Updates

Latest Updates
2023-03-04 Imported and reviewed 700 scores from the China ranking. Deleted 376 duplicate video.
2022-10-31 Fixed code that imports scores from the China ranking and used new code to import 200 more games.
2022-10-16 Matched another 65 existing players to the China Ranking and imported more than 1000 videos.
2022-09-06 Added 2 math papers and 1 research paper.
2022-09-04 Imported and reviewed another 1300 videos from the China ranking for players already on the world ranking.
2022-04-08 Recovered an old database from Planet Minesweeper (2004-2007) with 518,000 Clone scores.
2022-03-31 Updated the strategy article and split it into several smaller pages.
2022-02-20 Finished reviewing 5000 old videos. Purpose was to check dates and rename in a standard format. Result was correcting about 500 dates, fixing about 100 broken links and restoring 5 players who had been accidentally deleted.
2022-02-07 Renamed 1000 videos today and yesterday. Found about 50 date errors (these were old videos from 2005-2010 and everything was entered manually and the site did not have code to read video timestamps).
2022-02-06 Added a button in the Member area so players from the China Ranking can automatically import all of their scores.
2022-01-30 Renamed 1900 old videos and fixed some broken video links.
2022-01-29 Improved the code for copying videos from the China ranking site. Uploaded another 150 videos.
2022-01-26 Updated registration page from PHP mail to PEAR mail and improved the user experience. Fewer emails should be blocked.
2022-01-25 Deleted 600MB of duplicate files.
2022-01-11 Deleted 1003 duplicate scores.
2022-01-11 Finished reviewing the 12000 imported scores that were not duplicates. All scores (except about 150 problem videos) now on the rankings.
2021-12-28 Finished writing script and copying 15000 scores from the China ranking belonging to players already on the world ranking. Of these scores, 12000 were missing from profiles and will soon be added to profiles and historical rankings. Script has been written in spare time over 2 months. A few more changes are needed to let this script run automatically when players join the ranking.
2021-12-27 Reviewed 850 old videos, renamed files and corrected about 50 date errors.
2021-11-13 Downloads section reaches 150 games and 400 versions with more than 250 downloads available.
2021-11-07 Added Sledgehammer solver website from 1998.
2021-11-07 Added Swinekeeper to the Win32 downloads.
2021-11-06 Added PM Mine to the OS/2 downloads.
2021-10-30 Added 5 minesweeper downloads for HP calculators.
2021-10-30 Fixed database bug where 20,000 scores were being accepted at 23:00:00 the previous day instead of the actual date played.
2021-10-24 Fixed bug with historical rankings (where privacy settings were ignored). Applied privacy settings to video player to remove names displayed in videos.
2021-10-18 Players can now add their World of Minesweeper accounts to profiles.
2021-10-16 Finished reviewing and adding 19 minesweeper games (98 versions and 33 downloads) for RISC OS to the downloads section.
2021-10-05 Added a new CP/M game 'Saper' to Downloads and re-designed the downloads pages.
2021-10-04 Created a detailed history article about Bogus Software. Took more than 30 hours of research in addition to 10 years of occasional research! The most detailed article to date.
2021-09-23 Created history article about Robert Donner.
2021-09-21 Added more new information to the history article for Curt Johnson.
2021-09-16 New history article about the XYZZY cheat.
2021-09-15 Added 8 more skins to the Minesweeper X skins download.
2021-09-12 Added a new "media" page for internet news articles about Minesweeper. Initial batch has 50 articles.
2021-09-11 Added new history article about Curt Johnson.
2021-09-09 Updated main menu and added new history pages on Hopsing and Sayre Board.
2021-09-04 Updated historical rankings code which now runs faster and on a schedule. Fixed display issues with 'datepicker' widget.
2021-09-01 Fixed some video player bugs, removed fake accounts and made it easier to register new accounts.
2021-08-29 Updated all rankings so they can be sorted by time (or mines for the density rankings).
