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Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

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Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#11

Post by reificator »

ysavir wrote: post #8
reificator wrote: post #5

This seems like a MUCH easier version of Minesweeper, purely due to the fact that when you're down to guessing it's guaranteed to be safe. That is an excellent idea, I'm going to have to try this and see if I'm really as good at Minesweeper as I think or if I just get lucky sometimes on unproven squares. Also somewhat relevant, there's a recent Minesweeper roguelike that recently came out on Steam: https://store.stea…

I wouldn't say it's "easier", since random chance of failure isn't a difficulty level, it's a lack of difficulty: Your gameplay has no effect on the outcome. If anything, this is Minesweeper as it should have been: A game of perception and deduction with no chance of random failure. As a huge minesweeper fan, I think this is fantastic.

I think we're in the same boat. Even though it's billed as more punishing, it's actually just significantly more fair.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#12

Post by maggit »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
ysavir wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say it's "easier", since random chance of failure isn't a difficulty level, it's a lack of difficulty: Your gameplay has no effect on the outcome. If anything, this is Minesweeper as it should have been: A game of perception and deduction with no chance of random failure. As a huge minesweeper fan, I think this is fantastic.

It's "easier" in the sense that with normal Minesweeper you'd win less than 50% of the time, but with this you win 100% of the time. I agree, with normal Minesweeper I'd play "provably correctly" but then lose when I had to guess, with this I don't have to.

In complex situations it is easy to come to the conclusion that you have to guess, but sometimes there is an elaborate connection you might have missed. This game is sure to call you out on any mistakes you make of this kind.

That would at least make this game more strict and perhaps even more difficult.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#13

Post by zielmicha »

majewsky wrote: post #9

I have been playing this obsessively the last few weeks without knowing about the implementation. I thought it expresses the known facts about the board configuration as a system of linear equations and uses one of the classic algorithms for solving these. Anyone know if that would be infeasible for some reason?

The variables would need to be constrained to be integers/booleans. And Integer Linear Programming is NP-complete.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#15

Post by rav »

Given that guessing is always safe when it's required, it means you have a choice in e.g. the initial play. Is it more efficient to click tiles on a line, or to click them in a cluster?

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#16

Post by ArtWomb »

This reminds me a bit of the discussions around designing Quantum Minesweeper. Where you are playing N classical games in superposition. And the player is allowed to make "classical" or "entangled" choices. The ability to probe non-locally opens up interesting possibilities. See Qiskit for demo ;)

If you are craving a quick game, there is a Chrome Labs PWA implementation called Proxx that works on all devices

https://proxx.app/

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#17

Post by Arnavion »

ysavir wrote: post #8
reificator wrote: post #5

This seems like a MUCH easier version of Minesweeper, purely due to the fact that when you're down to guessing it's guaranteed to be safe. That is an excellent idea, I'm going to have to try this and see if I'm really as good at Minesweeper as I think or if I just get lucky sometimes on unproven squares. Also somewhat relevant, there's a recent Minesweeper roguelike that recently came out on Steam: https://store.stea…

I wouldn't say it's "easier", since random chance of failure isn't a difficulty level, it's a lack of difficulty: Your gameplay has no effect on the outcome. If anything, this is Minesweeper as it should have been: A game of perception and deduction with no chance of random failure. As a huge minesweeper fan, I think this is fantastic.

Yes. I've always bemoaned the fact that people's first experience with the game is the one bundled in Windows. Because the player knows the game sometimes requires guessing, they never learn which situations actually require guessing and which are actually solvable; they just decide they need to guess because there is no number surrounded by the same number of empty squares, and never discover the math about possibilities that the game requires.

I used to play a version that was guaranteed to never require guessing [1], but it was still possible to accidentally make an unnecessary guess and not be punished for it. TFA's variant is a great way to fix that problem.

[1]: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/ "Mines"

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#18

Post by AKrumbach »

rav wrote: post #15

Given that guessing is always safe when it's required, it means you have a choice in e.g. the initial play. Is it more efficient to click tiles on a line, or to click them in a cluster?

No math proof, but I'd favor a cluster strategy as being faster to force a (partial) solution to existing clues.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#19

Post by Arnavion »

rav wrote: post #15

Given that guessing is always safe when it's required, it means you have a choice in e.g. the initial play. Is it more efficient to click tiles on a line, or to click them in a cluster?

I'd assume that you'd be able to open the most squares by opening those that are completely disconnected from all other squares. That is, make a checkered pattern where there is at least one border of unopened squares around every opened one. (Except for 3's on the corners, 5's on the edges, and 8's anywhere in between, of course.)

Edit: Ah, this doesn't work, because of "You are still expected to select one of the adjacent cells." Clever.

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