One Square Minesweeper

(onesquareminesweeper.com)

104 points | by notamy 9 months ago ago

68 comments

  • schiffern 9 months ago

    Unrealistic; in minesweeper it's impossible to hit a mine on your first click. ;)

    https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/315335/is-it-poss...

    • CobrastanJorji 9 months ago

      Your link suggests: "If a mine is under the first clicked tile, it is moved to the upper-left corner, if the upper left corner is occupied, the mine moves to the right of the corner tile." If that happened here, the square would still be a mine.

      • lelanthran 9 months ago

        What a convoluted solution.

        I always assumed it did things the way I did when I wrote my minesweeper game: it only generated the mines on the first click, avoiding the clicked tile.

        I wonder why they did it that way?

        • SAI_Peregrinus 9 months ago

          Probably performance. It's an old game, it seems faster if the mines can get generated before the user first clicks, and then move the mine if their first click was on a mine. If you wait for them to click to generate then the entire generation step has to run before the user notices.

        • Shadowed_ 9 months ago

          I don't know for sure, but they probably didn't plant it at first and later it was simpler to move mine elsewhere than to change the way mines are generated.

      • raldi 9 months ago

        What if the upper-left corner and the one to its right are mined?

        • bwen 9 months ago

          "The function checks if it is the first click, and that the square being clicked is a mine. It then tries to move the mine to the upper-left corner. If unsuccessful it tries the square to the right of it. If all of the first row is occupied by mines, the function tries to put the mine in the leftmost square of the row below, and so on."

          https://web.archive.org/web/20180618103640/http://www.techus...

          • throwawayk7h 9 months ago

            What does the function do if the entire board is mines?

            • j5155 9 months ago

              See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-REcpPz3vw It causes some strange bugs to occur!

            • jraph 9 months ago

              An array out of bounds access.

            • berkes 9 months ago

              Found the tester :)

              Jokes aside, I love it how in a group of software engineers someone can always think of an even more unlikely, but somehow realistic edge case.

              For me, one of the marks of a senior engineer would be to then either go "we'll just not allow the board to be filled with entirely mines in the builder", or "well, if that ever happens: just let it crash". A practical solution to a theoretical case. Whereas the more junior engineer would spend the next few days researching and refactoring the algorithm to address this case. Obv. "it depends", letting my insuline pump "just crash" isn't cool, but minesweeper, meh.

            • dutzi 9 months ago

              It BSODs!

    • KHRZ 9 months ago

      In Minesweeper you also win when all non-mine tiles are revealed.

    • praptak 9 months ago

      It's "an irresistible force meeting an immovable object" type of situation.

    • 9 months ago
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    • 9 months ago
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  • encomiast 9 months ago

    A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

    • wging 9 months ago

      In this case, you win by flagging all the mines. That isn't how winmine worked -- you just had to uncover all non-mine spaces.

      • animal531 9 months ago

        It would have been funnier if when you flag it the game turns it into a number and you lose anyway.

    • m463 9 months ago

      you're confusing minesweeper with nuclear disarmament.

    • exolab 9 months ago
    • 9 months ago
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    • catlikesshrimp 9 months ago

      Gambling? :)

    • utopcell 9 months ago

      (-:

  • joshka 9 months ago

    I can't get the xyzzy cheat[1] to work. How am I going to tell if there is a bomb or not?

    [1]: https://minesweepergame.com/history/xyzzy.php

    • Dylan16807 9 months ago

      Oh cool. Also it's really funny that the blog is cutting off the corners on the main image.

  • fanf2 9 months ago

    Simon Tatham’s minesweeper is the best minesweeper https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mine...

    « The first square you open is guaranteed to be safe, and (by default) you are guaranteed to be able to solve the whole grid by deduction rather than guesswork. »

  • UberFly 9 months ago

    This game painfully reminds me of my dating attempts as a teenager.

    • eru 9 months ago

      Just flag and you win instantly?

      • 9 months ago
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      • sulandor 9 months ago

        probably also depends on the kind of flag

  • svag 9 months ago

    On the right bottom corner says that it's part of Useless Web Project, https://theuselessweb.com/, which has more interesting "useless" games...

