The Daily Click

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Minesweeper in eye-popping HD! :O
News posted 16th June, 2009 by OMC
Skilled-dude boardgame master MaVado has done us the courtesy of uploading a preview for a nice little Minesweeper clone. I know that this spiffy rendition makes me more interested in playing the classic brain-buster once again. Comments from the MaVado: "BOoM Brothers! brings back the classic Minesweeper gameplay. Race against the time to clear the gamefield from mines. Features: - HD Graphics up to 19201200 in Screen resolution in highest Game Mode & Settings - 5 Difficult Levels from easy to impossible - Custom Gameplay: you can setup the grid and the number of bombs for yourself" And he promises new gameplay modes in the final version! Visit the download page for BOoM Brothers!* Keep on making them thar vidier games! ;D Tweet

Posted by OMC

16th June, 2009

Yay for donuts!

Comment edited by OldManClayton on 6/17/2009

Posted by Ski

16th June, 2009

It's not really nasty at all? o.0

The game looks nice, Ill try it out when I can, maVado is a great guy

Comment edited by -Adam- on 6/16/2009

Posted by Codemonkey

16th June, 2009

Screw this game, it looks dumb.

Posted by Codemonkey

16th June, 2009

Now that's a nasty comment!

It looks pretty cool though.

Posted by Ricky

16th June, 2009

OMC, There was probably tons of talent and work put into this, but why do that for a game everyone already has?

Posted by OMC

16th June, 2009

You said you bet the original was better than this one... Anything can be done better than the original minesweeper.

Might as well give it a go, or at least not comment on how useless you think it is! ;D

Posted by Hayo

16th June, 2009

In true TDC fashion I want to inform everybody that I am not going to download this game because I don't have time to play games today.

Posted by Ski

16th June, 2009

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. To some Ricky's comment may have been seen as pointless, but I really didn't see it as nasty, that's being rather dramatic considering Ricky is quite a peaceful person.

Edit: lolol @ Hayo.
Comment edited by -Adam- on 6/16/2009

Posted by Rob Rule

16th June, 2009

Love the interface work on this. Very slick.

Posted by OMC

16th June, 2009

Well, I apologize to Ricky.

I responded rather grumpily.

Posted by steve

16th June, 2009

lol@hayo, that truly is the essence of TDC

Posted by Ricky

16th June, 2009

Posted by maVado

17th June, 2009

Oo inb4close

Posted by MBK

17th June, 2009

I never really cared for MineSweeper.
Wouldn't you rather make something fun with your talents?

Posted by maVado

17th June, 2009

To be honest I play Minesweeper a lot. Mainly to relax when I think about Design Ideas or if a Movie turns out to be crap but I still want to watch it to the end, so I end up playing Minesweeper with the Movie running in the Background.

Well I already work on a big game, this was just a small side project. It took away 1,5weeks of spare time and will probably take another to finish.

I just wanted to finally finish something, like I did in the past with Barricade, just make a game, set goals low, finish it in a few weeks. The game consists of only 3 objects that make the gameplay possible. My guess ist most people do not even know how to code something like this.

I plan to do a Bejeweled game after Minesweeper. And maybe a Match-3 type of game. We will see.

Posted by Dr. James MD

17th June, 2009

To echo what someone said on the download page for this game - I find it funny that (with all due respect to Andy and Pkoed) that a solitaire game, which is also free with Windows, can be so highly praised but a Minesweeper game is easily dismissed.

lol @ bits of the community. You wrong bunch you.

Edit: Eh? Comments being removed by author. Predictable much?
Comment edited by Dr. James on 6/18/2009

Posted by 3kliksphilip

17th June, 2009

Solitaire, minesweeper... why are people always making simple games that have been done before? Same with platformers. Come on, people- do RTS games, fake 3D games, point and clicks and isometric shooters!

Posted by OMC

17th June, 2009

We do get a lot of those. We get a lot of everything. Usually it's all been done before. The key is to present a new concept or feature, whether it be with an old genre or a new one.

This game provides a nice pleasing aesthetic that makes it worth the download.

