Mines! (Basically just Minesweeper for Playdate)

Mines2
The current build:
Mines.pdx.zip (92.2 KB)

Update: December 19
Rebuilt for the 1.0.0 SDK.

Update: September 21
Very close to 1.0. I'm pushing out a slightly pre-1.0 build now because the previous build stopped working in the latest SDK release.

This version adds animated transitions between different screens, and adds a screen shake when triggering a mine.

Also, I removed the ability to hold A+B to exit a puzzle, and instead added a menu command to the System Menu to quit the current puzzle.

Update: July 12
On the home stretch!

  • Tried to unify the design language of the menus with the game screen, significantly impacting the presentation of all menus.
  • Fixed flags being erased when revealing the first cell of a puzzle.
  • Fixed some number formatting issues.
  • Altered some of the help lines and button labels.

Update: June 15
Quite a bit of polish.

  • The help screen/tutorial now only automatically appears on the first launch of the game. Subsequent launches go straight to the configuration screen. There is still a "Help" button that'll take you back to the tutorial.
  • Redesigned the tutorial screen with visual examples of the rules.
  • Refined the design of the gameplay screen.

Update: June 10
Scores! The game now shows a timer as you play, and when you win it'll record your time in a high score table. There's one table for each combination of size and difficulty, and it'll keep the five best times per table. The main configuration screen now has a button to take you to the score tables.

I have a lot of polish ahead of me, but I think this probably makes the game functionally complete.

Update: May 30
In this version I redrew the flag icon to make it more visually distinct from the "1" digit. I also added configuration options, so you can now toggle between small, medium, and large boards, and easy, medium, and hard difficulties.

May 28
In this version, there are no configuration options, you can just play a board on what will eventually be the hard difficulty of the large board size. There will be options for different difficulty levels and board sizes later.

I wanted to get a build available now because I hit a major milestone: every board you play should be solvable without ever needing to guess. Satisfying that one goal has taken more time than the entire rest of the dev time combined.

However, because it took quite a bit of work to get to that point, I'm not yet totally confident that I actually achieved that goal. I've played dozens of games, and every one has been solvable, but I could have made a mistake anywhere. So I would appreciate feedback, and would especially appreciate any reports if you encounter a puzzle that requires guessing. To help with reporting any issues, the current build shows the seed number used to generate the board and the x, y coordinates of the initial click. If you encounter any issues, please include that information. Better yet, a photo or screenshot would be great.

Otherwise, if you like Minesweeper, I hope you enjoy!

15 Likes

So awesome! I'm glad you were able to come up with a solution for your solvable-problem that ended up working well enough while avoiding CPU bashing and battery draining :playdate_happy: Can't wait to get my hardware so I can load this up to play a ton!

I didn't had time to try yet but if I thing that confuse me with the screenshot is that the flag looks way too much like a 1. My brain is getting messed up just because of this tiny detail. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Nice work! But I'm unsure what you mean.

In order to test your seed finder, every level would need to be played to completion? Can't a fast PC do this?

Also agree with Nic regarding flag image. Lack of colour makes it too similar to 1. Maybe flip flag and/or make it a simpler shape?

Well, in order to prove it, yeah, though I’m not really looking to prove through human testing so much as hoping that if I got something wrong it’ll jump up pretty quickly. The seeds that are used were discovered on my computer and bundled because they were solvable. And every puzzle I’ve had has been solvable, so it seems to correctly be using only the correct seeds. I’m just worried there may be cases where maybe a specific row or column may use wrong seeds, or maybe there’s a chance my seed lookup table offset math sometimes grabs a wrong seed, or something like that. There’s a lot that goes into this, and there could be a problem anywhere. I think I got it right, I would just like the added assurance of putting it to a community.

Thanks for the feedback about the flag graphic, Nic and Matt! I’ll see if I can make it clearer and less 1-like.

1 Like

Posted an updated build up above! Took the feedback about the flag icon, and added configuration options.

2 Likes

Another update posted up above. The game now shows a timer as you play, and saves your best times.

1 Like

Loving this! My dev preview unit arrived today and I just installed this on there to have a feel for the device and it plays and looks great.

This is so good, thanks for it. :playdate_proud: I was wondering if you'd have a chance to re-compile it for 0.11 since there were breaking changes, and pre-0.11 games no longer launch. :playdate_sad:

3 Likes

It doesn't work for me on windows 10 :(.

Posted an update that works on the latest SDK!

3 Likes

This looks so good. I love the menu animations and the explosion shake! :raised_hands:

1 Like

It shows me: "This game is too old to run on the device firmware. (Required SDK version = 1100)
"

Me muestra: "This game is too old to run on the device firmware. (required SDK version=1100)
"

Are you sure you got the latest update? Others seem able to run it.

Are you running it on a device or a simulator? You mentioned Windows 10 before, is this a Windows version of the simulator it doesn't work in?

Problem solved, it's a fantastic game.

Cheers

///Problema solucionado, es un juego fantastico.

saludos

Rebuilt the game on the 1.0.0 SDK.

2 Likes

Looks awesome man! You should add this on itch under Playdate category!

Doom and Minesweeper—Playdate has succeeded as a platform! Pre-screening to avoid guessing is a really cool idea. Less luck, more skill!

(Would it be worth trying a gray fill or some other extra-obvious way to differentiate the raised unexamined squares vs. the totally empty ones, at a glance?)

This game is super fun! I added it to my playdate and it works great! The only thing I would critique the game for is that I wish there were sound effects for actions, but that's it :slight_smile: