane and completed it on the first try. It's too easy.
- pompomsheep 2mo agoI've just tried to bump insane up a bit if you could test it to let me know what you think? I'm struggling to play test the higher difficulties because it above my own skill level haha
- kybishop 2mo agoInsane is still far too easy. For the highest skill level it should be -really- hard. Was still able to solve one in under 3 minutes. I -love- this idea though!!
- vl 2mo agoI trained to play insane, usually a just bit slower than average, after using hints for couple times. I suggest larger levels (yes, scrolling and zooming might be required). After all, minesweeper is the most interesting on the largest level.
- pompomsheep 2mo agoAnd if you find a puzzle you like the difficulty of could you tell me the puzzle id at the top left please
- convolvatron 2mo agoI guess I am mildly discomfited by the red flower. if the program is going to tell me every time I fail to think through things properly, then my role here is kinda limited to driving the mouse.
- pompomsheep 2mo agoHelpful feedback thanks. I am trying to make it a bit more forgiving for first time players to learn the logic. Then in easy mode and above you are given max 3 mistakes similar to sudoku.com and other popular logic puzzles
- Rexxar 2mo agoDid you use something like Z3 to solve/create the problems ?
- Recoordinates29 2mo ago[flagged]
- hyperhello 2mo agoI don’t understand how this is reverse minesweeper when it’s just minesweeper with flowers instead of bombs.
- pompomsheep 2mo agoYeah it's maybe not the best way to describe it, but my intention is all clues already visible at the start rather than exploration, and adding in flowers rather than avoiding mines. The main difference is having all the clues visible at the start changes it to a search and deduction logic style rather than reveal and react
- omoikane 2mo agoIn that sense, this game is similar to Mosaic[1] where the clues are all initially visible, except in Mosaic the count includes all 9 cells since black squares can be placed on the numbers themselves. [1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosaic.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosa...
- Braini 2mo agoThis reminds me a bit of one mode (squared) from Picture Enigmas (https://picture-enigmas.com/#features https://picture-enigmas.com/#features) which I like to play from time to time.
- kevinwang 2mo agoAnother example is this Steam game which I play occasionally: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3083300/Proverbs/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3083300/Proverbs/
- aleph_minus_one 2mo agoFrom the same developer > https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/divide-the-plunder https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/divide-the-plunder I particularly like "Mosaic of the Strange" > https://store.steampowered.com/app/3444650/Mosaic_of_the_Strange/?curator_clanid=44696447 https://store.steampowered.com/app/3444650/Mosaic_of_the_Str... You will in particular like this game if you are into conspiracy theories. If one switches the difficulty to the hardest one, HN readers might have some fun with this game. :-)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- fllkfsalkdsfds 2mo ago[dead]
- adzm 2mo agoActually really fun
- lioeters 2mo agoIt's cute and friendly, how it explains the rules. Maybe instead of a red box for making a mistake, the sunflower could "shake its head" to mean "no". Anyway the game feels well-designed with a focused scope, nice work!
- ymolodtsov 2mo agoHonestly looks far more obvious than the original to me. I like how ai agents make it possible to experiment with different game concepts. I merged Go with Tetris while brainstorming some ideas. https://goban.molodtsov.me/ https://goban.molodtsov.me/
- gkfasdfasdf 2mo agoI love it. Reverse minesweeper describes it perfectly.
- BlackSharkDev 2mo ago[dead]
- 0x1ceb00da 2mo agoJumped from medium to insane and didn't notice any difficulty bump. Were the puzzles designed by AI, eg arc agi puzzles are trivial for humans but very difficult for LLMs.
- mcmoor 2mo agoStrangely I also easily solve insane, then I try extreme. First I can solve with difficulty, second I almost gave up and it do need some whole board logic. Haven't tried third.
- yammajr 2mo agoI did have to guess. If I'd have known how many mines there were, I wouldn't have though. https://imgur.com/a/idfj1my https://imgur.com/a/idfj1my edit: I'm wrong. Thanks steve.
- MK2k 2mo agoThe "4" clue forces the solution imho.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Steve6 2mo agoThe "2" in col 1 row 5 already has 2 flowers, meaning the empty space in col 2 row 4 must be blank. So a flower belongs in the square above that one and the corner will be blank. No guessing needed.
