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Minesweeper Games (Apple II)

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This is a collection of minesweeper games for the Apple II series of computers, which were sold by Apple between 1977 and 1993. Most of the games are for the Apple IIGS (1986-1992) but their limited number is due to Minesweeper being far more popular on the Macintosh. Files on this page are .SHK or .BXY (ShrinkIt archives) or virtual disks suchs as .DSK, .2MG and .DOM which can be loaded in an emulator.

Apple II minesweeper games are not important historically except for two: Mines GS (1990) was a port of the Mac game called Mines (1988) that directly inspired the Windows version of minesweeper, and Mine Sweep (1991) which is a port by Gary Gouriluk of the Windows version. Gouriluk was the other half of Casablanca Inc, with the other programmer being Robert Donner who did write the Windows version (1990).

Apple II computers mostly used an operating system called ProDOS. You can use the AppleWin emulator to play these by dragging a .DSK into the emulator.

The Apple IIGS introduced a new operating system called GS/OS, and for this you can download the KEGS emulator and follow the instructions to install GS/OS. You will need the ShrinkIt program to open the archived games. Locate a copy of the self-extracting ShrinkIt.exe and a copy of CiderPress. Install CiderPress, use it to create a new disk, add the ShrinkIt file and change its attribute to text from the menu. You can then load this disk into KEGS, open the Basic.system program and type '-Shrinkit.exe' to install. To install a game from a disk copy the contents of its icons, drivers and tools folders into the same folders in the emulator. CiderPress allows you to read files in an archive in Windows, but to open documents in KEGS you will need to install Appleworks by copying files as described. For an NDA game you need to place the file in the Desk Accessories folder and reboot. Simple.

Apple games were commonly shared online in Usenet chat groups like comp.sys.apple2 by encoding the archived files. This turned the game into encrypted text, but we have decoded all games to make them slightly more user friendly!

Games

1990 - Mines GS (NDA)

AppleII-GS-NDA-Mines GS-v1.0-Hoke-1990.jpg

  • Tom Hoke, USA
  • Driftwood Software
  • Goal is to cross the minefield from top left to bottom right corner
  • No highscores or colour
  • Press 'Shift' while clicking to flag
  • "This desk accessory is based on a Mac version by Daniel Griscom ... the original game concept and the BOOM source resource I owe to Daniel"
  • NDA is 'New Disk Accessory" which means game could be opened from the Apple menu
  • Mines GS was distributed by Club Apple on 'Disk of the Month' 62. Use the install program to put into the Desk Accessory folder and reboot the computer, the game will appear on the Apple menu.
  • Shareware for $10 now abandonware but as a result you can not change number of bombs or grid
  • Disk timestamp for game is 1992-04-26 but game was released in 1990

1991 - Mine Sweep

AppleII-MineSweep-Gouriluk.jpg
AppleII-MineSweep-Gouriluk-Lose.jpg

  • Gary Gouriluk, Canada
  • 6 Levels, Highscore saved for each
  • 0 (6x6, 6m), 1(8x8, 10m), 2(10x10, 16m), 3(16x8, 20m), 4 (16x12, 30m), 5 16x16, 40m)
  • Each board size can also have a custom number of mines
  • No mouse, use arrow keys to move
  • Press 'Enter' to open, 'Space' to flag and 'Esc' to chord
  • Possible to lose on first click
  • Win by opening all safe squares
  • ProDOS
  • Due to progamming the first level is zero
  • Game copies 'Smiley Face' from Windows version, for example wearing sunglasses when you win
  • TRIVIA: In a post to comp.sys.apple2 on 17 Feb 2001, Gary Gouriluk wrote "I also wrote a version of this game for 8 bit Apple II (about ten years ago)." This is interesting because the first two programs written by Robert Donner were Risk and Cluedo, co-written with Gary and sold by their company Casablanca Software Inc from 1988-89. Donner then joined Microsoft and wrote Minesweeper.

1991 - Quest for the Hoard

Mac-QuestForTheHoard-Pegasoft-1991.jpg

  • Ken Burtch, Canada
  • Pegasoft
  • Single Player mode limited to 6 minutes per level
  • Multiplayer mode allows up to 6 players, can set time limits per turn from 0 to 360s
  • Highscore list keeps best score per player
  • Scores based on points
  • Game opens first square
  • Manual mode you need to open every square, so get more points than Auto mode which clears openings. You can drag mouse instead of clicking on all squares to save time
  • First level has 5 hidden mines and squares touching mines glow (instead of numbers), you use a spell to mark the mines as found
  • In each level are hidden gems (automatically win level), hourglasses (get more time) or other treasures
  • Many sound effects
  • Written for the Apple IIGS, but ported to DOS and Win 3.0 in 1993
  • Shareware $15 now abandonware as per company website
  • Use ShrinkIt to unarchive SKH file, the 2MG file can be loaded as a virtual disk
  • Game was also distributed by Club Apple GS on 'Disk of the Month' 91
  • The earliest file from v1.0 is 23 May 91 and the latest 22 Jan 92 which is when it seems to have been released, and the timestamp on the v1.0 game file is 10 Jul 92.

