Talk:Minesweeper (computer game)

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Restructuring the talk page. -FunnyMan 16:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Proposal for merge of Minesweeper Variants

All relevant info on mineseeper is alredy here,plus the variants article is more of a stub.--Pixel ;-) 21:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshot discussion

Summarizing old discussions in the hopes of helping us find a concensus. Feel free to correct a section of the summary if you feel that it doesn't accuarely reflect the issue. Please keep further comments to the #Further discussion section. - FunnyMan 16:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I gave you ten days to pull this back in line on your own, but it just degenerated, so I'm stepping back in. The summary is not a place for discussion, treat it more like an article. If you feel something is wrong with the summary, fix it. Pro and con are separate for a reason, keep them separate. If you want to counter a Pro statement, file that under Con, and vice versa. And don't sign the summary, it's impersonal. Discussion goes under #Further discussion.

[edit] Summary

What screenshots should be used to illustrate this article?

[edit] Windows minesweeper screenshots

Pros:

  • Most well-known version of the game.
    • Screenshots will be easily recognizable.
    • Most readers won't use any other version

Cons:

  • Screenshot of non-free software, so would have to be used under fair use.
    • Fair use isn't desirable because:
      • Fair use laws vary from country to country.
      • This is a free encyclopedia, so free content is prefered. See the first item under WP:FAIR#Policy.
    • There are concerns as to whether fair use applies in this case.
  • Might not be in-line with WP:NPOV because it promotes Microsoft software.

[edit] KMines or other open-source software screenshots

Pros:

  • Screenshot of free software, clearly in line with the GFDL and copyright law.
  • Similar enough to the Windows variant to be recognizable.

Cons:

  • Less common version of the game.
    • Most readers will not have used this version.
    • The screenshots may be harder to recognize, despite similarities.
      • For instance, the numbers are colored completely differently.
  • Might not be in-line with WP:NPOV because it promotes open source software.

[edit] Custom images

RodrigoCamargo was kind enough to create a custom set of images for the article.

Pros:

  • Similar enough to the any major variant to be recognizable.
  • Released to public domain, clearly in line with the GFDL and copyright law.
    • PD images can be freely edited to make them more generic.
  • Clearly in-line with WP:NPOV because they don't directly favor any particular version of the software.

Cons:

  • The graphics will not match those of any minsweeper version. This may make them harder to recognize, despite the similarities.
  • The original images use the coloring from the windows version, which is unfair and needs to be fixed.

[edit] Further discussion

I've edited some of the below comments to help clarity. In the case of Pixel ;-), this is to even the playing field, as he has (by his own admission, though I've lost the link) a mental disability, which makes his written English at times nearly unreadable. In other cases, this is due to a change of context, as the comments were originally placed in the summary section above. All changes are marked, with a link to the original. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

My own inclination would be to use the custom images for illustrating aspects of the rules and strategy (as they are version independant), an open-source one as the main article image (as a sample version that avoids the fair use issues), and images from each program for a section discussing it. Using the MS minesweeper image in that context is clearly fair use and in-line with WP:FAIR. -FunnyMan 16:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not that simple. The "custom made" images only look like many variants because they look like windows version. One group argues that all the other variants are worthless, and so they shouldn't be mentioned at all here, only the windows version. They even wanted the kmines article to be deleted outright, without being merged in. I find this a bit extreme.--Pixel ;-) 21:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC) (edited for clarity, FunnyMan. Original)
I find that POV. The images are released to public domain, so we can tweak them to be more fair. How about making the numbers black & white, for a start? Looking at the archive again, I see that you actually proposed that at one point. Seems logical to me. The colors aren't really all that important (see below). Maybe we could use B&W for most of the image but colored numbers/fields to highlight areas of interest. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The KMines screenshots are hardly similar, due to the blatantly different colored numbers. 207.237.35.22 01:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)Arjadre (edited for clarity after moving, FunnyMan. Original)

Guess what? The colors aren't really all that important. Their purpose is to aid in distinguishing one number from another while playing, while still being readable. People are used to seeing objects in different colors, they will recognize the overall structure of the image. Mind, I'm not fond of the KMines colors, they're not distinct enough. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
That's POV, I find the colours to be very important, in particular, the windows colours, which are mimicked by all the major clones anyway, with Kmines seemingly the only (barely) noticable exception.SchuBomb 15:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The KMines images are not IMC (International Minesweeper Committee) approved. (edited for clarity after moving, FunnyMan. Original)

