Minesweeper - game released

[+Lee Stewart]

I wonder if there is a mistake on Thierry's page?

 

http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/tms9901.htm

 

It says:

 

"Placing the TMS9901 in I/O mode again will resume updating of the Read register. However, if any bit between 1 and 14 is written to while in timer mode, the decrementer will be reinitialized with the current value of the Clock register. This is nice because it means that it is not necessary to reload all 14 bits in the Clock register: since they haven't changed, writing one of them (such as the least significant one) is enough to reload the whole data word."

 

Should the text I have marked in bold read "I/O mode" instead?

 

No. You can read from the Read register and write to the Clock register only in timer mode (called Clock mode in TMS9901 Data Manual). The reason that writing to one bit “is enough to reload the whole data word” is that the clock is reloaded/restarted for every bit that is written as it is written, i.e., if you write all 14 bits, the clock is re-initialized 14 times. Below is an excerpt from the TMS9901 Data Manual (page 8, ¶2):

 

 

...lee

[Asmusr]

Thanks, I need to look for another reason then, why the timer in js99er is running at approximately 4x speed.

[+Ksarul]

I was missing for a week and came back to find outstanding progress on this one! I'll have to burn one and test again next weekend, once I've finished getting all in order after my short family holiday. . .

[TheMole]

Excellent, excellent game. Love the intro tune. Can we look forward to a real cartridge for this?

[sometimes99er]

Excellent, excellent game. Love the intro tune. Can we look forward to a real cartridge for this?

Thanks. There may come a few minor changes to mineSweeper, and then it can be included on the mega-cart-compilations. Later, there may be a special multi-cart-compilation.

 

[Willsy]

Thanks, I need to look for another reason then, why the timer in js99er is running at approximately 4x speed.

If only our 4A's could run at 4x the speed

[TheMole]

Thanks. There may come a few minor changes to mineSweeper, and then it can be included on the mega-cart-compilations. Later, there may be a special multi-cart-compilation.

 

 

Cool, although I personally am not a big fan of the mega compilation cart concept (reminds me of those cheap pirate gameboy/NES 40-in-1 cartridges). I like browsing a collection of individual cartridges .

 

Having said that, I know that's probably just me and other people will prefer the many-in-one approach. I can always burn an 8k cart myself (but if you ever do decide to put out a cart, you've got my money!).

[+InsaneMultitasker]

If only our 4A's could run at 4x the speed

 

Yes, but then it would be called "Geneve".

 

[mdorman]

 

Yes, but then it would be called "Geneve".

 

 

or mess ti99_4a -speed 4

[sometimes99er]

Keys I, J, K and L added as an alternative for the E, S, D and X movement. And of course still got the keys Q, W, 1, 2, 3 and Fctn Quit.

 

 

Version 1.1

 

 

 

Program name: MINE

File and program name: MINE

Edited August 27, 2015 by sometimes99er

[+Ksarul]

I burned a cartridge of this one last night, Sometimes. I had a lot of fun playing it on real iron. . . If you make a label design you like for these and get it to me (preferred formats are PNG or BMP to ensure fidelity of the label creation process), I'll make you a nice cartridge to put up in your computer room. . .it may even inspire you to get a console, just to play it on real iron too.

[Omega-TI]

I must have set a record for the quickest death! I lasted two whole seconds!

 

[sometimes99er]

I burned a cartridge of this one last night, Sometimes. I had a lot of fun playing it on real iron. . .

Excellent. That is good news. Glad you liked it and thanks for trying it out as a real cartridge.

 

If you make a label design you like for these and get it to me (preferred formats are PNG or BMP to ensure fidelity of the label creation process), I'll make you a nice cartridge to put up in your computer room. . .it may even inspire you to get a console, just to play it on real iron too.

Thanks. That is a magnificent offer.

 

I'll make up something for the label.

Edited September 6, 2015 by sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

I must have set a record for the quickest death! I lasted two whole seconds!

Ha ha. Well, you can easily hit a mine in the very first move.

 

Some minesweeper games move the mine if you hit it in the first go. Some simply wait for the first move before populating the game board. Both solutions ensure you survive the first move.

 

It can actually be slightly frustrating to start over and over before getting a decent flood-fill. But then that might also happen with the second move etc.

 

Thanks for trying it out.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Sorry for coming late to the party and spoiling everything, but I've now played the game for a few hours and have a few ideas how it could be enhanced. This is especially about the Game Over state:

- On Game Over, show the locations of all the bombs, so that you know where they were and which flags you got wrong

- On Game Over, either make the arrow movable or make it disappear because it covers some fields where you can't read the numbers because they're covered

- On Game Over, currently the number of flags shown is overwritten. But it could be a metric for your success how many flags you got right before it was Game Over. Maybe there could be a percentage solved indicator consisting of the uncovered fields and the correctly set flags divided by the total playfield size?

- On Game Over, also a visual cue could get added how to get on (e.g. by pressing 1, 2 or 3)

 

Otherwise, good work!

[sometimes99er]

Sorry for coming late to the party and spoiling everything, but I've now played the game for a few hours and have a few ideas how it could be enhanced. This is especially about the Game Over state:

- On Game Over, show the locations of all the bombs, so that you know where they were and which flags you got wrong

- On Game Over, either make the arrow movable or make it disappear because it covers some fields where you can't read the numbers because they're covered

- On Game Over, currently the number of flags shown is overwritten. But it could be a metric for your success how many flags you got right before it was Game Over. Maybe there could be a percentage solved indicator consisting of the uncovered fields and the correctly set flags divided by the total playfield size?

