68

21 -> 19

1

Finally got over the 2x barrier on the intermediate... it's been some time I haven't written here, but I was happy enough to say this and to wish everybody a Merry Christmas!!!

65

18

2

Merry christmas!

73

14

1

I just want to wish everybody a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
I'm at my parents' house now and don't play as well on this computer as I do at home but I still managed to get a 19 today on int and it was even on a 49 3bv board so perhaps I'm not all that bad on this computer anyway! They DO have a mouse like mine but the height of the table is different and the position of the screen etc. so I think my general standard is lower.

Toli, that was a very interesting post you wrote there! It certainly would be great if you or somebody else with some knowlegde of programming changed Minesweeper (or made a new version) so that the chance of getting randomised boards was much smaller!

Merry Christmas and good luck to all of you!

Got a 57.21 sec on a 144 3BV board some days ago.
Anyway, just wanted to say merry Christmas to all of you

About the 2^16 boards on expert. Some time ago someone posted he had let a solver run on Minesweeper and hadn't encountered any duplicates for 300.000 boards...

Hi Toli,

Lots of interesting stuff there!
I would love to see that internal recording you built in action. If you want, I could host it, although I'm sure Damien will put it on this site if he gets around to it.

Most people here are also subscribed to the "minesweeper-addicts" group on Yahoo (groups.yahoo.com -> search for minesweeper and it's on the first page). There's a file section where some other helper programs are located and I'm sure yours would be very welcome there

You say that all levels have only 2^16 boards. I find it a bit strange that no duplicates have ever been found on expert. Are you sure there isn't some other mechanism in use on expert? Perhaps we've just never noticed it because the boards are bigger...

That minimize cheat is pretty interesting. Never knew about that. I don't think there's much practical use for it though. There are no situations for me at least where using it would mean a faster time, far from it in fact. Using it would slow me down a lot. I'm sure that with a record of 74 it's the same for you.

Oh, and welcome to the site

74

30

5

I want to tell you some stuff, if you don't mind. The site is very interesting and helpful, but there are some things I would like to reveal:

1. I wanted to contact you by clicking the "me" in the site. It didn't work at all. A window popped up, asking for a password (something microsoft passport, I guess). Since I have never heard about this, I couldn't provide it, of course.

2. The article about "Randomness". I was so interested that I peeked inside minesweeper (pretty rough to decompile, but I managed it somehow - partially). It seems that the randseed it uses is of type word (up to 65535). That means there are only 65536 different boards obtainable in each level, what is of course preposterous. The problem is that minesweeper is an old game, initially written for 16 bit computers, so...
It should have been recompiled in 32-bit with a double-word randseed (up to 4294967295). This is still less than the real number of possible boards (as you informed me in your site - of course I could have calculated it myself). But this number is large enough to assure that the probability of getting two identical boards is rather small.

3. It seems there is a lot of fuss about recording videos of playing minesweeper. You have to get (buy) a software, record it and try to make it smaller (but in fact very large avi file). Then it wown't be played in media player if you don't get a plug-in...
I wanted to record games long before even knowing about your site. So, I instructed minesweeper how to record and playback games itself!
This was beta stuff, just for my personal use. Since I would like to upload it to your site for the community of minesweepers to enjoy it, I started improving it.
The advantage is that you can save a "video" of around one minute in a binary (encoded) file of around 1 kb, which anyone can playback directly in minesweeper!
I use this for the last 2 years and I like it.

4. The article about variation. Win95 vs. Win3.1 skins. I noticed that a long time ago, so I implemented a means of changing skins from within minesweeper (these two, plus gnome linux, plus black & white, plus one more, made by me)

5. There is a big cheat that you didn't mention: If you click the minimize button, the Application.OnMinimize event is triggered, so the counter is stopped because windows thinks that the window will get minimized. But you do not release the mouse button, but look on the field and develop your strategy, while the counter is stopped. When you find a good spot to click, you move the mouse there (without releasing the button) and the quickly release and reclick it. The timer will start again, of course, but the time you spend thinking will not be added.
Note: This is a ms-windows bug and cannot be overrun by coding. Another timer bug is this: The minesweeper timer is slowed down if the system gets busy. So, you may start many processes (programs) which consume a lot of CPU time and your minesweeper will run slower. (the timer will run slower and also the game, but this is not so annoying - in fact, I was able to obtain an 63 secs in expert this way, my normal record being 74)

Please answer me. I would be glad to help you and the minesweepers community with some programming stuff of mine (for free, of course)

Merry Christmas!
Toli Cuturicu

I got 53 but I only played 10 minutes a few days ago

56 dots. I think I can do better, though.

