Website archived by minesweepergame.com

Trivia

From MinesweeperWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

This page collects interesting Minesweeper trivia, facts for the truly addicted!

Best Family

Ranking where 2 people in the same family have Sub100 Expert scores:

Player: Scores: Player: Scores: Relation: Country: Total:
Robert Farnik
Jeff Gessert
Philip Culp
Lloyd Rhoads
Ariel Fixler
Cian O'Sheehan
Christoph Nikolaus
Emmanuel Brunelliere
Arvo Leinsoo
David Chan
1-12-55
3-17-54
2-16-59
1-15-62
2-17-56
3-20-67
2-14-54
1-12-53
1-15-61
3-24-71
Jan Farnik
Jenna Gessert
Peter Culp
Edward Rhoads
Seffi Fixler
Cormac O'Sheehan
Andreas Marx
Laure Brunelliere
German Leinsoo
Jackson Chan
2-17-74
4-23-70
4-23-65
2-21-73
4-26-79
2-21-72
5-28-86
6-30-92
4-30-86
?-??-83
Brothers
Siblings
Brothers
Brothers
Brothers
Brothers
Brothers
Siblings
Brothers
Brothers
Czech Republic
USA
USA
USA
Israel
Ireland
Austria
France
Russia
Canada
161
161
169
174
184
185
189
194
197
Unknown

Other Languages

  • Aknakereso - Hungary
  • Buscaminas - Mexico, Spain
  • Campo Minado - Brazil, Portugal
  • Campo Minato - Italy (original title)
  • Démineur - France
  • Hledání min - Czech Republik
  • Miinaharava - Finland
  • Mijnenveger - Netherlands
  • Minestryger - Denmark
  • Minesveiper - Norway
  • Minesweeper - Canada, USA, UK
  • MineSweeper - Germany
  • MS Röj - Sweden (original title)
  • Prato Fiorito - Italy (XP version)
  • Röj - Sweden (XP version)
  • Saolei - China
  • Saper - Poland, Russia

Density

The most mines you can fit on a board is (x-1)(y-1).

Webmaster Birthdays

Damien Moore (Authoritative Minesweeper) and Gregoire Duffez (Planet Minesweeper) share the same birthday, 7th March. Gregoire is two years older.

3BV

Lowest Beginner

Many players have won Beginner games in 1 click, but these games are not allowed on the world ranking. Before Microsoft released XP with a 9x9 grid, the One Click Bug often meant the timer did not stop. In 2002, Tim Kostka analysed the original 8x8 Beginner and discovered that there are no naturally occuring 1 click games; instead, 5 of the 48624 can become 1 click games because starting a game by clicking on a mine shifts it to the top corner.

Early versions of Minesweeper Clone sometimes generated 1 click games, but since Clone2006 the program has 3BV limits. The minimum natural board is 3BV=3, in the hope that a mine shift will only lower the game to 3BV=2. Arbiter, Viennasweeper, and Minesweeper X do not have 3BV limits.

Lowest Intermediate

The lowest Winmine board noticed was 3BV=23. Below is a picture from Tom Bradbury (England) made on 03 January 2005. James Lange (Canada) also played a 3BV=23 board on 1 Mar 2003, as did Andreas Fuchs (Switzerland) in August 2005. Due to Board Cycles, this was probably the same board.

The lowest Clone game was 3BV=20 played by Christoph Nikolaus (Austria) on 29 Jan 2005. Clone2006 now only creates boards needing at least 30 clicks.

TomBradbury27-23-030105.PNGChristophNikolaus3BV20Board.png

Lowest Expert

The lowest Expert board was 3BV=87, played by Sorin Manea (Romania) in 2002. He lost. Versions of the Clone since Clone2006 do not generate games easier than 3BV=100. The easiest Clone97 game was 3BV=88, lost on the last click by Oliver Scheer (Germany) 08 October 2007 on what would have been a world record of 36 seconds.

SorinManeaExpert3bv87.png

Highest Expert

The highest Expert board was 3BV=291, played on Clone by Andrey Deviatkin (Russia) in 2010. He lost (the picture below is played in UPK mode).

AndreyDeviatkinExpert2913BV.png

Age

Sub50

As of 1 Mar 2014, there were 103 players who made an accepted sub50 on Expert. The age is known for half of them.