And the custom images are? What this have to do with the issue? -- Pixel ;-) 15:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC) (edited for clarity after moving, FunnyMan. Original)
International Minesweeper Committee fails the Google test. When Google next scans this page, that name's occurance will go up by 50% internet wide (it was on two pages before, one of them their own, and the other a glossary from a site way below the radar). To me, this is a sign of a person or group of people who decided to adopt a fancy-sounding name and claim to be an authority. If they were actually important, it would be discussed in other places on the web. Therefore, I've pulled this out of the summary. You want it back, prove that there's a reason we should care at all what the so-called "International" Minesweeper Committee thinks. Fancy names don't lend any authority. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes they do. I suggest you visit http://www.metanoodle.com/minesweeper (The Authoritative Minesweeper) or http://www.planet-minesweeper.com (Planet Minesweeper) and ask what the IMC is. You'd be surprised. All of the record holders and the elite at this game have to follow by those standards to even be recognized. Also: you want a google test? Google "minesweeper". -- DB 01:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm...A group of (talented Minesweeper) users on a site following certain standards does not make those standards 'authoritative' in any way. The discussion is about making sure the images are suitable for GFDL, fair use, NPOV, etc... 40.0.40.10 18:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

How can you say that the custom images are "Similar enough to the any major variant to be recognizable." and then that "The graphics will not match those of any minsweeper version. This may make them harder to recognize, despite the similarities."? And which variants are the "major variants", just the windows one? --Pixel ;-) 21:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC) (edited for clarity after move, FunnyMan. Original)

It's a tradeoff. The more an image looks generic, the less it looks like any specific version. As to the "major varients", I'm going by the images at the bottom of the article. They're different stylistically (colors, shading, font, flag/mine images), but the overall setup (grid, numbers, difference between 0 and unclicked, flags, mines) is the same in all of them, even the more exotic variants. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

(in response to the custom images looking like the windows version) Oh, you mean the original version? The one that this article is BASED ON? DB (1-14-53) 05:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

First, the article should be neutral and discuss the game in general. The Windows version is the most popular variant, yes, but the Christian variant is the most popular variant of religion, and I don't see that article using Christian symbols to illustrate everything. In fact, I don't see any Christian symbols on that page at all. Second, the article doesn't seem to be certain which variant of Minesweeper is the original, it looks like it might have been a variant that ran on the Tektronix 4051, whatever system that was. -FunnyMan 05:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
That's flawed reasoning, christianity is the most popular variant of religion but only just, and perhaps if there were a religion with the demographic overwhelming dominance of windows minesweeper (95% as a conservative estimate, with the major clones (that have the same look as winmine) and the linux version taking up most of the rest, as opposed to 33% for christianity) there would be pictures with that religion displayed all throughout that article. I say either winmine images, or something close enough to the winmine look to closely resemble it (including the correct colours) but slightly different to avoid NPOV and copy write issues.SchuBomb 15:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as can be found on the archives of this talk page, I said I was going to give a break on the then-going discussion about the images I did. Considering that (1) many months passed since then; (2) the almost exclusively single Wikipedia user that didn't support that images, Pixel, has been blocked indefinitely from Wikipedia for strongly breaking its rules; and (3) during this time, a reasonable number of users expressed their approval for the images here on the talk page, then I put them back today. RodrigoCamargo 22:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

Intro:

Minesweeper is a single-player computer game invented by Robert Donner in 1989.

History:

There was a version on a Tektronix 4051 around 1981, but the tradition of passing around a 'games tape' goes back to at least 1973 [1]. This tape even contains a 3D version of minesweeper. The author of this game, David Ahl [2] is a crucial figure in the early history of computer games.

So who really invented it, and when? Looks like a contradiction to me. -FunnyMan 05:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. The Tektronix claim is the only one with citation... --anskas 22:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Can we sort out this contradiction? I will remove the Robert Donner claim in 24 hours unless some citation is provided. —anskas 21:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I am an idiot. —anskas 02:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

To avoid further confusion: The contraciction has been resolved. -FunnyMan 04:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers?

Curious: could the squares with the numbers perhaps better be referred to by numerals instead of words? For example, Where there is a row of twos by a wall, four twos with ones at the ends means that the mines are beside the two middle twos, and beside the ones adjacent to the twos... being changed to Where there is a row of 2s by a wall, four 2s with 1s at the ends means that the mines are beside the two middle 2s, and beside the 1s adjacent to the 2s... Nyttend 18:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Windows Minesweeper Origin

I submitted the first version to use a windows-oriented user interface (SunWindows) to the old Usenet group comp.sources.games back in 1987; as a citation check out:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.games/browse_thread/thread/7c4b17a2c166a17d/7a7fb5ca34300444?lnk=st&q=xmines+Frank+Waters+Road&rnum=2&hl=en#7a7fb5ca34300444

I noticed some coworkers playing rlogic on a DOS machine in a neighboring cubicle; thought it looked like fun, so I wrote a version for Sun workstations (starting by carving up a network chess game I had written earlier, called nchess).

I don't know for sure, but I have reason to believe that the Microsoft game is probably inspired more by the game I wrote than by rlogic. The ability to flag squares as either verboten or as safe were from my original version of mines, which used various buttons (3-button mice on Suns, which stemmed from the old Smalltalk usage) for that purpose.

The original sources were ported to Macs and X windows. xmines still lives on, even though the old Mac and SunWindows versions have long gone into the bit bucket...