I'd like how many dots Sorin did get maximum ( and other people too... )

This place has been quiet lately...

I could only get 46 dots.

oops, I meant 21.156

After a few minutes of dots and boxes, I got 45 and 22.156

Also just got 3.47 3bv/s on int

@Dennis: I've had the problem, too. Michael has changed it, so it should work without refreshing now.

17....

Georgi, my man, there's something wrong with the "best ever" thingy . My int is 17 (you wrote 19), and I appear with the correct score (17) in the active ranking. Thanks, bye.

Steffen : My best at the http://www.humorsphere.com/fun/click_dots.php game is 57, as I said before, not sure I could go faster than 60 or so...
Yesterday, my 1st ( and only ) expert game finished at 54, with only 2 clicks left : It could have been my second faster game ever.

Has anyone played 'Boxes' with the new counter on??? Now you just have to mark the 100 boxes as fast as possible which is much better! I managed to mark all 100 boxes in 17.926 seconds!

I'm having trouble with that site though. I have to 'refresh' after every game because if I don't it will keep the bottom right corner marked and the first one won't count so it'll only say 98 when you've finished! Am I the only one who has this problem???

is there a difference between the XP version and other versions?
cause my OS is win2k and i thought all versions were the same cept for win3.1

73

14

1

I played int for one and a half hours today and I must be getting pretty good at it because I got SEVEN sub-20s!

It's funny because the first one I got was after 5-10 minutes of playing Winmine 3.1... I've never played int on that before and then I got a 15 after just 5-10 minutes. Well, it was on a 29 3bv board but it's still nice and luckily there was no timer jump! I tried it some more but I didn't get very good times compared to the XP version so I changed back to that version and got:

17x2, 18 and 19x3

I've got all the videos if anyone wants to see them. I also got a 74 on expert and a 2 on beginner, so I don't really need to play more this AR period but I probably will anyway!

Manu, at least I got 50 now in that humorsphere-click game

96

29

4

Ciao! What's up?

Active Ranking has been updated.

thats also a nice game manu, whats your record, i just got 55 (2nd try).

10

5

1

uswuytfyutustdtuaTUYTutYDTay

Minesweeper is a great game I am always playing it.

haha, the difference is so small it doesn't even matter, and your best time is better than mine... for now

I care! You beat me! My record is only 3.45!!!

3.39 -> 3.48 3bv/s

23.95 on an 80 3bv board (not that any1 cares but oh well )

Dennis - sorry, I can't type, it should be david.morgan@wadham.oxford.ac.uk or david.morgan@wadh.ox.ac.uk, either will work

Dennis : My best was 53 too, ( all games between 48 and 53 ) but this afternoon I got a 57.

David Morgan: I wrote you an e-mail to the address you posted in your last message but I got a failure-delivery message saying that it couldn't find any such e-mail address... Are you sure you posted the right one??? Anyway, I'd like to see the video of you 64 if you have it! Well done!

73

14

1

Steve, my mouse pointer speed is set on the fifth out of the 11 possible positions...

I found out that my Winmine 95 and 3.1 are finally working again so yesterday I decided to try out beginner 8x8 on Winmine 3.1. I played for only 5 minutes just to check if it was working and didn't record it but I managed to get a 2 on a 6 3bv board! That's my best (highest 3bv) 2 for an 8x8 grid! Today I wanted to try again WITH Camtasia running and the counter as well and after 20 seconds of play I got another 2. This one was on a 5 3bv board but it was only a 2.34 so I think that's pretty **** good as well!

Manu: the most dots I was able to click was 53. I get 50 most of the times but I've gotten two 50s and a couple of 45s so it varies some!

87

24×2

2

I was just wondering... how fast do you guys set the mouse pointer speed?

Only 38 and 41 at work. I have to check it at home...

