# &app; Manual

Mines is GNOME's take on the popular logic puzzle minesweeper, which includes avoiding mines while receiving clues for the location of the mines.

2006
Callum McKenzie
GNOME Documentation Project

&legal;

Callum
McKenzie

     callum@spooky-possum.org

&appname; Manual V&manrevision;
&date;

Callum McKenzie callum@spooky-possum.org

GNOME Documentation Project

This manual describes version &appversion; of &appname;.

## Feedback

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding the &app; application or this manual, follow the directions in the GNOME bug reporting database..

## Introduction

&app; is a puzzle game where you locate mines floating in an ocean using only your brain and a little bit of luck.

You start the game with a grid of covered squares and no idea what is in them. Clicking on a square reveals what is in it: either empty ocean or a mine. If you find a mine bad things happen and the game is over. If you uncover an empty square, you survive and get to try again. We do give you a bit of help; if you find an empty piece of ocean a number is printed there telling you how many mines are in the adjacent squares (or no number if there are no nearby mines). Once you find a few clear squares you can start to deduce which squares have mines in them and which don't. You win the game once you have revealed all the un-mined squares and marked all the mined squares.

### The stages of the game: the start, playing, losing, and winning.

To mark a square as having a mine you right-click on it and a flag is placed there. If you click on a square with a number and you have placed precisely that number of flags on adjacent squares then the remaining squares are revealed. If you didn't mark the mines correctly then an explosion will occur and the game is over. Squares with no adjacent mines (i.e. blank squares) have their adjacent squares automatically cleared.

### Important information.

You are being timed. To be good at this game you have to work both quickly and correctly. Once you have found all the mines and revealed all the un-mined squares the clock is stopped. Your score is the time you took; the shorter the better.

The time you have taken is displayed on the bottom right of the window. Beside it, on the left, is a count of the number of mines you have cleared and the total number hidden on the board.

### The yellow face shows you how well you are going.

## The Details

This section provides information on the controls and the important menu items. If you need help figuring where the mines are, see the strategy section.

### The Goal

Starting from an ocean of squares with unknown contents you must mark all the squares with mines and reveal all the clear squares. You don't actually have to mark the squares with mines, but it is a lot easier if you do. Once you have cleared all the un-mined squares, any remaining mined squares will be marked for you.

If you left click on a mine, or auto-clear a square with a mine in it you lose. To help prevent accidents, you aren't allowed to auto-clear around a square unless the number of marked mines equals the number given in the square.

### Using the Mouse

Action | Result
--- | ---
Left click on an un-revealed square. | Reveals the contents of that square. For better or for worse.
Left click in a revealed square. | Auto-clear. Reveals the unmarked squares around the clicked square, but only if enough squares have been marked to match the number in the square.
Right click on an un-revealed square. | Marks the square as a mine. If it is already marked, the mark will be removed.

If you are used to the more traditional mouse controls, don't worry, they still work.

### Game Size and Difficulty

By choosing Settings Preferences from the menu you can change the size of the games. Larger sizes obviously take longer and require more concentration. Smaller games are more frantic. We provide Small, Medium, Large and Custom sizes.

#### The preferences dialog.

On the right hand side of the dialog there are three parameters for controlling the custom size. Horizontal and Vertical are the width and height of the desired grid in squares. The number of mines is - obviously - the number of mines you need to find. If this number is set too high or too low then the game becomes very easy. The number of mines is limited to slightly less than the total number of squares.

### "I'm not sure" Flags

There is a check-box in the properties dialog entitled Use "I'm not sure" flags. If you enable this then, when right-clicking on a square, it cycles between the normal flags used to mark the square as mined, a flag with a question mark on it and no flag. This new flag is to help you with your reasoning, to mark mines you think might be a mine but aren't sure about. These flags have no effect on the game; you still have to use the appropriate number of red marker flags to be able to clear around a numbered square.

#### The sequence of flags when "I'm not sure" flags are enabled.

### Use "Too many flags" warning

The other check-box in the properties dialog is entitled Use "Too many flags" warning. This feature will show you a warning when you have placed too many flags. This is disabled by default, as it provides so much hint that it could be considered "cheating".

### Hints

If you get stuck - it is reasonably common to end up with two options that you can't logically resolve - then you can either guess, or ask for a hint. When you choose Hint from the Game menu a single square is revealed (plus surrounding squares if it is blank). The choice of square is random, but should be helpful. There is 10 second penalty added to your time whenever you use a hint.

