Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

pwmarcz.pl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#21

Post by reificator »

maggit wrote: post #12
StavrosK wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I tend to solve Minesweeper locally as much as possible, solving cordoned off sections where the answer doesn't rely on the rest of the board. A major benefit to doing it this way in traditional implementations is that if I'm forced to guess, the sooner I make an incorrect guess the sooner I move on to a solvable map.

While trying this out I've encountered several sections where I would have to guess, and that guess cannot be influenced by other unrevealed cells, such as when there's an island in a corner of the map.

In these situations I will need to guess between these two spaces, but since there are still known safe areas on the map, guessing causes me to lose the game.

I can get used to that behavior of course, but it's fairly frustrating. It'd be nice if the guessing exception rules accounted for situations like this. When there are clearings or known mine patterns that separate out discrete smaller map(s), I want to solve the smaller map(s) before I move on.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#22

Post by dmit »

In a similar vein: Cheating Hangman, once described as "an app that perfectly recreates the infuriating feeling of playing hangman with your older sibling who was definitely cheating and also knew way more words than you". https://cheatman.danq.me/

Implementation details: https://danq.me/2019/09/26/cheatman/

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#25

Post by recursivecaveat »

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?

Lines get you a lot more tiles on average it seems, but are extremely tricky to start playing. A cluster is more likely to force you to start thinking in 2 or 3 clicks, but is dramatically easier to start clearing a workable area, since the sides are not as entangled as they are in a line.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#26

Post by ddxxdd »

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'm not entirely sure the software's working correctly. I lost my first game, and I'm fairly certain that there was a different possible orientation of mines: https://imgur.com/gallery/hg1Mcwq

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#27

Post by n3k5 »

ddxxdd wrote: post #26
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.

I'm not entirely sure the software's working correctly. I lost my first game, and I'm fairly certain that there was a different possible orientation of mines: https://imgur.com/gallery/hg1Mcwq

There were other possibilities, but you were punished for taking a guess when there were guaranteed-safe squares. Guessing is only supposed to be safe when you have to do it.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#28

Post by owaty »

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…

> when you're down to guessing it's guaranteed to be safe

Sure. But, in a complex situation, it's rather hard to know whether "you're down to guessing". It seems like there's no more information to be extracted from the board, but you may be wrong. (At least I often am.) That said, you can cheat by pressing "Give me a hint", and it'll tell you whether it's safe to guess.

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#29

Post by hathawsh »

ddxxdd wrote: post #26
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.

I'm not entirely sure the software's working correctly. I lost my first game, and I'm fairly certain that there was a different possible orientation of mines: https://imgur.com/gallery/hg1Mcwq

I'll label your sequence of 2, 3, 4, 2, 2 as 2a, 3b, 4c, 2d, and 2e, respectively. Although the exact configuration around 4c was not decided, 4c necessarily provided all of the mines for 2d, leaving 2e open along with the squares above and below 2e. Therefore, the game expected you to choose 2e, the squares above and below 2e, and the square above 2a, before you were allowed to take a guess.

This is such a cool version of this game!

Re: Kaboom: an unusual Minesweeper

#30

Post by ljm »

> One of the bottom squares contain a mine, but it's impossible to say which one. You have to select one of them. But according to what I just said, that would mean certain death! I wanted the game to be cruel, but now it's unwinnable.

If it's not stalemate, haven't you won at that point? The tiles are practically in a state of quantum superposition where they are both safe and unsafe at the same time. You can't know without observing.

Except... the game rules say they're both mines if they're uncertain (in that version of the game), so the player has won because the game has been backed into a corner.

If there's a way to make that situation truly unpredictable, I'd be amazed. For example, if it was networked and another player worked a similar board, but they clicked one of the same tiles. So your clicking of a tile is the observation of what happened in someone else's game as opposed to a random calculation or game logic.

Post reply on HN