Just got the 100 boxes too..
And what about : http://www.humorsphere.com/fun/click_dots.php ?

Sorin, 14.811 is pretty fast
I'll ask Michael (the webmaster) whether he can change the html file as shown by you.

73 seconds

20 seconds

1 second

ahhh just missed a beautiful 31 3BV board with one mine left that i forgot to click one square in the top corner bahhhh.... 16 seconds would have been the time oh my word!

101 --> 94

28 --> 28*2

4

Yay!
It took me ages to get that sub100. I quit sweeping completely some months ago, mainly because of problems with my computer (and sore fingers). Now that I got myself a new one (pc, not finger) I thought I'd give it a try again. Almost gave up trying after the first couple of days, I couldn't even get close to a 40 on INT. So my first thoughts were there's something wrong with this computer, I can't be 'that' slow. I tried to blame it on everything, from my mouse (still using the same mx300 I had before), over XP (as opposed to win98 which I had been using on my old computer), I even started considering the possibility of a timer glitch on my previous computer. It took me 2 weeks to work my time back down to 28. Getting 5*29 in 2 days was frustrating. The worst thing is that I got the first 29 on a 31 3bv board. I still kick myself for that. Well, 2 days ago I tied my 28 on INT on a 57 3bv board. And tonight my very first sub100 on EXP. Really unexpected, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep again so I thought I'd try some expert and the very first game I finished was 94.99 on 147 3bv. I also made the mistake of looking at the timer with a small portion left to clear, which made my hands shake like crazy. So it should have probably been a second or two faster, but quite frankly... I couldn't care less atm

Congrats to all record breakers.

I checked all 100 boxes in 14.811 seconds! And I have the video! It was an almost perfect game.

How do I know the exact time? Try this:
- save the file from:
http://home.t-online.de/home/520086726790-0001/spiele/boxes/boxes.htm
- edit the file (Notepad)
- below
element.form.num.value = total
add
element.form.time.value = now.getTime() - startTime

-below
document.write('NAME="num" SIZE=10 onFocus="this.blur()">')
add these:
document.write('*INPUT TYPE="text" VALUE="0" ');
document.write(' NAME="time" SIZE=10 onFocus="this.blur()"> ')
(replace the * with < I had to change it here because this guestbook wouldn't show it properly)

- you may also modify this line
if (now.getTime() - startTime > 20000) {
into this
if (now.getTime() - startTime > 20000 || total==100) {
to ignore any input after all 100 boxes have been checked

Stephan, could you tell the webmaster there about this?

I have uploaded some of my videos (minesweeper ) in the video file section on the addicts site - my best sub 20's and two 50's and also the video with the checkboxes.
There is one avi and some txt's, but i have the avi's too for each game.

Now let's go back to sweeping!
Sorin

67 -> 64

15

2

woohooo! was playing really badly today, but then I beat my expert record again (i think i'm good enough to do even better but we'll have to wait and see). my clicks/s and 3bv/s still werent up to what I've been getting recently, but hey, thats the way it goes sometimes

Congrats to Dennis, I think we need to introduce drugs testing though

3-16-64 for this AR period for me, my best ever

51

Da geht noch was, Elmar! Hab gerade auch ein paar gute Spiele gehabt. Bestes war eine 55 (3bv 166), wobei meine beste 55 glaube ich einen 3bv von 176 hat.

Yes Dennis, I am on a roll. During the last hour of playing I got 2x60,61,63.

87

24x2

2

Georgi,

I'm not sure if this works in all versions of minesweeper, but in the Win98 version you can edit winmine.ini and set the number of mines as high as you like, as long as it doesn't exceed the number of squares (my computer crashed when I tried that). It is also possible to get a 25x30 board!

I guess that, too, is a pretty useless fact. Winning a 750-mine board in 0 seconds was kind of fun though

Wow Elmar, that is REALLY bad luck! Keep at it though - it seams like you're on a roll!

