Recreated minesweeper... Sort of

Some how Medium is still extremely hard.

Seems just using a random number generator for Mine placement doesn't make good games...

High chaos perlin noise?
(Think cloud generator)

@Ashkin not sure what you mean. Is that a randomization algo?

@billgates I think it looks quite like the minesweeper distribution.

But something is of in the calculation as some squares not close to amine gets a value above 0.

The number should only reflect mines in the surrounding 8 squares.

@billgates Yes.

Perlin noise generates pseudorandom values in a pattern that looks very much like clouds (as in smooth transitions).

Higher chaos / shrinking its output would give you clusters and maybe tendrils. (It's been awhile.)

This or similar generators would be a good replacement for the flat random function for minesweeper.

Some Minecraft clones have used Perlin noise for surface terrain generation to pretty good effect.

I dont think randomly creating a board actually makes sense. Have you ever successfully finished a game? Imo there are more configurations that are not solvable than others.
I think at some point Microsoft creates the Board dynamically (you cant loose with the first click)

@scholl3ss how does dynamically help? Just this the first one isn't a mine?

What is this monitor?

@billgates it's hard to say actually. In fact it is nearly impossible (np complete) to tell if a configuration is solvable (without guessing).
My best bet'd be they are using some kind of heuristics.
At least I feel like the solvable game to all games ratio is quite high.

@jeffreycordero old cheap lcd

@scholl3ss as @Ashkin says and looking at the configurations in other versions, seems like it's not purely random

Actually you may be right. It have to do with the way I play.

Because the game usually ends when I hit a mine, I only continue when I hit enough empty spots to meme it semi solvable.

Problem with my POC is i can continue no matter what so I guess i don't play on my ideal board most of the time.

I've lost on the first click before 😅

The only requirement is any empty spaces completely surrounded by mines (or walls) must be >n in size

@ashkin oh really? I didnt know that.. And my roommate is a minesweeper addict 😅
How do you define n?

@scholl3ss trial and error, or by preventing it altogether.

Since mines can be clustered, any unknown tiles inside give a 50/50 chance of losing the game, which is just frustrating.

Also: losing on the first click was probably removed in more recent versions -- I haven't played it since Windows XP!

That's not right. Typically you can Define your grid and the number of mines.
I think the recent minesweeper versions will not do that.

@Ashkin Actually it seems what I really missed was just the functionality. Once I added the auto-click Empty cell groups function... It feels a much better...