2021-08-27 Launched a web video-player. All Arbiter, MSX, Clone and Viennasweeper videos can be watched in the browser. You can also UPK the game in the browser. This involved several weeks of modifying the original code provided by 'hgraceb' which is used on the saolei.wang rankings.
2021-08-21 Another week upgrading the design and security of code on the site.
2021-08-12 Updated archived files page to add links to more of the existing files.
2021-08-11 Spent a week upgrading the template used for all pages. This involved updating the code for every page. Site will now be easier to maintain.
2021-08-08 Upgraded site from Bootstrap 4 to Bootstrap 5 which enabled most JQuery code to be removed.
2021-06-30 Spent 3 weeks working on a video player that will hopefully be launched this summer based on code from the video player at saolei.net.
2021-06-07 The 'Historical World Ranking' is now available. The official ranking starts in 2000 but the database goes back to 1992-07-22. The ranking has 20 million rows and required 2 weeks of work to fix code and make it run quickly.
2021-05-31 Spent 6h creating a new admin tool to read videos and detect cheating.
2021-05-26 Reviewed and updated code for all video parsers used on the site to read video information. Wrote a new parser for FreeSweeper.
2021-05-18 Uploaded 247 scores from 72 players from 1997-2000 from old sites (Brian Chu Minesweeper Tips, Alex Perel Hall of Fame). Added 22 players and 65 more scores from old Usenet posts.
2021-05-15 Uploaded 358 scores from 152 players from 1992-1999 from old Usenet posts.
2021-05-03 Archived another site (minesweeper.cc) and added 2 research papers. Updated the strategy article.
2021-05-01 Finished archiving old versions of Authoritative Minesweeper from 2020, 2007, 2004, 2001 and 2000. Reviewed scores submitted to the original Expert World Ranking (1997) and Unofficial Site (1997) and added 200 players and 350 scores to the database. When I originally started the site I did not copy scores from competing websites.
2021-04-18 Last 2 weeks upgrading then migrating the English and German Wikis to msgame.
2021-03-15 Downloads section now has 113 games. Added 2 more math papers.
2021-02-24 Deleted 176 duplicate scores. Wrote tool to analyse clicks in videos. Uploaded more games to downloads which now has 88 games.
2021-02-11 Added IOE world rankings.
2021-01-17 Another week finding then playing and reviewing old games. Now have 42 minesweeper games for DOS which is triple the largest collection elsewhere.
2021-01-12 Finished updating 24 DOS and Windows games into the games database.
2021-01-10 Spent 3 weeks researching old minesweeper games and updating the downloads section.
2021-01-08 Archived 50 more pages for one dead site and added 5 new games to downloads.
2021-01-05 Updated profile template and created database and templates for download pages.
2021-01-02 Improved arbiter ranking code and updated cheat pages
2020-12-31 "Updated menu to include a more obvious ""log In"" link and created the ""update"" page."
2020-12-31 Fixed issue with arbiter history files caused by checksums not being unique.
2020-12-31 Replaced dead saolei.wang and minesweeper.info links in Forum with saolei.wang and minesweepergame.com.
2020-12-30 Created new homepage.
2020-12-30 Created a discord channel and fixed issue with member login sessions.
2020-12-26 Launched new site at minesweepergame.com.

New Website

The new site took more than a year to develop and implement:

  • New server with up to date security and software.
  • PHP and HTML code rewritten to comply with modern standards.
  • Designed site and all pages to work on mobile phones.
  • New database with all historical scores reviewed and classified.
  • Scores from two dozen cheaters identified and removed from rankings.
  • Wrote new versions of RAW tools with videos automatically parsed on upload.
  • Wrote tool to parse and upload Arbiter history files.
  • Wrote new secure code to upload videos and pictures.
  • Deleted thousands of inactive and fake accounts.
  • Deleted excess personal data and introduced privacy controls.
  • New math section with more than 60 published papers.
  • New website section with more than 35 archived sites.
  • New cheats section with more than 20 cheats.