moansweeper
mchlnix
14
Posts
A member registered Feb 01, 2018
Recent community posts
I only play NG minesweeper. The frustration of working on a puzzle for 5-10 minutes, only to lose through no fault of my own defeats the purpose for me. I had long talks with other minesweeper fans to try and understand what the allure is. Sure, being able to do the probabilities correctly raises the skill ceiling a little bit, but if it doesn't lead to victory, then what was the point? What skill have you demonstrated?
There's not another human player who was simply better, so doing your best still has meaning, or it's not a very hard end boss in a video game someone has designed to be obtuse and a bit random. It's just bad RNG.
But like I said, it's just my outlook. Perhaps my expectation, that any given task should be solvable, or at least should've been if I was more skilled, is flawed.
On the board are fields that are empty. The gnome picks on of those and hides there. If you uncover that field and there is at least one other uncovered, empty field, he will jump there. Once you uncovered the last empty field, and by extension uncover the gnome, you have "defeated" him and get 9 gold (if memory serves).
EDIT: Seeing the full comment chain now, it seems like we are just using different definitions of solvable. I'm in the "optimal play ensures victory" camp.
I'm not sure if it was clear that I responded to collieman's comment. I think we have different definitions of solvable. I say a puzzle is solvable, if there is always a logical next move, that will lead to the player winning the game, given the limited information the game provides at the time.
From a game-dev perspective, you might think of solvable, just from a generation standpoint, that there are enough enemies of certain values, that it is not outright impossible to level up enough to win. From a player standpoint that's not enough, since in addition to these enemies existing, I also have to have enough information to find them at the time that I need them. Minesweeper itself (on expert level) doesn't have that and includes forced guesses, which can be somewhat skewed in your favor by calculating probabilities. But that means it is not 100% solvable, because you cannot solve it (without guessing) 100% of the time. And, obviously, when you have to guess, you sometimes lose, without any wrong play on your part.
I'm not even necessarily disputing, that the game is always solvable, if you ignore the pacifist achievements. But them saying, it's 100% solvable, but you need luck just makes no sense.
Linux Version:
There is a visual bug, that doesn't show the black vertical line on the solar panels.
Instead of 23:50 -> 0:00 the clock goes 23:50 -> 24:00. I think this also messes with the current energy use updating. I'm not sure if they update every full hour, but it seems around midnight, that there is an unusually large gap in between updates.
Feature Request:
It would be cool to have a hotkey for the fast forward button. I usually keep the coal powerplant warm by de-/activating it a lot, but that means I can't fast forward in that time, which is a bit of a hassle.
Maybe a slow-motion option would also be nice.
And, if that doesn't make the game too easy, some more information on the different powerplants. For example, how long a coal needs to warm up. This would make it easier to plan the heating process, rather than guessing.