### High Scores

If your score is in the top ten you will be shown the list of top scores and have an opportunity to change the name recorded in the high score table. You can also review the scores later by choosing Scores from the Game menu. The drop-down menu at the top of the dialog lets you look at the scores for other board sizes.

#### The high scores dialog.

The high score for the custom size is usually meaningless. Any other player can make the game size smaller and get a better time. If you only ever play one custom size then it will tell you how well you are doing. This is the only reason it is still recorded.

### Window Size

Resizing the window makes the squares bigger or smaller to suit. If you want to make maximum use of the screen then there is a Fullscreen option under the Settings menu. You can also use the F11 key to toggle full-screen mode.

### Pausing the Game

The game can be paused automatically when you start using another window, or paused by choosing Pause from the Game menu. The playing area is blanked so you can't think ahead while the clock is stopped. To start playing again press the button labelled "Press to Resume".

## Strategy

The first half of this section explains the very basics of deducing where mines are. If you are familiar with how to play the game skip down to the Advanced Situations subsection.

### The Basics

These are a few basic situations which should be incredibly obvious, but if you're struggling with how to play the game, they should be useful. The first case is where you have an isolated covered square and most of the squares around it read 1. That covered square is a mine.

#### The simplest case.

The next simplest case is where you have two covered squares adjacent to each other and both squares on one side are marked with a 2. If they have no other uncleared neighbors, then both squares are mines.

#### The two mine case.

Finally, when there are three uncovered squares in a row and the clear square beside the middle one is a 3 (once again this square should have no other neighbors) then all three are mines.

#### The three mine case.

These are the simplest cases. Other permutations on these simple situations are possible, for example the three squares in the previous example could be in an L shape.

Simple analysis will solve most of the puzzle, but not all. Before going on to the next sections, where we give you more advanced hints, you should play for a bit and see what you can work out for yourself.

### Advanced Situations

These are some more complicated situations. They are a bit of a step up from the last section, so we hope you took our advice and played for a bit first.

In the example below the mines are to the left of the ones. We figure this out by a process of elimination. If the square to the left of the 2 was a mine then the 1s would both have their maximum number of mines leaving no free square for the second mine adjacent to the 2 (since they would also be adjacent to the 1s). Having eliminated the middle square we are left with two squares we require for the 2 so they are both mined.

#### A not-so-obvious pattern.

This situation can be disguised, for example consider the figure below. It is the same situation, but the extra mined square on the right has increased all the numbers by 1.

#### The extra mine disguises a copy of the previous example.

Now we're going to try a complicated example. It illustrates two points. The first is that even if you aren't sure which squares are mined, restricting the possibilities is helpful. The second is that knowing which squares aren't mined is nearly as good as knowing which are mined.

Assume that, in the figure below, we start off knowing that the top left square is mined and so the two squares marked 2 on the left only require one more mine. Next observe that the left-most 2 implies that one of the covered squares beneath it is mined, but we don't yet know which one. Since at least one of these squares is mined and they are both neighbors of the second 2 then we know that that 2 is also satisfied by one of these two squares (we still don't know which one). This means that the square beneath the 4 is clear because it is also a neighbor of the second 2 and not one of the two squares we identified previously. This one blank square now leaves the 4 with only four neighbors - all of which must be mines. Not only does it tell us which mines surround the 4, it now tells us which of the squares beside the 2 is mined!

#### As tricky as it gets.

This sort of situation is tricky. In all the other examples you can learn to look for patterns and avoid thinking hard. Situations like the one in the figure don't crop up easily or in easily recognisable places. Often it is easier to just ignore them and keep playing elsewhere in the hope that you can start clearing the squares from the other side.

### Tips

Remember, the edge of the board is just the same as a large cleared area (but without the numbers). Often working at the edge of the board is the easiest way forward.

Sometimes you end up in a situation where there is no way to deduce what the configuration is. In these cases you either have to guess or use the hint function (Game Hint). Sometimes it isn't a 50/50 situation and instead of taking a hint you might like to gamble on the most likely outcome.

One final hint: remember the counter on the bottom left of the window that tells you how many mines you have left? Often, near the end of the game, this number can help you figure out what possible places mines can be. How to do this is up to you to figure out.

## Authors

GNOME Mines was written by Pista (szekeres@cyberspace.mht.bme.hu). This manual was written by Callum McKenzie (callum@spooky-possum.org) with help from Vincent Povirk and based on an earlier manual by Tim Riehle (tkriehle@citilink.com). To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, follow the directions in this document.

## License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA