this just isn't fair

stuh505 · Mon 18/10/2004 05:32:29

Edwin Xie · Mon 18/10/2004 05:34:54

Come on, every lost at least 1 match in minesweeper, including me.

Sylpher · Mon 18/10/2004 05:39:46

Been awhile since I played but shouldn't that be a 6?

Ah wait, I forgot minesweeper puts the dud bomb when you guessed wrong. Still it was a 50/50 chance. Sucks though..

rtf · Mon 18/10/2004 05:54:59

Aah, that's terrible, stuh. So close, and yet, so far...

But better than I could ever do, I never really figured that game out.

Gregjazz · Mon 18/10/2004 06:13:27

RTF: Whatever number is displayed on a tile means how many total mines are in tiles adjacent to it.

I hate this game.

I remember there used to be a secret in it, if you hold down click on the corner tile and then move the mouse cursor around really fast and then let go, it would open all the empty tiles, leaving only the tiles with mines in them untouched.

pslocum · Mon 18/10/2004 06:14:17

Minesweeper frequently veers close to torture.

And yet I love it so.

Mr Jake · Mon 18/10/2004 07:42:22

mine sweeper is fun ^_^/

once I worked out the number thing I was set

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires · Mon 18/10/2004 09:02:08

The only gripe I have about minesweeper (and I used to be quite the addicted minesweeper!) is the sheer number of times those 50/50 chances happen. Some times you can guess with simple calcutations, other times you may get it with quite a bit of calculating, but most times it's just plain, dumb luck.

Blade · Mon 18/10/2004 10:59:27

Well, I used to play minesweeper A LOT! I played every level, mostly intermediate. The worst thing is, as someone said before, the 50/50 thing. It shouldn't be so. This is a logic game and luck has nothing to do with logic.

auhsor · Mon 18/10/2004 11:30:48

I used to love playing minesweeper. I still have a go every now and then. It used to be my goal to beat it on expert... How I wasted so many hours trying to do that. I think I beat it twice.

But that 50/50 thing is bad. It is so annoying when that happens. You have a pretty good time too. I thought I was quite fast.

YOke · Mon 18/10/2004 13:00:14

Watch and learn, people. This is flawed game design.

Isegrim · Mon 18/10/2004 13:09:16

Ah, yes... from mine sweeper to mines weeper in just a few seconds... amazing, isn't it?
I myself never find enough patience for that...

Babar · Mon 18/10/2004 13:10:39

what a horrible score

I could get all the mines in less than 100 sec when I was crazy about the game. Now days I just play it to fill time while pages load on my crap dial-up connection.
You can actually use the chance thing to your advantage. It is easier to guess all the difficult ones first, and if you survive, you can clear up the easier ones for a great score

stuh505 · Mon 18/10/2004 13:24:16

Quotewhat a horrible score
I could get all the mines in less than 100 sec when I was crazy about the game. Now days I just play it to fill time while pages load on my crap dial-up connection.
You can actually use the chance thing to your advantage. It is easier to guess all the difficult ones first, and if you survive, you can clear up the easier ones for a great score

Under 100 sec? No way...

but yes, I also play to pass the time while pages load...

this would have been my best time...I usually do aroudn 180-190..I've never seen anyone who could do it faster than that.

If you can beat 100 let's see a screenshot big shot! (I'm sure you're good at photoshop but let's be men)

Babar · Mon 18/10/2004 13:52:56

hehe... unbeliever

like I said, I haven't played it psychoticly for a long time now. I hope this satisfies you. It is more recent, but it is still more than 100 though:

And by the way, it takes a lot less than photoshop to fake a good score

stuh505 · Mon 18/10/2004 15:40:14

Hmm..your intermediate time is not even in the same ballpark as your expert time!

MillsJROSS · Mon 18/10/2004 16:11:46

When I play Minesweeper, I go through bigginer to expert. Where I set up several rules that mandate a victory or loss. If I lose before taking out ten percent of the bombs then it's just a draw ( So beg = 1, int= 4, exp=10), and I play again. This is because you can be prone to start in bad place, where it's simply a matter of guesswork to go further. If I get to a point where there's only ten percent of the bombs left, and I make a mistake, I consider it a victory. If I get anywhere in between there it's a loss. This helps to eleviate my pain when situations above happen. If I lose, I usually just go on to Freecell, which I am equally addicted to.

So let's talk about strategies. I don't play for time, as I'm usually multi-tasking while playing mine sweepers, and usually get distracted and come back when the clocks run out. But I am prone to start at a corner, usually top left, work my way to the right side and then down and over, and get anything missed. Most of the times I lose, it's just me clicking and missing the square. My win rate is about 90% using the system above. And even then, I'd say the majority of that is a real victory, where all bombs are located.

I switch back and forth between my addiction to Minesweeper and Freecell. There both games based on logic.

As far as poor programming. Its a free application, and I can't immagine how difficult it would be to program the game with an algorithm that gets rid of guesses. I'd say about 30% of solving minesweepers, is educated guess work, anyway.

-MillsJROSS

Babar · Mon 18/10/2004 18:07:38

Quote from: stuh505 on Mon 18/10/2004 15:40:14
Hmm..your intermediate time is not even in the same ballpark as your expert time!

I am not sure what you mean. Is my intermediate score bad? I don't play on intermediate as much as expert, so I don't really know.

MillsJROSS, you can minimise the minesweeper window to stop the time, by the way. I tried playing freecell, but I got annoyed of it really fast. Having to watch over 3 seperate piles of cards was too much for me.
As for my strategy, like I said, I do a lot of "educated guessing" when I am stuck. If there is a 1 showing, I click around it, since the chances are low that I will get a mine. If it is a 2 and I found one mine, I do the same. Another way I can go fast is by recognising patterns. At first when I played, I went through it labouriously, thinking which place would have a mine. Later I recognised patterns in numbers which meant that mines were in certain places. Like MillJROSS, when I lose, it is usually because the dirty mouse skipped the box I clicked on.
I did actually make a minesweeper clone in QBasic, but after designing the core, I realised it would be very annoying to have to find mines with the keyboard, so I could not go any further

YOke · Mon 18/10/2004 18:56:07

I'm sure you've been here?
My best on expert was 96 seconds, but that's many windows installations ago.
Best theese days is 136.

TheJBurger · Mon 18/10/2004 23:20:08

I've got 3 seconds on Beginner...

But I'm absolutely terrible on the other modes, time wise.