Making Explainable Minesweeper
sublevelgames.github.io
Making Explainable Minesweeper
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Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#2Hello Hacker News!
Thank you for your interest in my previous post. This time, I've written a blog post about the game and the process of creating it.
In the original Minesweeper, there are inevitable 50/50 moments where you have to rely on luck. In the game I created, 'Explainable Minesweeper,' I eliminated these guessing situations. However, I also prevented the maps from becoming too easy! How? By using logical deduction, you can solve puzzles that initially appear to be luck-based. The blog post explains the process in more detail.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#3The exclusion of patterns that involve more than 2 numbers is a pretty huge caveat that should be mentioned earlier and more clearly. When I was playing a lot of minesweeper, larger levels tended to require solving larger patterns most of the time. If you exclude those solutions, your estimate of how often you are required to guess is going to be pretty inaccurate.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#4For what it's worth, the way 14MV does hints is probably by just throwing the board into Z3 (https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3) or some other constraint solver. Microsoft has already done all the hard work for you.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#5In minesweeper online there's also a "no guessing" mode which, in my opinion, is much more interesting than the normal mode. It means that if you guess in a situation where you could have deduced the mines, you always get a mine. Conversely, if you really are in a guessing situation, you will never get a mine. I'm pretty sure the game calculates the unknown part of the map after each click anew.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#6For what it's worth, the way 14MV does hints is probably by just throwing the board into Z3 ( https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3 ) or some other constraint solver. Microsoft has already done all the hard work for you.
I doubt it. A guaranteed-solveable minesweeper scenario isn't just about the global board setup, but about what information is available when, and what order the solution is gone through.
Bombe[0] is to my mind the definitive exploration of this concept. The tagline is "Minesweeper, but you only solve each situation once", which you do by writing these kinds of deduction rules with a fairly painful visual programming language. (You can't write an invalid rule: the game will detect the logic error and present you with a counter-example.)
You then let the computer churn through it's list of 100k scenarios idle-game style, until you bump into a board that can't be solved with the rules you provided, and you have to figure out what new rules to write.
As the game progresses, you'll unlock ways of parameterizing the rules in various ways, as well as various variant rules.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#7In minesweeper online there's also a "no guessing" mode which, in my opinion, is much more interesting than the normal mode. It means that if you guess in a situation where you could have deduced the mines, you always get a mine. Conversely, if you really are in a guessing situation, you will never get a mine. I'm pretty sure the game calculates the unknown part of the map after each click anew.
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Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#8Simon Tatham's Puzzles app has a minesweeper version that both A) generates on first click so you are guaranteed to never hit a mine on the first click and B) every board is 100% solvable with no need to guess. I have no idea what method it uses. I believe that _every_ puzzle in it is 100% solvable with no need to guess. It's also add free and completely local. It's a great app for anyone who likes puzzles on their phone.
Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#9For what it's worth, the way 14MV does hints is probably by just throwing the board into Z3 ( https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3 ) or some other constraint solver. Microsoft has already done all the hard work for you.
I doubt it. A guaranteed-solveable minesweeper scenario isn't just about the global board setup, but about what information is available when, and what order the solution is gone through. Bombe[0] is to my mind the definitive exploration of this concept. The tagline is "Minesweeper, but you only solve each situation once", which you do by writing these kinds of deduction rules with a fairly painful visual programming…
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Re: Making Explainable Minesweeper
#10For what it's worth, the way 14MV does hints is probably by just throwing the board into Z3 ( https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3 ) or some other constraint solver. Microsoft has already done all the hard work for you.
I doubt it. A guaranteed-solveable minesweeper scenario isn't just about the global board setup, but about what information is available when, and what order the solution is gone through. Bombe[0] is to my mind the definitive exploration of this concept. The tagline is "Minesweeper, but you only solve each situation once", which you do by writing these kinds of deduction rules with a fairly painful visual programming…
You're right, I misspoke a little bit -- 14MV is able to do this because (unlike this game) it does not reveal all givens to you at the beginning.