Re: Gnomine suggestion

[Juhani Heino <juhani heino 1posti net>]

> Speaking as the maintainer, I'm not particularly interested in
> making the game more complicated with extra modes and the like.

OK, I'm not urging. But below you make interesting suggestions.

> 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).

Good idea. Just make sure that the hint is given next to a
revealed square. Then it will (probably) give information.

BTW, I had an idea about a hint button too, but with my
computation. So you could use it and be sure that it could
be deduced, and then you could puzzle out why. Good way of
learning for beginners.

> 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).

This doesn't seem possible, but maybe a check for certain
patterns?

I had also another idea. What about adding a mine-free "fringe"?
When needed, you could reveal a border square to get info, and
perhaps pay 10-20 seconds for it.

Juhani