Just blew a chance to improve my 3bv/s record two clicks before the end. I was stearing towards the counter corner and saw I was still under 60s. Then a 50/50 came up and I got it wrong. I looked at the counter:
time: 61 estimated time: 61 3bv: 197 3bv/s: 3,25

... the larger is the custom board, the higher is the maximum possible density - up to 92.64%

That is just a useless fact, but still interesting

It is very surprising to find something you do not know about Minesweeper ...
I just thought about the maximum number of mines possible in Custom level (e.g. 30x24 board - 667 mines) ... and realized that the maximum value is calculated by simple rule - for board with (x;y) dimensions we can have no more than (x-1)*(y-1) mines

e.g. for (8;8 ) - 49 mines

I got my best sub20 so far tonight: 65 3BV in 19.11 seconds
What is also remarkable is that I did it in only 71 clicks. I think that's a pretty good efficiency

Lasse: no chance!

Nice to see that several famous best-evers tried the "game". Dennis, I must correct myself. It wasn't 2 hours. I played maybe 10 minutes at work. At home, with my normal mouse, I needed about 4 minutes to get the 100.

Took me under 5 minutes and about 10 games before I got 100 on that boxes game. I made S-like movements.

**** Deadline Friday @ 20:00 GMT/ 3pm EST ****

99 only...
What about http://www.humorsphere.com/fun/click_dots.php ?
My best is 53 so far.

I tried a classic aproach first(column by column) but that didn't worked for me, and then I tried three columns at once
1 < 2 < 3
11 >12 >13
and so on.. and it took me 5 minutes to get all 100. It was unexpected because I missed some squares and had to go back. Now I need to do it again and record it on video.

I tried the "check box game" - it took me 34 minutes before I got all 100. No video though.

Don't let that game ditract your sweeping - Lanyjé

73

14

1

I just messed up worse than ever on expert! I *ucked up at 62 seconds with only 4 squares left!!!
The worst part is that there were no guesses left - I simply *ucked up!
It was a 125 3bv board and an estimated 65.01! For once I wish I HAD looked at the timer because maybe I would have slowed down then and just tried to get a sub-70!!!
I've got the video of this game if anyone wants to see it!

Dennis, you can watch your video and running a stopwatch for example, then you'll see your time. I missed the last few square(s) several times, so I guess that I wasn't much below 20.

I found out that my best strategy is that (quite similar to yours):
01-02-21-22-41-42...
03-04-23-24-43-44...
05-06-25-26-45-46...
...

or sometimes like that:
01-02...
04-03...
05-06...
08-07...
...

Stephan, how do you know what your estimated time was???

Wow! I can't believe I spent less time reaching the goal of checking 100 boxes that you Stephan! I only spent an hour at most. I knew you could do it as well as you're my NF int hero! Sorin might be better but I haven't watched his videos so I wouldn't know! Stephan can I see your video? I want to see what technique you've used! I did them in pairs of two in the following order:

01-03-05-07-09-11-13-15-17-19
02-04-06-08-10-12-14-16-18-20
39-37-35-33-31-29-27-25-23-21
40-38-36-34-32-30-28-26-24-22
41-43-45-47-49-51-53-55-57-59
42-44-46-48-50-52-54-56-58-60
79-77-75-73-71-69-67-65-63-61
80-78-76-74-72-70-68-66-64-62
81-83-85-87-89-91-93-95-97-99
82-84-86-88-90-92-94-96-98-100

Then if I missed a square I marked it as quickly as possible after noticing but I don't think I missed a lot of squares on my 100! The tough part was going fast enough to reach the end before the time ran out, yet precisely enough to not miss the boxes and thus wasting time!

Btw, my time was an estimated 19.5 seconds. I assume that e.g. Sorin could check all boxes in 16 seconds. Don't know if our famous Lasse could sub-10

Elmar: I went
Dennis: I needed 2 hours or sth until I managed to get the 100 boxes as well. Michael the webmaster couldn't believe it... I have a video of course, too. I think that "game" is nice for non-flaggers as we are trained in rapid but exact mouse movement!

I just did it!
I managed to check all 100 boxes in 20 seconds (or less - it's impossible to tell! )
I've got it on video if anyone is interested in seing this!

Ok, make that 73, but still

The best I can get is 68 boxes.
Go NF-ers

73

14

1

Stephan, I tried that little game about 10 times and the best I was able to do was 92 boxes! That's 4.6 boxes per second!
Can anyone check all of the boxes (100) in 20 seconds?