1991 - Minefield

AppleII-GS-Minefield-v1.5-Taureg-1992.jpg

  • Aaron Taurog, USA
  • You must flag all mines and open safe squares to win
  • Game has option to make all 4 corners safe
  • Game can be paused (board is hidden)
  • Easy (10x10, 18 mines), Medium (15x15, 40), Hard (16x31, 90) and Custom
  • Press 'Tab' to switch cursor between Open or Flag mode
  • Superclick - chord by pressing the Apple key while clicking
  • You can not place more flags than mines
  • One highscore per level
  • Game is for IIGS S16
  • Last modification date on game files is as above, earliest is 1991-06-10
  • Game uploaded to the A2 Software Library in Sep/Oct 1992

1992 - Minesweeper (NDA)

AppleII-GS-Minesweeper-NDA-v1.1-Simmons-1992.jpg

  • Jason Simmons, USA
  • Goal is to flag all mines (not open squares)
  • Levels are 8x8 (8 mines), 12x12 (18 mines), 16x16 (32 mines)
  • Press 'Shift' while clicking to flag, no chording
  • No highscores
  • Possible to lose on first click
  • NDA is 'New Disk Accessory" which means game opens from the Apple menu. To install place the extracted file into the Desk Accessory folder and reboot the computer.

1993 - MineSweeper GS

  • Glenn Ferreri, USA
  • Version 2.1 released 29/5/93
  • Written for Apple IIGS, required GSOS 6.0
  • Shareware
  • Posted online as MINESW21.SHK
  • Version 2.1 improved the graphics and reduced code size

1993 - KaBlooie!

  • GS+ Magazine, USA
  • Original release Nov/Dec 1993
  • "A version of the classic game Minesweeper for your IIGS"
  • Sold in GS+ Magazine Vol.5 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1993)
  • Not to be confused with a IIGS fireworks program of the same name from 1992

1992 - PCS Minesweeper

  • Brian Campbell, USA
  • Default 8x8 with 10 mines
  • Game recommends 16x16 with 40 and 24x24 with 99 as other levels
  • No highscores
  • Need to flag all mines and open safe squares to win
  • Click once to flag, click twice to open
  • Game automatically opens first square
  • Flags are yellow, empty squares are green
  • The Proton Command Shell was written for the 8 bit IIGS, minesweeper is one of the games included. The entire PCS needs to be installed to play the game. Extract all files into a Proton folder, copy contents of the GS.CMDS folder into the CMDS folder, click on Proton.system then type commands: 'Cmdpath CMDS', then 'Prefix Proton', then 'Prefix GS.DEMOS', then 'Minesweeper 8x8 10' for example).
  • Note: Using a fresh install of GSOS 6.01 with the KEGS emulator, launching the game crashes PCS
  • PCS dates from 1992 and its games from Oct 93 apart from Minesweeper in Apr 94 (PCS v1.1).
  • Freeware

1994 - Minesweeper GS

  • David Shaw, USA
  • Original release 28/3/94
  • Offered online help from menu
  • Written for Apple IIGS, required GSOS 6.0
  • Freeware
  • Had been shared as MINESWIN.SHK

1994 - SwampWalker

  • Softdisk GS Magazine, USA
  • At least by 1994-08-29
  • Published as part of the 82 issue Softdisk G-S Magazine (1989-1997), not the 166 issue Softdisk Magazine by the same publisher. Copies are still sold by Syndicomm.

1997 - Mines

AppleII-Mines-v1.0-Maslinkov-1997.jpg

  • Milen Maslinkov, Bulgaria
  • Saves 10 best Highscores
  • No mouse, use letter keys to navigate (W-D-X-A) or joystick
  • Open squares by pressing 'Enter' and flag with 'Space' bar
  • You must open all squares to get a score but then need to flag all mines to to actually win
  • Written using ProDOS 8 v1.8 (1989)
  • Shareware $5 now full access abandonware

2001 - Minesweeper

AppleII-Minefield-Hauss-2001.jpg

  • Aaron Heiss, USA
  • You select grid size at start of game and a difficulty level for it
  • Difficulty ranges from 1 to 9, with 9 being 50% mines
  • No mouse, use arrow keys to move
  • Open squares by pressing 'Space' bar and Flag by pressing 'Enter'
  • No chording or highscores
  • Game can be paused by pressing 'Escape' button
  • Written for 8 bit ProDOS
  • Should work on all Apple II models - users at time noted II+ and IIc+ worked but IIGS had problems
  • Clock is linked to hardware so timer is not in seconds unless on original system
  • Author planned to release version with Joystick