  • Youngest #1: Wei-Jia Guo (China), age 15 and 124 days.
  • Youngest #2: Thomas Kolar (Austria), age 15 and 334 days.
  • Youngest #3: Dion Tiu (Australia), age 16 and 63 days.
  • Oldest #1: Tian Yi Fang (China), age 30 and 31 days.
  • Oldest #2: Dan Cerveny (USA), age 27 and 75 days.
  • Oldest #3: Xian-Bin You (China), age 27 and 67 days.

Sub40

As of 1 Mar 2014, there were 14 players who made an accepted sub40 on Expert.

  • Youngest #1:: Wei-Jia Guo (China), age 16 and 313 days.
  • Youngest #2: Dion Tiu (Australia), age 17 and 113 days.
  • Youngest #3: Kamil Muranski (Poland), age 18 and 91 days.
  • Oldest #1: Damien Moore (Canada), age 27 and 108 days.
  • Oldest #2: Pavel Mishin (Russia), age 23 and 232 days.
  • Oldest #3: Manuel Heider (Germany), age 21 and 298 days.

(If accepted, Jake Warner USA age 25 and 68 days.)

World Ranking

The youngest ever player to join the current World Ranking is Matthew Rendo of the USA aged 11 years and 8 months. He joined with 2-20-77 on 18 July 2007.

Longest Time to Break Record

This is a list of players who took 5 years or longer to break their record.

Expert

Records:

  • Brendan Potyondy (USA) - 60 on 2004-03-22 to 56.85 on 2017-07-17. 13 years 117 days
  • Yun-Shui Qi (China) - 43.53 on 2010-12-09 to 40.52 on 2021-11-10. 11 years 336 days
  • Rupert Foggo McKay (UK) - 50.21 on 2009-06-28 to 48.75 on 2020-11-28. 11 years 153 days
  • Jan Šnábl (Czech Republic) - 155 (154.32) on 2008-08-14 to 147 (146.38) on 2015-02-08. 6 years 178 days
  • Pascal Esper (Lebanon) - 57 on 2006-06-19 to 54.36 on 2012-05-27. 5 years 343 days
  • Thomas MacKellar (Canada) - 88 on 2006-03-07 to 86.66 on 2011-08-21. 5 years 167 days
  • Damien Moore (Canada) - 40 (39.34) on 2005-04-23 to 38.79 on 2010-06-23. 5 years 61 days


Special mention:

  • Manolis Levantis (Greece) - 64 before 2005-05-30 to 59.68 on 2012-01-05. He retired for 4 years and did not jump directly to 59.68 but exact dates and missing scores unknown.
  • Ping-Liang Lin (Taiwan) joined the minesweeper community in February 2010 and made 67 on 08 Aug 2011. He said his unofficial record had been a 68 on Winmine since 1995 or 1996! (He retired then with 3-18-68 using Windows 3.1 on a 486 Computer). He can not prove the date, but 15 years would be the record for any level!

Intermediate

Records:

  • Paul Tucker (Canada) - 21.67 prior to 2006-01-02 to 20.94 on 2021-05-03. 15 years 121 days
  • Mark Alban (Canada) - 18.02 on 2010-05-23 to 16.95 on 2019-04-07. 8 years 319 days
  • Tyson Wepperich (USA) - 19 on 2003-07-06 to 17.78 on 2010-06-27. 6 years 356 days
  • Andrew Washburn (USA) - 17 on 2003-11-07 to 15.68 on 2009-04-03. 6 years 94 days

Special mention:

  • Brendan Potyondy (USA) - 20 from before 2004-04-01 to 17.63 on 2020-12-07.
  • Manolis Levantis (Greece) - 23 before 2005-05-30 to 17.08 on 2012-05-23. He retired for 4 years and did not jump directly to 17.08 but exact dates and missing scores unknown.
  • Roel Wouters (Belgium) - 20 in April 2003 to 18.79 on 2010-12-12.
  • Michael Dunlop (UK) - 12.64 on 20070628 to 11.53 on 20121101.

Beginner

Records:

  • Michel Koopmansch (Belgium) - 1.42 Clone on 2007-06-21 to 1.38 Arbiter on 2018-02-08. 10 years 201 days
  • Mark Alban (Canada) - 2.08 on 2010-05-23 to 2.02 on 2019-03-25. 8 years 306 days
  • Jeremy Ong (USA) - 5 XP on 2004-10-10 to 4.47 on 2012-12-18. 8 years 69 days
  • Edu Cros (Spain) - 1.61 on 2010-04-24 to 1.59 on 2018-06-3. 8 years 40 days
  • Jonathan Ho (Australia) - 2 on 2004-05-24 to 0.95 on 2010-07-20. 6 years 57 days
  • Manolis Levantis (Greece) - 3 on 2005-02-21 to 2.33 on 2010-07-02. 5 years 131 days



Special mention:

  • Roel Wouters (Belgium) - 2 before 2003-12-14 to 1.81 on 2010-11-27.