- Tepix 2mo agoFirst column, there's a 2 in the second row from below that already has two sunflowers. So the 3rd adjacent field must be empty.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2mo agoFor everyone: Whenever you think you have to guess, use the hint feature. In the more advanced levels you essentially have to "guess" then check whether the guess (e.g. using "pencil mode") leads to a valid solution or a conflict.
- dyarosla 2mo agoIm curious how youve set up the multiple puzzle games you have to generate two daily puzzles each? It cant be entirely by hand or entirely AI driven?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2mo agoFor any game that is able to procedurally generate a "random" puzzle, you can simply seed a deterministic PRNG with a seed derived from the date. No AI or hand-generation required.
- dyarosla 2mo agoThis is true hypothetically but doesn’t quite work to produce good puzzles like say in Zanagrams without sufficient heuristics/constraints
- ltsSmitty 2mo agoThere were a few boxes in the game I just played that didn't have enough information; e.g. only one number pointed to them and you couldn't reason it out. I think it's the kind of thing in regular minesweeper where it would've auto-cleared it when I opened a box next to it. I didn't take a screenshot but I hope that makes sense - I suppose maybe once you play the game more you'd learn that these are safe x's, but I found it to lack real information. I looked around for a tip or something on it but didn't quickly find anything
- jaffa2 2mo agoit is possible in normal mine sweeper to have a postion where you cant determine 100% whether a square is a mine or not. In this cases you just have to guess. Try to identify them early as possible since they can ruin the game with an unlucky guess.
- Retr0id 2mo agoIt is also possible to implement minesweeper such that all positions are solvable unambiguously, see https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mines.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mine...
- pompomsheep 2mo agoYes this was possible in minesweeper but something I tried to eliminate in sunflowers. You never have to guess even at the hardest difficulty levels
- MagicMoonlight 2mo ago[dead]
- pompomsheep 2mo agoHelpful feedback thanks. But yes there is always a logical next step to be made that can be fully reasoned out. The hint (lightbulb) icon will show you this step when you are stuck. Disclaimer the hint system is definitely not perfect yet but should at least point you in the right direction. Please do send a screenshot if you find yourself stuck again it would be useful for me to improve the deisng
- amanzi 2mo agoThis is very similar concept to "0h h1" https://0hh1.com/ https://0hh1.com/ which I've been playing every day on Android for a couple of years now. I had never considered it to be a reverse minesweeper.
- TobTobXX 2mo agoIsn't that just like Binoxxo? I've solved Binoxxo's every time I came across a newspaper. Online example for the curious: https://raetselwelt.online/en/puzzles/binoxxo/ https://raetselwelt.online/en/puzzles/binoxxo/
- amanzi 2mo agoThat looks like an interesting game, I'll bookmark it. But no - it appears to be a different concept.
- Jaxan 2mo agoI know it as binairo, which I have seen in paper magazines. On Simon Tatham’s puzzle collection it is known as unruly: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/unruly.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/unru...
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Kuraj 2mo agoMSN MESSENGER HAD THIS! I used to play this with a friend. You would take turns, that is, the mines would reveal themselves in real time, and your turn ended if you missed a mine. Then the game would call you a slut when it ended, because my friend's MSN was in Swedish and that is the word for "end"
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- greazy 2mo agoI'm not a big fan of puzzle games but these are great. Are the clues hand coded?
- pillmillipedes 2mo agothis is great! very nice ui, and quite challenging on the high difficulties. reminds me of 14mv a bit - and judging by the reactions to it on steam you're going to get so many false bug reports from people not used to the long deduction chains haha (a suggestion to try the hints near the feedback form might help curb this a bit..) one qol thing I missed is that clicking a number to fill in the neighbours only works for crosses and not sunflowers (and doesn't work for "0" clues)
- ryukoposting 2mo agoVery fun. Shared it with my parents and they're into it too.
- bonoboTP 2mo agoSingle click places an x instead of a sunflower. I solved the puzzle but placed those xes instead of sunflowers and was confused why it doesn't say I solved it. I would suggest making a single click be the main action, ie placing a sunflower.
