HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

frading

313 karma · joined September 6, 2010

https://twitter.com/fradingue - https://polygonjs.com
submissionscomments
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot for this feedback. I have indeed not thought about saving between sessions, I'll try and add it, I agree it is important.

For the clicks being offset because of the banner, I'm surprised and did not see the issue when developing. I'll double check, so thank you for that.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ahah, wow. I love when someone finds new ways to expand on game mechanics. I'm trying to visualize what you're describing, and I think I see some correctly, and it does sound fun.

That'll make me think, certainly.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
thank you for your suggestion. I went with the "60s penalty" suggestion in the end.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ok, that's great info thank you. I should be able to fix that in the coming days.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
That's great to hear, thank you. I'm considering releasing a paid ad-free version.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
It's only because I've added admob on the iOS and android versions. I personally don't collect data, but admob does. And when using those apps, you'll see a banner at the top, and a reward video if you press undo.

The steam version will be ad free, but there isn't a iOS/android paid and ad-free version yet. I'm considering it, though.

But I'm also looking for alternative ad providers, that would allow displaying ads while being privacy friendly. For instance, banners that redirect to a board game shop when clicked, and that track absolutely nothing except visits to their site, would be ideal. Surely those should exist, but I haven't found them yet.

If anybody has recommendation, I'd love to hear, I'm learning about this space at the moment.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Excellent, great to hear, I really appreciate.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Very good to know. I'll try and reproduce this bug, thank you for this.

And if you're able to send a screenshot, that'll be super useful. As at the moment, when testing in chrome dev tools, with iphone SE selected, it looks like it doesn't display the right size of the phone (or maybe I've misconfigured the dev tools), as the dialog box doesn't prevent from completing the tutorial.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot, I'll have a proper look at how this can happen.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot for taking the time to check this, that's very useful info.

Although the reason I haven't set 20% as the default, is because I'm concerned this may create too many situations where guessing would be required. So I'd need to have the solver in place. So thank you for the link as well.

Although now, I'm wondering if the solver can be smart enough to allow situations like this, where finding how to progress isn't quite obvious, like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234686

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ah, that share url is indeed a bug, thank you for finding it, I'll work on it.

For the tile not having bevels when it should, would you be able to take a screenshot? That will help me understand when this happens. I haven't seen this yet, so I'm not entirely sure what could cause this.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
That's great to hear, thank you! And yes, that's exactly the intention, it's a game designed to keep you on your toes.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thank you for letting me know.

Would you be able to take a screenshot?

I'm testing for the iPhone SE using chrome dev tools, and the display seems fine there, so what I see it most likely not accurate.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
"60s penalty" wording is live! Thanks again
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
I've thought about what you said a bit more, and I think you meant it should accelerate with time? In any case, I've just done that and deployed it. So if you refresh the page, the animation should - hopefully - be less bland. Feel free to let me know what you think.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
I've just added left+Ctrl, does that work for you now?
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot! And yes, the ratio of mines vs clear tiles may not be optimal, and is currently completely random, so guessing may be required at times. But there's an undo button so you won't have to restart a new level if you hit a mine.

But I'd love to remove guessing ultimately. I just haven't found a reliable way to make it work yet, and would need to dedicate a fair amount of hours to it, which I've preferred allocating to the other games on my roadmap. Nevertheless, it still may happen.

Could you maybe try the custom settings? You can change the ratio of mines. I'd be curious to know what quantity of mines you find works best.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
If I understand correctly what you're describing, it's more or less what's happening now. But it may not look like it if you're on the beginner grid, and may only look good/better on the larger grids (either expert size, or custom with very large size).

But in short, when you uncover the first tile of this wave, at each frame I uncover only 1/60 of the total. So if you've uncovered 600 tiles, 10 should be uncovered on each frame, and it should be done in 1 second if your display is at 60FPS.

But if you uncover 60 tiles only, it will uncover 1 per frame, and that can look pretty bland. Could it be what you see? If that's the case, I believe (with a good 60% certainty!) that I mostly need to revisit the method when it's for a small number of tiles.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ah yes, very well spotted! as the dev, I should really have seen that.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Is there an official list?
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot to you for the kind words, that's great to read!

And I explain the generation method in another comment, but here it is as well:

-------------------- The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes

It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428

I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid:

- https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit

- https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit --------------------

So even though you're currently seeing a flat grid, it's all 3D under the hood. So I'm also considering having those grids on a sphere, a torus, or even a custom 3D model. I had done some earlier test: https://polygonjs.com/gui/minesweeper_torus_sphere/edit So it's technically possible, but there's more work to have this easy to navigate around, and to still look visually minimalist while still being pleasant.

If the steam version becomes profitable, I'll definitely explore those directions. I agree this can be stretched further.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Yes, you're correct, it's the decimal separator. I remember now that this is not international. I believe the comma is used in the US? Having grown up in France, I'm used to the dot.

And that score is indeed suspicious, although there are some protections to prevent cheating. Someone would have to be quite motivated to go around them. But it might be possible, as you don't need to flag all the mines in order to win, you can wind by just uncovering the non-mines. I felt this could be allowed as this is really the same outcome. But I can see that if you're really lucky, the mines are placed in a very convenient way, a quick win could happen. But I assume this can only happen on the beginner grid, not on the larger ones.

In any case, I'll reconsider this, and may force all mines to be flagged in order to win, that might be safer.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ah welcome back! For the scores, right now, they all keep accumulating on the same page, but I may do weekly/monthly lists, so previous highscores won't stay on the main page for too long.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot for the feedback and suggestion. And yes, I think it makes sense to add those.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ah yes. I have not added that, but it's on my list. I completely agree it would help. I'll see if I can get to it. Thanks a lot for the nudge, that's super useful.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Although I've received several bug reports like this, and unfortunately every time, it was the player who placed a flag incorrectly. So at the moment I'm more leaning to one of those 2 flags being incorrect. I think out of those 4 flags, the second from the top shouldn't have been placed.

But my assumption can certainly be wrong! To be sure, could you take a screenshot of a loosing screen? as all the mines will be revealed then, and we can see if the number is indeed correct or not.

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
Thanks a lot. And I've had some thought about making this infinite, but it's a bit harder!

The generation is inspired by what Oskar Stålberg has done for his game Townscaper. It is done with those steps: - start with triangles (ideally in an hexagonal pattern). - merge pairs of triangles into quads, randomly leaving some as triangles. - we subdivide both quads and triangles, and end up with quads only. - smooth the whole to get nicer shapes

It can be a bit abstract with just this list, so you can see some videos in my tweet: https://twitter.com/fradingue/status/1712218108826460428

I've also created a webgl engine to solve this type of procedural modeling for the web, and you can see 2 examples scenes where you can play with parameters that affect the shape of the irregular grid: - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quads/edit - https://polygonjs.com/gui/irregular_quad_relaxation/edit

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
ah yes, it's a nasty one. I can't see an obvious way to progress without luck either.
frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
On the left of the face emoji, in the top bar, you should see the number of remaining mines. It's not exactly like the version you linked, which should "number found / total", as what I show is simply "remaining mines". Is that what you mean?

Although the number I show is actually a bit sneaky, as I subtract the number of flags placed to the total number of mines. So if you were to place more flags than mines, you'd see a negative number. (which I realise as I type that your version is similar, as the number can also go above the total).

frading··on Show HN: The classic Minesweeper on an irregular grid
yes, that's indeed better, thanks a lot for your help, I appreciate.
← PreviousPage 2 of 5Next →