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.227.145.254 (talk • contribs) 04:49, October 17, 2006 (UTC).


Sorry; I believe I may have mistakenly edited a previous person's comment rather than creating a new one (haven't really paid much attention to wikipedia commentary before; please don't hurt me).

The missing link in the minesweeper debate - which is a bit surprising to see, really, after all these years, may be the mines program I wrote and submitted to the comp.sources.game Usenet newsgroup back in 1987. The genesis of mines was seeing some coworkers playing rlogic in a neighboring cubicle, then writing a minesweeper game for SunWindows immediately afterward. (Curiously, I have never played rlogic; I just watched them play for a couple of minutes.)

The original Usenet postings are apparently disappearing from the web, but still seem to be cached here and there. A google search for mines, plus my old home address (e.g., google search for "mines Frank Waters Road") is about the only proof of when the postings were made (though a pretty good one).

The game was pretty simple; the objective was to make it from the upper-left to lower-right corner in a fixed grid of 16x16 squares. A user could specify the number of mines in the entire grid; reachability was not guaranteed. A feature that was new to mines (not in rlogic as far as I know, though then again, I never actually played the game) was the ability to flag squares as known to be safe or as "known" to have a mine, making it harder to accidentally get blown up by poor mouse skills. The appearance of this same feature a couple years later in the Microsoft version has always made me suspect that they saw the mines version as well (yes, Microsoft did have Sun workstations in those days, I think; though only Robert Donner could really tell us whether this was where they got the idea!)

I have some really old screenshots printed out in a box somewhere... If I find any, I'll add some images to this commentary.

p.s. - as a citation, see:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.games/browse_thread/thread/7c4b17a2c166a17d/7a7fb5ca34300444?lnk=st&q=mines+%22Frank+Waters+Road%22&rnum=3&hl=en#7a7fb5ca34300444

not sure if all parts of the original shar (shell archive) are still squirreled away where google can see them, but I do still probably have the original sources somewhere (as if it really matters!)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wikitoma (talk • contribs) 05:16, October 17, 2006 (UTC).

Don't worry too much about putting comments in the wrong spot, that's easy to fix. Please do remember to sign and date your comments with something like --~~~~, as adding that back in is somewhat more annoying.
Please do try to find the images, that would make a great comparison shot for the article, especially since you're more than qualified to put them out under the GFDL for us. The source code is also interesting, and if you're comfortable with it, it'd be great to see you put that out on Wikisource as a historical document. Keep in mind that Wikisource is also under the GFDL, and you might want to consider allowing GPL as well, in case someone wants to use the code.
I'll make some changes to the article in just a moment to reflect the new information. Thank you very much for bringing this to us! -FunnyMan 05:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC) (Update: Done! Thanks again. -FunnyMan 06:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Minesweeper Flags

Should the MSN game be mentioned? Jr W 11:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations in Best Times Section

None of the best times are cited. I'm particularly concerned that Jaymin Berg is accused of falsifying screenshots without citation. If it's untrue, it's libellous. It also says "some ... have been known to falsify records by altering screenshots..." but Berg is the only name given; this is "weasel worded." I'm going to put an "unreferencedsect" on the whole section. DrGaellon 15:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The citation for the best times is in the linked (in that section) best-ever list. As for cheating information, I could attempt to get the people who receive the record submissions to make a page about that that can be referenced.SchuBomb 23:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
That's not at all clear. A proper Wikipedia citation should be entered to link that site - and that site is hardly definitive, since it's a self-organized group with no official authority. DrGaellon 03:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
First of all, you won't find a more definitive link right now, and second, that it has no official authority is also untrue, it is run by one of the members of the IMC (International Minesweeper Comittee), the organisation (elected by the community) that accepts or rejects scores.SchuBomb 08:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two sections, only one needed

I renamed the "Linux implementations" section to "FOSS implementations" because GNOME and KDE also runs on other platforms. But now I notice that there is a section called "Variants". Why isn't this one big section? I think that information on other spcific ports that the Windows one is essential. By that I mean KMines, GNOME Mines, Winesweeper 3D. --Ysangkok 20:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Double-square analysis

"five twos in the same setting means that all twos except the centermost two are beside mines."
This makes no sense - in a row of five, no two can be called the "centermost".
EDIT: Never mind; I've realised now that it means the centremost square labelled as "two". I think this might require clarification; possibly giving the values of squares numerical designations, as one user above suggested (e.g. "2" instead of "two")?
Branfish 09:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WRAPFIELD cheat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CH-Kx2sl9c

Apparently theres a secret mode in minesweeper in which the field acts as a sphere transformed into a plane (essentially a Mercator projection of the field). I suck too much at minesweeper to have tested it out fully, but if this is true then mention should be made of it in the cheats section EunuchOmerta 01:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a joke video, ignore it. SchuBomb 02:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Damn. I'll leave this up for future referenceEunuchOmerta 17:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

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