Show HN: Reverse Minesweeper

(sunflowersgame.com)

104 points

by pompomsheep8 hours ago |

38 comments

by Kuraj2 minutes ago|

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MSN MESSENGER HAD THIS!

I used to play this with a friend. You would take turns, that is, the mines would reveal themselves in real time, and your turn ended if you missed a mine.

Then the game would call you a slut when it ended, because my friend's MSN was in Swedish and that is the word for "end"

by 17 minutes ago|

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deleted

by ltsSmitty1 hours ago|

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There were a few boxes in the game I just played that didn't have enough information; e.g. only one number pointed to them and you couldn't reason it out. I think it's the kind of thing in regular minesweeper where it would've auto-cleared it when I opened a box next to it. I didn't take a screenshot but I hope that makes sense - I suppose maybe once you play the game more you'd learn that these are safe x's, but I found it to lack real information. I looked around for a tip or something on it but didn't quickly find anything

by pompomsheep8 minutes ago|

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Helpful feedback thanks.

But yes there is always a logical next step to be made that can be fully reasoned out. The hint (lightbulb) icon will show you this step when you are stuck.

Disclaimer the hint system is definitely not perfect yet but should at least point you in the right direction.

Please do send a screenshot if you find yourself stuck again it would be useful for me to improve the deisng

by jaffa21 hours ago|

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it is possible in normal mine sweeper to have a postion where you cant determine 100% whether a square is a mine or not. In this cases you just have to guess. Try to identify them early as possible since they can ruin the game with an unlucky guess.

by Retr0id13 minutes ago|

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It is also possible to implement minesweeper such that all positions are solvable unambiguously, see https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mine...

by pompomsheep8 minutes ago|

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Yes this was possible in minesweeper but something I tried to eliminate in sunflowers. You never have to guess even at the hardest difficulty levels

by MagicMoonlight51 minutes ago|

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[dead]

by hyperhello6 hours ago|

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I don’t understand how this is reverse minesweeper when it’s just minesweeper with flowers instead of bombs.

by pompomsheep5 hours ago|

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Yeah it's maybe not the best way to describe it, but my intention is all clues already visible at the start rather than exploration, and adding in flowers rather than avoiding mines.

The main difference is having all the clues visible at the start changes it to a search and deduction logic style rather than reveal and react

by tracerbulletx2 hours ago|

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It is the right way to describe it, that guy just doesn't remember how minesweeper worked.

by omoikane5 hours ago|

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In that sense, this game is similar to Mosaic[1] where the clues are all initially visible, except in Mosaic the count includes all 9 cells since black squares can be placed on the numbers themselves.

[1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosa...

by kevinwang5 hours ago|

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Another example is this Steam game which I play occasionally: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3083300/Proverbs/

by aleph_minus_one2 hours ago|

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From the same developer

> https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/divide-the-plunder

I particularly like "Mosaic of the Strange"

> https://store.steampowered.com/app/3444650/Mosaic_of_the_Str...

You will in particular like this game if you are into conspiracy theories. If one switches the difficulty to the hardest one, HN readers might have some fun with this game. :-)

by pompomsheep7 minutes ago|

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Great thanks for sending these

by mamonoleechi2 hours ago|

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linking my favourite sweeper variant: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=mamonosweeper&ia=web ;

try this one in html5: https://hojamaka.com/game/mamono_sweeper_h2/html5/en.html

by Braini5 hours ago|

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This reminds me a bit of one mode (squared) from Picture Enigmas (https://picture-enigmas.com/#features) which I like to play from time to time.

by kevincox4 hours ago|

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In minesweeper you start with nothing visible and explore while avoiding the bombs. In this you start with all of the hints visible and place the bombs.

However in practice it is very similar since identifying where the bombs are to not click them is exactly the same logic as identifying where the bombs need to go. The only functional difference ends up being that all of the hints are visible upfront rather than needing to discover them.

by testaccount284 hours ago|

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it reverses right and left click

by amanzi1 hours ago|

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This is very similar concept to "0h h1" https://0hh1.com/ which I've been playing every day on Android for a couple of years now. I had never considered it to be a reverse minesweeper.

by TobTobXX57 minutes ago|

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Isn't that just like Binoxxo? I've solved Binoxxo's every time I came across a newspaper.

Online example for the curious: https://raetselwelt.online/en/puzzles/binoxxo/

by amanzi43 minutes ago|

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That looks like an interesting game, I'll bookmark it. But no - it appears to be a different concept.

by yammajr2 hours ago|

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I did have to guess. If I'd have known how many mines there were, I wouldn't have though.

https://imgur.com/a/idfj1my

edit: I'm wrong. Thanks steve.

by tgsovlerkhgsel1 minutes ago|

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For everyone: Whenever you think you have to guess, use the hint feature.

In the more advanced levels you essentially have to "guess" then check whether the guess (e.g. using "pencil mode") leads to a valid solution or a conflict.

by Tepix1 hours ago|

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First column, there's a 2 in the second row from below that already has two sunflowers. So the 3rd adjacent field must be empty.

by MK2k2 hours ago|

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The "4" clue forces the solution imho.

by 1 hours ago|

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deleted

by Steve61 hours ago|

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[dead]

by dyarosla1 hours ago|

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Im curious how youve set up the multiple puzzle games you have to generate two daily puzzles each? It cant be entirely by hand or entirely AI driven?

by 0x1ceb00da3 hours ago|

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Jumped from medium to insane and didn't notice any difficulty bump. Were the puzzles designed by AI, eg arc agi puzzles are trivial for humans but very difficult for LLMs.

by adzm5 hours ago|

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Actually really fun

by gkfasdfasdf4 hours ago|

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I love it. Reverse minesweeper describes it perfectly.

by 5 hours ago|

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deleted

by lioeters4 hours ago|

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It's cute and friendly, how it explains the rules. Maybe instead of a red box for making a mistake, the sunflower could "shake its head" to mean "no". Anyway the game feels well-designed with a focused scope, nice work!

by da-x8 hours ago|

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Awesome idea

by pompomsheep8 hours ago|

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Thanks! Not perfect yet but I think it has potential. Would love any feedback

by Kuinox5 hours ago|

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I jumped directly to insane and completed it on the first try. It's too easy.

by pompomsheep5 hours ago|

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And if you find a puzzle you like the difficulty of could you tell me the puzzle id at the top left please

by pompomsheep5 hours ago|

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I've just tried to bump insane up a bit if you could test it to let me know what you think?

I'm struggling to play test the higher difficulties because it above my own skill level haha

by kybishop5 hours ago|

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Insane is still far too easy. For the highest skill level it should be -really- hard. Was still able to solve one in under 3 minutes.

I -love- this idea though!!

by convolvatron6 hours ago|

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I guess I am mildly discomfited by the red flower. if the program is going to tell me every time I fail to think through things properly, then my role here is kinda limited to driving the mouse.

by pompomsheep6 hours ago|

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Helpful feedback thanks. I am trying to make it a bit more forgiving for first time players to learn the logic.

Then in easy mode and above you are given max 3 mistakes similar to sudoku.com and other popular logic puzzles

by ymolodtsov4 hours ago|

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Honestly looks far more obvious than the original to me.

I like how ai agents make it possible to experiment with different game concepts.

I merged Go with Tetris while brainstorming some ideas.

https://goban.molodtsov.me/