- On Game Over, also a visual cue could get added how to get on (e.g. by pressing 1, 2 or 3)

 

Otherwise, good work!

Thank you. Any feedback at any stage is more than welcome.

 

Excellent suggestions. Yes, I think they would all add value (e.g. better user experience). I'll try and implement all of them.

 

Thanks again.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Thank you for considering my suggestions. The hint how to start a new game is especially important since you don't support the standard keys for TI-99 programs, such as REDO or BACK.

 

Now here is something a bit more crazy: It happened to me numerous times that I hit the wrong key, that is instead of flagging a field as a bomb I hit the Q key and uncovered it. It would be convenient to be able to undo such an action. Of course in this case the game is ruined if all bombs get displayed, so if you hit a bomb you should get the following choices:

- Show all bombs and locations

- Undo last move

Maybe make the undo key a bit more complicated, such as FCTN-Q or something like that.

 

If you undo the last move, the bomb just uncovered would be merely flagged, and the game would continue. If you show all bombs instead, the game would be called over.

Of course, the game then depends on the player playing "fair", that is only undoing that move if the player actually meant to flag the bomb instead of stepping on it.

[sometimes99er]

Thank you for considering my suggestions. The hint how to start a new game is especially important since you don't support the standard keys for TI-99 programs, such as REDO or BACK.

 

Now here is something a bit more crazy: It happened to me numerous times that I hit the wrong key, that is instead of flagging a field as a bomb I hit the Q key and uncovered it. It would be convenient to be able to undo such an action. Of course in this case the game is ruined if all bombs get displayed, so if you hit a bomb you should get the following choices:

- Show all bombs and locations

- Undo last move

Maybe make the undo key a bit more complicated, such as FCTN-Q or something like that.

 

If you undo the last move, the bomb just uncovered would be merely flagged, and the game would continue. If you show all bombs instead, the game would be called over.

Of course, the game then depends on the player playing "fair", that is only undoing that move if the player actually meant to flag the bomb instead of stepping on it.

Yea well, there you go. If you press the wrong bottom, you're stuck with that.

 

It's a small game, even on the most difficult level, you should be able to get under 5 minutes. I know it's frustrating when you've covered more than 90 percent, but that's the nature of many games.

 

I will consider an undo, but, I'll introduce a penalty of 10 seconds (adding time to the timer). I'm thinking of switching to a separate screen with the question and keys for taking either route. Also I may consider only one undo per game.

 

[sometimes99er]

Version 1.2

 

 

Program name: MINE

File and program name: MINE

 

News

Instructions on screen about how to start a new game (press 1, 2 or 3).

Show all mines when you hit one.

Arrow/cursor is movable after you hit a mine.

 

Instructions

Movement: ESDX or IJKL

Reveal: Q

Flag: W

1, 2 or 3: New game

Quit: Fctn Quit

 

Edited September 14, 2015 by sometimes99er

[+Vorticon]

Very nice

[sometimes99er]

- On Game Over, currently the number of flags shown is overwritten. But it could be a metric for your success how many flags you got right before it was Game Over. Maybe there could be a percentage solved indicator consisting of the uncovered fields and the correctly set flags divided by the total playfield size?

Well, been going a bit forth and back with this one. A percentage sounds like a good idea.

 

Mostly the percentage will consist of uncovered fields with correctly set flags weighing in much less. Flood-fills and pure luck (randomly generated game, you have to start out somewhere etc.) affects the percentage as a measure of achievement. And then I actually think the percentage would end up much in line with the overall view of the final state (when it's game over). Well, you easily see if it's 10, 50 or 90 percent you've accomplished.

 

At least I've implemented number of correctly flagged mines in parentheses after the "game over" message. I think that's an okay info. I'll let it sink in. You can plaster the minefield with flags and get a good count though.

 

Edited September 15, 2015 by sometimes99er

[Opry99er]

Minesweeper TI-99 comes in the top 10 games for the week on the Atariage tracker.

[sometimes99er]

Minesweeper TI-99 comes in the top 10 games for the week on the Atariage tracker.

 

Hahaha, that's crazy.

 

Thanks for the pointer.

 

Oops, actually thought it was a monthly count, so I wasn't going to report Miner2049er etc. until later. Is it weekly only ?

Edited September 16, 2015 by sometimes99er

[Opry99er]

Yep. Every week they start a new game tracker.

 

The TI was (I think) #5 of systems played this week too. Miner was up there at around 90 minutes I think.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Opry99er

[sometimes99er]

... I've now played the game for a few hours and have a few ideas how it could be enhanced ...

From the Game Tracker thread.

 

Here are my times for this week (Sept. 7th through 13th)...

 

TI-99:

Minesweeper - 358 min. in 9 sessions

 

First I tried the Windows XP version of Minesweeper which is actually very similar to the Windows 3.1 version because it relies on the same codebase and the graphics have barely changed. The version in Windows 7 is noticeably different because it has been rewritten from scratch for Vista and up. After that, thanks to a hint given here, I tried the TI-99 version for a quite long time. It's pretty decent, but it lacks some of the features of the WIndows version, most notably showing where the bombs are after you lose. In the end, you're depending on luck if you get a board that's well or badly solvable. But I finally managed to beat the hard level on the TI-99 version.

Wow. I had to take a peek at who played my game this last week, and as it turns out, the relatively good score in the tracker was from one person. Again, thanks for taking the time playing the game and thanks for your inputs - of which all has not been forgotten. Next update will at least include info about numbers of correctly flagged mines. Showing where all mines are when you loose is already there, as you may have noticed.

 

Edited September 19, 2015 by sometimes99er