Posted by maVado

17th June, 2009

@3kliksphilip

I have on RPG RTS Type of game in the making, it just takes an incredible amount of patience, time and preparation to get it together. We are talking in month / years here for something decent.

My Minesweeper version was a small "gimme 3 weeks to pull it off" creative sidewalk.

Posted by Fordom

17th June, 2009

It looks good, but minesweeper is boring as hell.
MMF?

Posted by Johnny Look

17th June, 2009

nope probably assembly

Posted by Cecilectomy

18th June, 2009

minesweaper is a thinking mans game. if you find it boring you probably just have no idea how to play it. a game shouldnt last more than a minute.

Posted by MBK

18th June, 2009

No .. Chess is a thinking mans game. MineSweeper is a simple little thing, just like Solitaire.

I'm not saying it's bad to make this kind of thing, just curious as to why someone would want to make what already exists when there's not much change in gameplay to the original.
Of course, this is coming from someone who if making a "MineSweeper" game, would have an army guy with a metal detector sweeping the field ... so ... heh...

It's the reason I haven't put much effort into making a regular platformer, and consequently why I also have not made many games. And also the reason I'm currently beating myself up over figuring out how to jump from the side of the wall in my insanely overcomplicated project. Sometimes I wish I were easy on myself like you guys. It really hurts to be a stubborn, stupid, and uncompromisingly irritating individual as I am. If only I were intelligent and focused, I would have had this code finished by now ...
sorry, I'm ranting ... getting tired I guess.

Maybe I need to take a break and make a minesweeper game.

Posted by Cecilectomy

18th June, 2009

no... solitaire is a game of luck. minesweeper can ALWAYS be won (if you dont count the first move). its based on math. it requires thinking. chess is just a different type of thinking game.
Comment edited by rand(0, $Cecil); on 6/18/2009

Posted by Ricky

18th June, 2009

Minesweeper is not a thinking mans game. It's a quick thinking mans game. There should be a multilayer mode where to sides race each other.

Posted by Ricky

18th June, 2009

better yet, a mode where each side places the bombs for the other side, then the race starts

Posted by Cecilectomy

18th June, 2009

so like battleship with numbers?

Posted by maVado

18th June, 2009

Then you would just stack mines on one area and leave one field free. If you are lucky you click on the empty area and then you just read 2-3-3....3-3-2 and realise everything behind there is just mines and maybe one free cell with "8" in it. Then you realise that this is not be much fun to play.

OINC is somewhere on my agenda, I think I already have a good idea how a multiplayer version could look like.

Posted by Ricky

18th June, 2009

I meant with limited bombs
but you could still lose on the first turn, so my idea is no good.

Posted by Cecilectomy

18th June, 2009

i think minesweaper should have an auto first move maker that starts a space with a non mine.

Posted by Asholay

18th June, 2009

Minesweeper does have an auto first move maker... hence why you never lose minesweeper on your first click?

Posted by Cecilectomy

18th June, 2009

does it not set the mines until you make your first move? i havent played in awhile on windows version. but it doesnt make the first move FOR you. but it does seem to never be a mine on your first move.

Posted by alastair john jack

18th June, 2009

Don't usually see games like this, most of the time they're mario clones.

Posted by OMC

18th June, 2009

Both Chess and Minesweeper are thinking games. If you randomly click through a game of minesweeper then you'll lose, so it obviously is.

I think a multiplayer version would be great!

Posted by Dr. James MD

18th June, 2009

Or just an online highscore table could be cool.

Posted by maVado

18th June, 2009

@Dr. James

Added to my notes, I will add it.

Posted by Marko

18th June, 2009

Minesweeper was cool....... downloading!

Posted by Asholay

19th June, 2009

Everyone knows the secret to making any game good... RPG it up:

Set the scene - you're a WW2 army bod

Clearing mines earns you cash from scrap metal.

With the cash you earn you can buy special equipment from the supply dump, such as:

- one-use radar checker, to sniff out a mine on one square.
- safety jacket - protects you from a blast once

Add different types of mine as you go through the game which do different damage types of damage (standard game progression device)

You could make it so that instead of clearing a whole page of mine, you need to traverse a mine-field to get to the enemy bunker, or something. Then you can add other obstacles like barbed wire, tanks, etc.

