Anyone else out there enjoy Minesweeper? It's by far my favorite simple computer game. I enjoy playing with speed in mind, and I find that with enough practice I don't really have to think about each individual click. The solution just sort of flows naturally and it's as if I'm watching the board solve itself. Discovering the simultaneous left and right click was a major breakthrough in speed games.

I find that advanced is a challenge to win in, say, under two minutes. Which I guess accounts for my pathetically low win percentage on that difficulty. The version I play also allows for the possibility of having to guess at the end which is frustrating after meticulously clearing an advanced board.

Anyway, some stats I just ran:



Edit: right click -> view image for a more legible version.

That would be neat. I'd need recording software, though, and I can't really justify spending $37 on Fraps for minesweeper...

Maybe if I can find something free I'll make a video. I'd be interested in watching a good game. You know, review the tape to improve future performance.

@chris200w said:

That would be neat. I'd need recording software, though, and I can't really justify spending $37 on Fraps for minesweeper...

Maybe if I can find something free I'll make a video. I'd be interested in watching a good game. You know, review the tape to improve future performance.

mac or pc?

What is your finishing time for each? That is the most important. I was decent & could do beginner within 8 seconds.. but my sister could do amazing inter & expert times.

This game is on the short list of games I cannot play due to addiction. It's not as bad as Tetris, which after playing gives me hallucinations of spinning blocks, even when I'm miles from a computer screen.

That said: I freaking love Minesweeper.

I see dead people.

@Onlymike said:

I'm 100% serious, @jerryguscia. Minesweeper is just bad in that I stay up all night playing... that's whenever I'm at my mother-in-law's house and everyone's asleep. But Tetris? I gave it up cold turkey in 1989 because it was actually f*%@ing me up.

I specifically remember being at UMASS at a Dennis Miller show (this was WAY before he was an unfunny, political tool) and having zero ability to pay attention to the act, because I was placing pieces in an imaginary game. Then I was trying to have a conversation with my poetry teacher, but being totally distracted by his glasses, which were hexagon in shape. He's giving me feedback about my crappy, crappy poetry, and the whole time I'm just placing pieces in his spectacles.

That was it for me. I have not played the game in at least 22 years.

@jerryguscia said:

@Onlymike said:

This game is on the short list of games I cannot play due to addiction. It's not as bad as Tetris, which after playing gives me hallucinations of spinning blocks, even when I'm miles from a computer screen.

That said: I freaking love Minesweeper.

I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but are you being serious? I mean that not in a "really?" sense, but just a curiosity sense.

That's pretty interesting with the spinning blocks, if so. Must be a bummer though :/

Shit, I didn't know it could get that bad (I knew addiction for games exists, but didn't know it was like that). Well, at least you knew to quit it altogether and the list is short

@Onlymike said:

@jerryguscia, the list is short because I don't hang onto games long enough for them to become a problem. My daughter is always wondering why the game that's here today is gone tomorrow.

"Honey, do you want daddy to keep his job? Then don't question it."

Which reminds me: it's high time I deleted Temple Run from my iPhone. Last week I played at night before going to band practice, and I was still in the gaming zone on the road, almost drove into oncoming traffic.

Holy poop! That might be time for Temple Run to be gone-and-forgotten'd; we definitely don't want to lose another quality .netter here.

Have you ever tried finding a way to turn that addiction into your instrument (maybe you already have)? Like Rocksmith or, I think, you can play Rock Band with an actual guitar? I mean, obviously you don't want to play with your addiction, but I'm curious if you've tried it.

@Onlymike said:

I guess that's four, then. I can't play rock band because of the same issues. Two hours with the Beatles led to about 9 months of pain, leaving me unable to listen to late Beatles tracks without imagining the game. When the decision came down to Rock Band or Beatles, the choice was pretty easy.

I just stick with actual instruments (bass, uke, guitar, piano), and all is well.

Damn man, can't blame you for that choice; well, actual instruments are more fun, challenging, and healthier anyways! That still sucks though. Ah well, good reason to put more time into music and avoid avid distractions.

a few years ago, a girl i was seeing at the time got completely addicted to world of warcraft. she had no job, lived at her moms and paid no bills except for the monthly WoW membership. we went from having a (relatively) normal relationship, to one in which i would go over to her moms house after work and just sit and watch her play til it got so boring i would leave. finally i just stopped seeing her. a few months went by, and one day she calls me up asking if i would give her a ride to the airport. she had fallen in love with a guy that she had met in the game. since i was over her at this point and was rather amused with the situation she had landed herself in and wanted to see it play out, i happily gave her that ride and never saw her again.

a few months later, through mutual acquaintances i found myself making friends with a really sweet girl, but she had a boyfriend so i left it at that - I'm not the type to make a move on a girl who's already seeing someone, no matter how appealing she might be. so we would just talk from time to time about shit we had in common - bands we liked and such.

then one day she calls me up and i could instantly tell something was wrong. she had that sound to her voice like she'd been crying. she told me she was about to break up with her bf but she wouldn't say why, because it was too embarrassing. so i rolled the dice: i revealed for the first time, to a girl i liked, of all people, the rather embarrassing fact that my last relationship ended because the girl i had been seeing got so addicted to world of warcraft that it took over her life to the point that i broke off all contact with her. the phone line was completely silent for a minute, i thought she had hung up on me. then she said very slowly that she had broken up with her bf because he also was a Warcrack addict.

we've been together for 5 years now, and have world of warcraft addiction to thank for it.

My best time on expert is 102

I'm with @Onlymike regarding Tetris. Well, maybe not as bad as he described, but I also get closed-eye visuals of Tetris blocks when I play that game for long periods of time. One of my more interesting drug experiences was during a point in my life when I was playing a lot of Tetris. Whenever I would say a sentence I would have a visual of this stream of Tetris blocks, one for each word. The color and shape of the block was somehow related to the type of word I was saying.

That game got to be too much when I'd lay in bed at night playing out full games on the inside of my eye lids.

@DJPhresh - my top times for each difficulty are listed in the stats in the OP.

WoW ok @Chris200w You just Swept my Mine'd - Remember the transition of the ball mouse to the laser eye, crazy what a difference it made & for other games.

i ended up staying up til 3 am last night playing minesweeper. all this thread's fault.