[Kde-games-devel] Kmines

[Matthew Woehlke]

Ethan Anderson wrote:
> Sorry, I don't mean to flood the mailing list, but I went back into
> kmines again and realized I couldn't turn off 'i'm not sure' flags.
> 
> You don't know whether or not a mine is there?  You don't say!  That's
> only every unrevealed space on the board!
> ...'im not sure' is but a wasted right click when I miss a space by
> two pixels and flag the wrong one.
> 
> Also note that the vast majority of unsolvable maps end at the edges
> of the map. [snip suggestions]

I'd rather see an option 'don't allow unsolvable puzzles' where 
"unsolvable" is defined as indeterministic (i.e. impossible to complete 
without random-guessing). Of course this applies to *any* board, so I'd 
add the condition that we assume any contiguous area of at least X 
0-neighbor squares is initially revealed when making that determination.

Partly that's because having a border feels like it would affect the 
style of play adversely... but maybe not. I certainly wouldn't object to 
it as an option.

> I think I would love to write an AI for kmines in python under the
> GPLv2+3.  That would be a great exercise for me.  Does kmines have an
> AI interface?  It'd be handy to have a live gameplay demo via AI to
> show people how to play and such also, with an AI terminal to describe
> what it's doing and why..

Well, mines is a two-part game, where one part consists of finding 
"large" 0-neighbor areas by random guessing, and the second part is 
wholly deterministic. There isn't really any "AI", just a series of 
logic rules to be applied.

-- 
Matthew
FOSS: Giving people the cage and it's blueprints, gratis. The "L" matters.