Re: gnomines possible improvement

["Richard Hoelscher" <rah rahga com>]

sean said:
> I think it is clear that serving mines out isn't the best solution.  I
> could see it as a possible further option, but we can forget about it
> for now.  I think any deviation from the standard minesweeker should be
> optional, if the game really should support the basics.  I will work on
> your idea where it calculates a solvable board after the first move.  If
> I find that this greatly alters the game (at the moment I am not sure)
> then we can talk about other solutions.  I will try to have a patch
> ready by tomarrow.

No rush... gnome-games-2.10 was just released, so there's at least 4
months of time to get new features in. For what it's worth though, the
solver would have to be different than the blind one from December for it
to be of much use, otherwise it will be way too slow on certain boards. I
have no idea how much faster a solver could be if it knows all of the mine
locations beforehand.

>> Taking a completely different (and simple) approach to the forced guess
>> problem... What if we just replaced "Hint" with something more like a
>> "Peek"? Clicking on hint then clicking a square would either reveal or
>> flag it without danger of setting off the mine.
>
> If everyone agrees this is a good idea, I would be glad to make it work,
> I think the current hint system is kind of random.

I personally would love this, as long as the time penalty gets bumped up.
I also just filed Bug #170264, which would ensure that the first click is
not a number (the 8 surrounding squares would not contain mines). I think
that these two features would more than take care of the biggest guessing
problems in gnomine.

> Is it possible for me to get on the list?

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-Richard Hoelscher
http://rahga.com/webmail/