14

so frustrating trying to beat my intermediate score :\
i admit its not my best type of the 3. ive been restraining myself from switching to expert and to concentrate on inter
today i missed the so called 'dreamboard', thats the 2nd time ive screwed it up >_

To check out your clicking ability combined with fast and exact mouse movement, check out "Boxes" at http://www.fishbonewelt.de.vu!

Congrats to all record breakers!

74

20

3

Hi everybody. I haven't been playing much since september as I have just been too busy with school. Nice to see that there are more and more players of my caliber poping up. Hopefully I will find time to to the AR in 2004 (if it is still going) as the competition would certainly help me reach my personal goals.

Congrats to all record breakers.

James

73 seconds

23 --> 20!! seconds

1 second

sweet i just beat my intermedate time by 3 seconds! check. total is 94 for AR now!

73

23

1

of course i wasn't able to react quickly emough to interchange my 'expert' time of 1 second, and my 'beginner' time of 73 seconds

1

23

73

well my minesweeper times may not be very comparable to most people here but my best (average) reaction time was 0.173 seconds. now if only i could apply this to intermediate. it makes me wonder what Lasse's reaction time is.

74 --> 73

14

1

Wow, just as I was about to go to bed I got a 73,78 on a 127 3bv board. I'm very happy to break my record of course but I certainly have had lots of chances of get an even better time. I misse an estimated 59 after clearing more that half the board. I've got nice scores for the AR: 2-14-73 (sum=89) That'll be the first time I submit a sub-90 for the AR! When I got such nice scores last period (2-15-74) I really didn't think I'd be able to beat them but I tried and I succeeded! NICE!

Still hoping to get that sub-70 soon!

Well, my first time was .202 and the fastest click after a couple of tries was .005, but that's just pure luck, nobody could possibly have such reaction times.

these dots are great, i've already got two 57 scores . i said that my averege times aren't very fast, because my two roommates can score below 0.2, then it's written it's fast.

Congratz Dennis! I'll still concentrate on exp though, but you can send me the video if you have one

I got 0.213 the first time. I tried a couple of times and my fastest click was 0.035 (pure luck)

For some reason the buttons doesn't work, so I can't click the smilies :/

Did you also try this one: http://www.humorsphere.com/fun/click_dots.php
I did and I clicked 50 dots on average although my first attempt was only 45. My best was 53!

Thanks!

I forgot what my reaction time was the first time I tried but I think it was just around 2... I tried 5-10 times and the best average time I got was 1.7
Are you allowed to try more than once?

57

14

1

I got 0.228s on average. But it said this was pretty good....
Congratz Dennis. Keep working on that expert score. Just look at my scores...

check out this flash: http://kylan.newgrabs.com/reaction.swf. it measures your reaction time, which of course is very important in minesweeper. i wonder what times do you have guys. i thought i'm fast, but averegly i have 0,21, which isn't very good. btw, congratulations dennis .

74

14

1

Thanks, Dave!!!

You're right, I did miss the important fact that I'm now sub-90!! Next step... sub-80! I know I've really improved a lot over the last six months and I can't believe it myself. I guess it's because I've been playing way too much Minesweeper!

111

32

6

Dennis,

Congratulations on getting your 14. I've been viewing this guestbook daily these last 6 months or so. I've seen you really improve over that time. I just wanted to say that you missed a very important fact in your last couple of messages. You're now sub 90!!! Congratulations!

74

14

1

Oh F**k!!!!
I just missed an estimated 65.61 on expert with only 15 3bv to go!

It was a 130 3bv board and the perfect chance of getting a sub-70 but I guess it just wasn't meant to be...

I've got the video if anyone wants to see it!

74

15 --> 14!!!

1

WOW!!!!!
I just couldn't believe it when the sign popped up! I mean, I know I've been close quite a few times lately to getting really nice times but I was still very surprised when I actually beat my record so soon after getting my 15!!! I had certainly thought it was going to take me a lot longer to get lucky enough to beat my int record but of course I'm only happy this wasn't the case!

Once again I seriously need to consider concentrating more on expert and beating my score by 10 seconds or so or at least getting a sub-70, don't you think?

Wow! Martin, now you really need to improve your int record as well! Hey, doesn't this make me the best Danish NF int player???

i wanna be a serious gamer... but i need a lot of help? any suggestions???

