Re: gnomines possible improvement

[Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>]

On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 21:57 +0000, sean wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 13:36 -0600, Richard Hoelscher wrote:
> 
> > The problem with serving mines if a guess is detected means that on levels
> > like 'hard', the user could no longer hop around all over the board
> > clicking on mines and hoping for a cascade... This is keeping in mind, per
> > Callum's e-mail, that whatever gets implemented wouldn't be made optional.
> 
> 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.
As Richard said, don't hurry. You have four months until the frozen part
of the release cycle. That said, I'm very interested in what you come up
with.

> > 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.
The current hint system is not entirely random. It uses a three-level
heuristic to try and do something useful (e.g. it tries to clear one on
the edge of the cleared area rather than just a random tile). 

I'm not particularly keen on the peek idea. The interface seems a bit
clumsy to me. Also, we have this idea of "hint" in other parts of
gnome-games and I would like some vague consistency across the package.
This doesn't mean that the current state of affairs can't be improved
however.

Unfortunately the best option - track the users eyes and reveal a tile
in the part of the board they have been staring at for the last five
minutes - just isn't practical with common hardware.

> Is it possible for me to get on the list?
Go to http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/games-list and follow the
instructions. They aren't that hard to deal with and they are a lot
easier than what I have to deal with as the list admin :).

 - Callum