Re: Gnomine suggestion

[Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>]

> > I had an idea that we could implement a "puzzle mode" in Gnomine.
> > I've got fed up with patterns that don't give any sure information,
> > so you must guess and often it explodes.
Speaking as the maintainer, I'm not particularly interested in making
the game more complicated with extra modes and the like.

Certainly finding yourself having to guess late in the game is an
annoyance and I am always open to suggestions about how to resolve
this issue. This one has two problems that I see. One is having an
extra button that has to be explained in the instructions (which have
to be read by the player), especially since experimentation will
usually end the game abruptly. Secondly is the issue that it is very
easy to miss a usable square and kill yourself. Unfortunately you need
some way to balance the use of the button in circumstances when it isn't
necessary, maybe a ten-second (or whatever) time penalty on it's use ?
Not as drastic as instant-death-if-wrong, but certainly a
discouragement to excessive use (and it could be rationally described
as a hint button too). That might be acceptable (and you don't need
the extra computation to see if it is needed or not).

The other option, if someone is clever enough, is to let the computer
"mutate" the hidden mines mid-game to minimise the possibility of the
player having to guess based on what is currently uncovered I'd be
interested. We already sort of do this in making sure the first move
is always a clear square (although the moves afterwards will almost
always involve some guessing). Unfortunately I'm not sure if this is
even possible, let alone feasible computationally (it would have to
take less than 100ms on a 200MHz computer for me to be happy about
speed).

 - Callum