Very good German, Martin *no sarcasm*. You should practice more often...

Grzegorz, I give up

Why you wee scoundrel! You stole my precious Vonny.

She were mine. I paid ten haggis for her ye scallywag.

I'll give yer a Glasgow Kiss.

HGWilmes: Die Bretter kommen in Zyklen. Folglich kan man "nur" etwa 24.000 Bretter bekommen (wenn ich erinnere korrekt)
(Sorry for my bad German, it's a long time ago I have written/spoken German )

Btw, congratulations to Grzegorz and Traian

Die Chance das selbe Spiel mit exakt der gleichen Positionen der Minen zu bekommen besteht zu:

Anfängern: 1 : 151.473.214.816

Fortgeschrittenen: 1: 1.873.593.741.763.767.640.714.142.785.151.713.234.369.197.300

Profis: 1 : 53.800.959.406.823.180.994.805.817.066.791.467.680.285.484.707.163.922.012.419.356.191.964.643.546.634.337.530.236.279.357.573.446.301.440

3.38 3bv/sec

~ 3.7 3bv/sec

something 3bv/sec

74

15

1

Yes, Traian, I really think you'll beat your record soon as well! You might not get a 55 as Grzegorz did but I think you can definitely go sub-70! I just got two sub-80s within an hour... not bad for me! I got a 77 on a 177 3bv board which is really good and then I got a 79 but that could have been a 77 as well as there was only one square left and I had the mouse button pressed down on that square when the timer was at 77... However, I got insecure, moved the mouse and let go of the button. Then I looked around and decided to click that square anyway... Not sure what happened but I know I wasted at least 2 seconds there!

55

15

2

Elmar: thanks, but i must tell you that i've blew up 33 3bv on 10 secons (13) with 5 cliks to g

Traian: this is the best time to imrove your best time. Yesterday i've equaled my time 56 and today i've got my PB. Keep playing, i'll be waiting for your post tomorrow

57

14

1

Congratz, Grzegorz!
You got me beaten for now, but I'll come back!
I'm in great shape these days. Just today I got 9 sub70s (63,65,3x66,2x67,68,69) which is a new record for me and I didn't even play much.
That adds up to a total of 400 sub70s!

72 -> 72x2

I equaled my exp record today, this time on a 171 3BV board. Previous was a 161. I guess I like this kind of board more than the low 3BV ones. Dennis, good job with that high 3BV/s record.
Bye

2.92 3BV/sec on exp and 3.79 3BV/sec (as far as I remember) on int. Don't know on beg...
I was close to break the exp 3BV/sec record a few days ago. I was at about 3.1 3BV/sec two times with only about 10 3BV left to clear. It was on something like a 240 3BV board and a 220 3BV board
Hope to break the 3 3BV/sec barrier soon

2.63 3bv/s

3.39 3bv/s

4.49 3bv/s

as far as i know (but I often don't bother with the program on beginner)

2.40 3bv per sec

3.28 --> 3.45 3bv per sec!!!

4.?? 3bv per sec

Wow! I just finished a 72 3bv board in 21.82 seconds! I looked up and saw that there was a 3bv per sec ratio of 3.45 so I figured it hadn't gotten the 3bv right but it did get it right so I've made new 3bv per sec record! I've only had 5-6 games with a 3bv per sec ratio higher than 3 so 3.45 is pretty good, I think! I wasn't even trying to go fast - I just wanted to be effective and I had actually also finished the 60 3bv board right before that in 26 seconds... I've got the video if anyone's interested! What are you other guys' records when it comes to 3bv per sec???

41

12

1

I think we should tell Kurt, that he has most probably been the victim of some sort of timer-glitch. It happens from time to time - that's why we record videos of our games. Sorry, but your 31 won't be accepted without a video - that sort of luck just doesn't happen on expert. You can't get a 31 on expert when your int-record is 22.

Lanyjé

Damien, it would be nice if you updated at least Lanyje's 41 so new guys wouldn't get confused.

31?
This is too much!

??

15

2

STEPHAN: I've something for you
55 (127 3bv) my new exp best

Georgi: i sent you .txt


YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

happy sweeping everybody

since when did 41 minus 31 = 12?