Milestones

10,000 Sub20

  • name removed (Germany) on 2013-04-13.

10,000 Sub20

  • Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-11-23: 11x5, 12x46, 13x112, 14x366, 15x803, 16x1434, 17x2106, 18x2536, 19x2653.
  • Damien Moore (Canada) on 2008-04-03: 11x5, 12x21, 13x91, 14x300, 15x633, 16x1167, 17x2031, 18x2660, 19x3092.

10,000 Sub60

  • Lasse Nyholm (Denmark) on 2002-11-11.
  • name removed (Germany) on 2011-12-30.

1000 Sub50

  • Lasse Nyholm (Denmark) on 2003-03-11. By this date he actually had 1008 Sub50 games.
  • Dion Tiu (Australia) sometime before January 2008.
  • Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2010-02-04.
  • name removed (Germany) on 2010-03-09: 40x1, 41x3, 42x8, 43x14, 44x39, 45x77, 46x107, 47x186, 48x234, 49x331.
  • Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-09-18: 32x2, 33x1, 34x2, 35x2, 36x6, 37x9, 38x25, 39x47, 40x70, 41x90, 42x119, 43x118, 44x119, 45x113, 46x87, 47x81, 48x65, 49x44.
  • Pavel Mishin (Russia) on 2012-12-25: 40x1, 41x8, 42x17, 43x25, 44x57, 45x96, 46x122, 47x184, 48x212, 49x278.

Endurance

1000 Beginner

  • Janis Millers (Sweden) on 2010-06-18: 1000 games won in 3h 4m 12s.
  • name removed (Germany) on 2010-08-03: 1000 games won in 2h 15m 22s.
  • Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-03-02: 1000 games won in 1h 58m 43s.

Best non-record times:

  • name removed (Germany) on 2011-11-08: 1000 games in 2h 02m 26s.

1000 Intermediate

  • Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-03-01: 1000 games won in 11h 11m.
  • Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-10-05: 1000 games won in 9h 26m.
  • name removed (Germany) on 2012-08-29: 1000 games won in 8h 19m 40s.

100 Expert

  • name removed (Germany) on 2011-12-31: 100 games won in 6h 25m.

Best non-record times:

  • name removed (Germany) on 2009-08-06 and 2009-08-07: 100 games won in 25h 2m 15s.

Sub20

  • Damien Moore (Canada) on 2003-03-22: 204 Sub20 games in exactly 7 hours.
  • Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-02-28: 239 Sub20 games in one day.
  • Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-10-05: 794 Sub20 games in 9h 26m.
  • name removed (Germany) on 2012-08-29: 358 Sub20 games in 8h 19m 40s.

Foot Scores

The idea of playing minesweeper with your feet was first suggested in 1995 by Scott Harkner in the ReadMe file of his BombSweeper game for Mac. "In the video game world a lot of attention is paid to hand-eye coordination, but about those hard-working things at the end of your legs? Don't they deserve to play too? And what about other body parts? (Now, I'm thinking about elboes and knees and such here, let's not get sick.)". The idea remained an idea.

In April 2005, Damien Moore (Canada) and Dennis Lütken (Denmark) had a competition to see who could play minesweeper fastest using their feet. Damien managed 6-70-359 on the 12th, but Dennis made a 58 on Intermediate, followed on the 13th with a 53 then a 42 second game. He even made a webcam video of his foot scoring 61 on Intermediate. Dennis also scored a 4 on Beginner, but he did not manage to win a game on Expert

In 2009 name removed (Germany), who had heard of Damien's and Dennis' competition took up the challenge and scored a 69 on Intermediate, followed by 8 on Beginner and 191 on Expert in 2010. He made a video of him solving an Expert game in 308 seconds.

Damien's technique was to hold the mouse with his right foot over a book on the floor, and to use the left foot as a lever to move the right foot. Dennis played with his mouse and feet on his desk. name removed played with the mouse and mousepad on the floor and used the same mouse-sensitivity he uses for normal sweeping. He played with both feet, using the left foot for the left mouse button, the right foot for the right mouse button and both feet to move the mouse.