Don't go too mad though - keep it very simple to use and play, but complex to master.

That would be a good take on minesweeper.

We'll call it, Minesweeper 2009

Posted by Ricky

19th June, 2009

"Everyone knows the secret to making any game good... RPG it up:"

That's what ruined the Tony Hawk games imo.

Posted by Asholay

19th June, 2009

Read - "how to make any game commercially rape-able"

For every 1 person that doesn't like RPG elements, 100 other people suddenly find the game more appealing.

Posted by Dr. James MD

19th June, 2009

I'm not so sure about that. It doesn't work for every game, such as Tony Hawk and the GTA series did a lot better when they dropped the RPG statsy stuff from San Andreas.

And no that sounds rubbish. Minesweeper with a story and with items? It's already simple to play - complex to master without having needless, casual inclined items.

Posted by Muz

19th June, 2009

Asholay, make it. Prove them wrong.

Posted by maVado

19th June, 2009

Asholay, your idea would work in Multiplayer for example. People start on a large minefield with various bunkers and then start there way to each other or to one central bunker and advance on there own. Gaining XP and cash to gain items or power ups. Eventually one or two of them will die on the way. But For single player already have my setting set. The Casual game mode will add a healthbar and will allow a few miss-clicks on mines. Both casual and deluxe will have health and additional score rating and deluxe will have a few powerups, but's that it. I don't want to turn this into a different type of game. It should still be "clear the field in shortest time period".

If you need a helping hand to get started, I released the first minesweeper code on CT a week ago, also the Background Images Example (Seamless World). Good luck.

Posted by Asholay

19th June, 2009

I have no desire to make a minesweeper clone - just throwing some worms out for feeding...

James - just because something already works without something, it doesn't mean those additions can't improve it? We'd live in a boring world if everyone took your attitude to development!

Posted by Dr. James MD

19th June, 2009

But like my examples stated - developers experiment with that all the time and somtimes, if the genre doesn't fit, they remove it. You're assuming everyone wants to play RPG games and games with complex gameplay mechanics. My point was that not all games need that; and thats my attitude towards development.

Posted by maVado

19th June, 2009

I second that. Often I play Minesweeper or Solitaire while waiting for something to finish, a copy, or download, just 1-5 minutes, then I fire up the game and play a few rounds then quit, that's it for me. I build Boom Brothers on this concept, fire it up and instant gaming, no load, title what ever and no settings to set, just right onto the gamefield and go!

Posted by Dr. James MD

19th June, 2009

That's why I keep my DS and PSP to hand. If Photoshop is taking its sweet time or waiting in a L4D lobby I'll wake up the system and have a bazz on Tetris, GTA, LocoRoco or an emulator.

Posted by Asholay

19th June, 2009

Exactly? Developers experiment - but you have to make a game before you can see whether something works or not? And as for calling an idea 'rubbish', that's just arrogant.

Not that it matters - like I said, I was just throwing some ideas at maVado - it's your prerogative to like them or not, and mine as to whether I give your opinion any credit.

Posted by Dr. James MD

19th June, 2009

It would be rubbish, it would take out the strategy to the game and that would no longer be minesweeper. If you drastically alter something enough through shoehorning in secondary elements that everything about the original game changes - then it is no longer the original title. It's something else. So you couldn't do a Minesweeper with items as that would fundamentally change how you play the game.

But as I said it can work depending on the original game, but it can also detract if done poorly. That's the point I was making

. Experimentation alone doesn't make a good game that everyone will rush out and buy. Infact the best selling game series seem to be the ones stuck in their ways (GTA, Halo, Pokemon, Zelda, Mario). The core titles in them series have more or less stayed true to the original concept.

Posted by OMC

19th June, 2009

Boy, popular news post.

Posted by Solgryn

19th June, 2009

You should be proud

Posted by Ski

19th June, 2009

Id love to see a minesweeper RPG. Awesome idea

Posted by Marko

19th June, 2009

I would like to see how it would turn out, however i think it'll either be a) crap or b) not Minesweeper. It'd be like someone saying "let's make Tetris racing!" - it won't be Tetris anymore!