- rezonant 2mo agoBut you have 3 mistakes you can make, and you spend one when you accidentally place a sunflower. I played through all the daily puzzles and have started into the master puzzles and I'm glad flower is double click, because a misplaced X is free, but a misplaced flower is not. It would be far too easy to accidentally tap the screen and burn a Mistake, and if its your last one that would be frustrating.
- jader201 2mo agoRather than counting mistakes, just allow mistakes, and just not let the puzzle get solved until it’s complete without mistakes. This is how most of Simon Tatham’s puzzles work, and that works well.
- matsemann 2mo ago> This is how most of Simon Tatham’s puzzles work, and that works well. They btw also have a feature that swaps main and secondary action when toggled, which could work here.
- kelnos 2mo agoSure, but then it's easier, and you can just keep clicking around by trial and error without thinking about it, which is a boring way to play.
- jader201 2mo ago1. I feel like “trial and error” is often not a great way to solve puzzles. If you can brute force your way to a solution, that’s usually a sign of poor puzzle design. To be clear, I’m not saying whether this one is easy to brute force, just saying if it is, that’s a different problem. 2. Even if brute force was a viable option for solving, an easy fix is to have a “submit” button when you think you’ve solved it (and that can track strikes for invalid submissions).
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- onaclov2000 2mo agoNeat game! I enjoyed it!
- sickcodebruh 2mo agoThis is great! Did a few rounds, will come back. A few months ago someone on HN shared Dragonsweeper and it completely hooked me and my wife to the point that we had to agree to break up with it. https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper
- itherseed 2mo agoIt is really good but it needs a dark theme. My eyes!
- pompomsheep 2mo agoThere is one hidden away in the settings menu if you tap the sunflower top left! Will make it more clear it exists
- Dwedit 2mo agoMaybe count perfect solves in a separate average than solves with mistakes?
- Jaxan 2mo agoThis is very similar to “Mosaic” on Simon Tatham’s puzzle webpage. There it is noted that: “This game is variously known in other locations as: ArtMosaico, Count and Darken, Cuenta Y Sombrea, Fill-a-Pix, Fill-In, Komsu Karala, Magipic, Majipiku, Mosaico, Mosaik, Mozaiek, Nampre Puzzle, Nurie-Puzzle, Oekaki-Pix, Voisimage.” https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosaic.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosa...
- mock-possum 2mo agoCool idea but the page doesn’t scroll and the bottom of the puzzle is cut off on smaller res, so - broken for mobile
- pompomsheep 2mo agoCould you let me know which device please and i will fix
- mock-possum 2mo agoiPhone SE - it’s a lil guy - on iOS 26.5.2
- Tepix 2mo agoWorkaround: reduce font size on iPhone SE
- alex-moon 2mo agoHello Daniel! Do you have a landing page/portal for all these games so I can go through them one by one of a morning (a bit like the NYT games)?
- singledaisy 2mo ago[dead]
- sneela 2mo agoNot to take away from the poster's work, but I believe this exists already (please correct me if I'm wrong): https://puzzlemadness.co.uk/minesweeper/hard https://puzzlemadness.co.uk/minesweeper/hard I've been doing these for a long time, which is why this game seemed familiar to me.
- geekgeekgk 2mo agoThis is a really nice take on Minesweeper
- ttmac 2mo agoI really enjoyed it, lost quite a bit of productive time in my work day though!
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ultraficial 2mo ago[dead]
- levanlevi 2mo agothe phrase "reverse" confused me (i see somebody pointed out the same) how many dau you have?
- npodbielski 2mo agovery addictive :) thanks!
- LearnYouALisp 2mo agoPlease enable RMB--the LLM instructions don't say anything about (x), and my button doubles on single often (and drops drag, but we digress)
- hmcamp 2mo agoI enjoyed this game. Well done!
- syron 2mo agoI find it a bit confusing, in terms of the name, but reading the comments, I get the point of it being reversed as well. I mean, the game name in terms of reverse minesweeper ,but I like the game :) Even my 12 year old son understood how it works. Also good with dark theme! ;)
- graynk 2mo agoI really enjoy this, but it would be great if it defaulted to the daily puzzle. And I could swear there was a share button, where did it go?..