Minesweeper Articles


Office Minefield

washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1994/03/09/office-minefield/

Interviews with people from Microsoft and stories about Bill Gates playing Minesweeper.


Minesweeper could hold key to Net security

digitalmass.boston.com/news/daily/11/01/minesweeper.html

The Boston Globe announces that solving Minesweeper can win you a million dollars.


Minesweeper: Secret to age-old puzzle?

usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/games/cgg262.htm

USA Today announces that solving Minesweeper can win you a million dollars.


Clean Sweep or Dud?

smh.com.au

The Sydney Morning Herald asked if anyone could beat 61s on Intermediate. David Barry, who was the top ranked Australian with 2-15-50, replied and the newspaper linked to Authoritative Minesweeper.


Games At Work May Be Good For You

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3247595.stm

A Dutch insurance firm allowed employees to play Minesweeper to boost morale and productivity.


Rowling's escape from sticky plots

scotsman.com

The author of Harry Potter scored 101s on Expert and local Scottish newspapers picked up the story. The Scotsman claimed she was close to being one of the world's Top 100 players.


JK Rowling

dailyrecord.co.uk

The author of Harry Potter scored 101s on Expert and local Scottish newspapers picked up the story. The Daily Record claimed she almost had the 95s sum needed to join the world's Top 100 players.


Seven Clicks Per Second

index.hu/tech/szoftver/bgs081025/

The Budapest Game Show 2008 was reviewed by a Technology magazine and includes details of the Minesweeper tournament.


JK Rowling

jkrowling.com

The author of Harry Potter started playing Minesweeper while writing "The Half Blood Prince" scoring 101 seconds on Expert.


JK Rowling

jkrowling.com

The author of Harry Potter started playing Minesweeper while writing "The Half Blood Prince" scoring 99 seconds on Expert.


The UI design minefield - er... flower field??

shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/2006/09/26/

A research manager at Microsoft explains some of the work that went into adding flowers to Minesweeper in Windows Vista.


Minesweeper Logic

maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_5_3_99.html

Mathematical Association of America article observing that Minesweeper can be used for teaching logic. Each flag is a theorem.


Million Dollar Minesweeper

claymath.org/events/minesweepermath.htm

Ian Stewart wrote an article for Scientific American explaining the P=NP problem and how writing an efficient solver for Minesweeper could win the Clay Institute Millenium Prize.


Random Games?

metanoodle.com/minesweeper/random.html

Damien announces the discovery of duplicate Intermediate boards.


Same Boards

inthalloffame.8m.com/sameboards.html

Matt collects pictures and videos of duplicate Beginner and Intermediate boards.


Some Words About The Dreamboard

active-ranking.de.vu/Jon_profile.htm

Jon confirms Intermediate has 2 cycles with 8 shifts of 1500 boards.


On Randomness in Microsoft's Minesweeper

nuprograms.com/minesweeper/randomness.html

Tim explains how pseudo-random number generators create Minesweeper boards.


On Board Cycles in Microsoft's Minesweeper

nuprograms.com/minesweeper/boardcycles.html

Tim confirms board cycles exist for Beginner and Intermediate and finds boards outside of the cycles.


On Dream Boards in Microsoft's Minesweeper

nuprograms.com/minesweeper/dreamboards.html

Tim examines board cycles to find the easiest boards for each level.


Minesweeper Identical Boards Problem, Part I

techuser.net/mineident1.html

Usman debugs Minesweeper and investigates the rand and GetTickCount functions.


Minesweeper Identical Boards Problem, Part II

techuser.net/mineident2.html

Usman attempts to calculate the probability of getting a duplicate board.


Minesweeper Identical Boards Problem, Part III

techuser.net/mineident3.html

Usman proposes using board cycle knowledge to obtain new unplayed boards to make records.


Board Cycles, The Dreamboard and Shifts

metanoodle.com/minesweeper/DBcycle.html

Damien uses four shifts of the Dreamboard to demonstrate that games do not come from a master tile.


A Possible Explanation for the Board Cycle Bug of Microsoft Minesweeper

minesweeper.info/articles/BoardCycleBug.pdf

Rodrigo proves that Microsoft Minesweeper board cycles are actually mine cycles.



Checked - There are Mines!

offline.computerra.ru/2005/597/39561/

Interview in Russian with Vladimir Orlov (1-17-56) about the Budapest 2005 tournament and the world rankings at Planet Minesweeper.


The Best Minesweeper Player Speaks!

proplay.ru/articles/325/

Interview in Russian with Roman Gammel (1-10-42) about the Budapest 2006 tournament and the Russian "Sapper" Community.


Checked ... No Mines

World & Capital, No.8, 2006

Interview in Russian with Roman Gammel (1-10-42) after he won the Budapest 2006 tournament.


’n Kop vir sterre, maar hy draf landmyne klik-klik kaf

beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/n-Kop-vir-sterre-maar-hy-draf-landmyne-klik-klik-kaf-20101022

Interview in Afrikaans with Bertie Seyffert (1-12-42) about the Munich 2020 tournament.


Ten Polak jest najlepszy na świecie!

babol.pl/kat,1025465,wid,14010802,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=6d737

Interview in Polish with Kamil Murański about being the best player (1-8-32) in the world.


Dark Secret Confession Of A Tetris/Minesweeper Adict

theherald.org/issues/g031497/tetris.f.html

Humourous article about tetris and minesweeper addiction written by Elbert Ventura.


Minesweeper at Work

mathnews.uwaterloo.ca/Issues/mn7804/minesweep.html

Humourous article about minesweeper. Written by Nick Taylor, it appeared in the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics Student Newspaper Vol 78 Issue 4 on 23 Oct 1998.


A Sneak Preview of Vista Minesweeper

metanoodle.com/minesweeper/vista.html

Screenshots and a collection of newspaper articles about the pending Vista version of Minesweeper.


Vista has Changed Minesweeper: Is it Better?

minesweeper.info/articles/VistaReview.html

Review of the new Vista version of Microsoft Minesweeper.


Unincluded Features: An Arbiter Investigation

minesweeper.info/articles/ArbiterUPK.pdf

Joni investigates suspicious Arbiter games and concludes several players were cheating.


3BV Limits on Trial

minesweeper.info/articles/3BV_Limits_On_Trial.pdf

Ronny investigates the impact of 3BV limits on the world ranking.


Lucky 1 Second Beginner Games

minesweeper.info/articles/LuckyOneSecondGames.pdf

Fritz investigates lucky Beginner games on the world ranking made only with random clicks.


Why Dating is Like Minesweeper

aidanjreid.com/2014/12/30/why-dating-is-like-minesweeper

Aidan Reid compares his love life to learning how to play Minesweeper.