I still would like to see an attempt though!

Posted by Ski

20th June, 2009

Tetris racing would probably be the best game ever.

Posted by Dr. James MD

20th June, 2009

Exactly Mark, glad we have some sensible folk posting

. You could call it something else, god knows Pop Cap and the likes have taken popular games, added a basic extra and called it something else. But then it's something else.

Posted by Dr. James MD

20th June, 2009

Of note though the GB version of Minesweeper did have some kind of reference to sweeping mines. The title screen was of a boat over an ocean dropping, well, minesweepers. Unlike the Windows version which doesn't reference its name origins at all.

Posted by AndyUK

20th June, 2009

just throwing out a mixtures of ideas doesn't actually mean anything. if i said Resident evil cricket with a DDR dancemat. It means nothing. You can hardly judge if a game is going to be good if that game doesn't even exist yet.
If you got two teams to make their own version of that game it could end up with one being great and one being awful.

Minesweeper sounds like a bad idea, but who knows?

Posted by OMC

20th June, 2009

I agree with Adam. I'm half tempted to make a Tetris racing game now.

Posted by Muz

20th June, 2009

Lol, when you get blocks in a line, your car gets more power. The faster you get blocks in a line, the faster your car goes, so at harder levels, you have to play tetris really fast.

Posted by Rikus

20th June, 2009

I used to play minesweeper on windowx xp

btw sorry for the non-front page news on my part, all of my free time has been going to the new klikcast episode, and hopefully it should be uploaded this weekend. Phew and yay!

Posted by alastair john jack

20th June, 2009

"Tetris racing would probably be the best game ever. "

I use to have a tetris handheld game thing when I was little, it had lots of tetris game types and a tetris racing one

Posted by Ricky

20th June, 2009

i still have tetris that came with the the first gameboy, and i still play it too.

Posted by Dr. James MD

20th June, 2009

Same here Alspal, we had this big 99 games in 1 thing that was basically just Tetris and other games and 20 variants of each. The Tetris racing game was pants

Posted by Marko

20th June, 2009

How did it play, James? I'm struggling to imagine what it's like but very curious!

Posted by Ski

20th June, 2009

It wasn't actually tetris racing ¬_¬ the cars were made of blocks.

Comment edited by -Adam- on 6/20/2009

Posted by alastair john jack

20th June, 2009

was still good though lol

Posted by Marko

20th June, 2009

That Tetris racing thing sounds familiar now, think i've played something similar....

Posted by OMC

20th June, 2009

This thing? http://www.aimkeys.com/tetris/

Posted by Marko

20th June, 2009

Yeah that's it - what an aweful game!

Posted by OMC

20th June, 2009

I agree!

Posted by Dr. James MD

20th June, 2009

one of the modes was trying to align up pieces/cars before the end of the lap, which was littered with 'holes' that destroyed pieces of the line you were building. it was near impossible to play. There was more but I only bought it for the pinball game :3

Posted by AndyUK

20th June, 2009

I used to have a handheld similar to that only it had an option to use additional blocks not limited to 4 squares each.

Posted by alastair john jack

20th June, 2009

oh my gosh, that's what it use to look like! I remember one of my first games in Games Factory was a game that tried to be like that one.

Posted by Marko

20th June, 2009

I bet alot of gamers tried to make a game similar to this at one time or another (i know i did!)

Posted by Ski

20th June, 2009

I had that exact console in blue. Bought it from manchester airport to play on the plane.

Posted by MBK

22nd June, 2009

You know ... I played MineSweeper online on beginner and beat it in 10 seconds. But then I couldn't find the scoreboard to see where I placed.

Btw, your version requires .net 2.0 which I don't have
Don't understand why you had to include the need for a certain framework. What was needed in the framework that made this impossible to make without it?

Posted by maVado

22nd June, 2009

Advanced Pathfinding extension. I can do it without, but It is slower.

Posted by OMC

23rd June, 2009

You should all have the .NET frameworks installed anyway.