History
Minesweeper was invented in the 1960s and has been written for many computing platforms still used today. It has many variants. Minesweeper’s oldest ancestor was Cube, by Jerimac Ratliff. The gameplay style became a popular segment of puzzle games, with titles like Mined-Out (1983) or Yomp (1983). The game was mostly known for being on Microsoft Windows in 1990.
Rules
- The grid is populated with a set number of mines and empty spaces hidden under tiles.
- The player can do two things: Left click to reveal the content of the space, or right click to put a flag on the tiles to keep track of where they think a mine is.
- If the player reveals a mine, they automatically lose.
- The tiles not containing mines are either blank or are marked with a number, which represents the number of mines next to that particular tile. The mines are considered “next to” the tile when they either have a shared border or corner.
- Clicking a completely blank tile will automatically open any other empty tiles next to it.
Goal
The goal of the game is to unveil every tile on the board without touching any mines. There is also a timer. This also makes challenging yourself to complete the board as fast as possible a compelling goal.