  • rtpg 9 months ago

    I remember a long time ago (20 years ago?) playing some Windows minesweeper variant that someone had wrote. It did the "impossible to hit a mine on your first click" thing (That I believe Windows' Minesweeper didn't do), but also had different shapes. You could have a hex map, for example.

    Anyone know what I'm thinking of?

  • unsnap_biceps 9 months ago

    I can't seem to flag the mine on mobile

    • tomxor 9 months ago

      That's because it detected you don't have a mouse, or a 386... You are not allowed, it would just be wrong.

    • sundvor 9 months ago

      Yeah, it's useless.

  • carver 9 months ago

    If you are interested in variants of minesweeper, this one is awesome:

    https://magnushoff.com/articles/minesweeper/

    (scroll to the bottom)

  • mdtrooper 9 months ago

    This web remembers to me the great game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Quest

  • silenced_trope 9 months ago

    This was in the thread for useless programs just now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41894765

  • oe 9 months ago

    This is really hard. Anyone got any tips?

    • schoen 9 months ago

      Try flagging the mine rather than revealing it! (Right click.)

      • keepamovin 9 months ago

        Holy shit. There's a way to win. Awesome.

        Since 1993, that's what I've been missing from my mine sweeper game. All these years I couldn't understand why I could never finish the game. Hahaha! :)

        • schoen 9 months ago

          Cool!

          There are actually some expert players who intentionally play without the flags as an extra challenge. They have to remember (or re-deduce) where the mines are. The game is considered won whenever the number of unexposed squares, whether explicitly flagged or not, or equal to the total number of mines.

          • keepamovin 9 months ago

            That's what I assumed. But even when I got to the point of no more non-cursed squares, I didn't get the "Cool" glasses. Cry.

            • schoen 9 months ago

              Usually this means that you have one more false positive hiding somewhere!

  • lifthrasiir 9 months ago

    Apparently this game is 3BV 0, so it should be solvable by luck and cannot be used for official records.

  • dimava 9 months ago

    Related: I've seen a minesweeper where you solve it not one by one but in general You add rules that are auto-applied wherever they can, and it tries to solve itself

      https://store.steampowered.com/app/2262930/Bombe/
      > Minesweeper, but you only solve each situation once.
      > Regions (number bubbles connected by lines) generated from clues on the board  
      > Rules act on regions to mark bombs, clear squares or create new regions  
      > A checker tells you if your rule is formally correct
      > Rules are auto applied forever after, resolving the situations you have solved before
      > Only the hard situations remain.
  • davee5 9 months ago

    This made me laugh unreasonably hard.

  • peepee1982 9 months ago

    It took me four tries to solve it.

  • chuckledog 9 months ago

    Finally a game superior to Flappy Bird. Bravo!

  • _def 9 months ago

    This is like the opposite of that paperclip game (sorry in advance)

  • mouse_ 9 months ago

    Best game since 1D Tetris

    • LeonB 9 months ago

      There was a 1D Wolfenstein that was entirely played in the url bar, and yet made perfect sense and was quite playable.

  • keepamovin 9 months ago

    By the 5th try I was sure I nearly had it. No such luck! hehehe :)

  • _flux 9 months ago

    It doesn't have high scores. Literally unplayable.

  • notorandit 9 months ago

    One square tetris Is highly needed here!

  • paulpauper 9 months ago

    someone registered a .com for this . At least it was not a .io domain. Those are really expensive.

    • killingtime74 9 months ago

      You know you have that side project mentality when how much the domain name costs is the first consideration XD

    • LeonB 9 months ago

      From the “useless web” links provided above, I learned:

      > The project was built and launched as part of Netlify’s Dusty Domains project, where for each project built and launched on an old domain money was donated to charity! Ultimately over a hundred thousand dollars was raised for a variety of individual charities.

    • dirkc 9 months ago

      Hopefully not with Gandi, because then they also have a "move domain" entry in their TODO list!

  • mproud 9 months ago

    Beep boop beep boop beep boop!

  • 256_ 9 months ago

    Someone should make one with 0.

  • hyperhello 9 months ago

    I am really good at this.

  • fallinghawks 9 months ago

    I feel so successful

  • dataflow 9 months ago

    Is this modern art?

  • breck 9 months ago
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