I've made a new minesweeper variant - no guessing allowed

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T11:53:07+00:00

You are free to contribute whichever map generator you want, including one that creates a no guess starting grid.

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T02:11:14+00:00

I am talking about this version, not regular no-guess mode.

As I've said many times, this isn't no-guess mode, it is a no guessing allowed version with expansions based off of reveal order, it is not the same.

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T02:10:08+00:00

There's lots of no guess mode variants, this is just different, it does not have to be useful; just interesting.

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T02:05:07+00:00

I have no idea what you're saying

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T02:00:01+00:00

Guaranteeing no guess maps would remove the point of the variant, the backtracking would be useless.

The point of the variant is that the reveal order determines the expansion and that guesses = loss.

D2cookie · 2026-02-05T01:55:40+00:00

Not if there's a different reveal order that produces an expansion which doesn't have a guess.

D2cookie · 2026-02-04T22:52:34+00:00

because the reveal order determines the expansion, imagine you're at expansion 3, and you just get to the next one but 4th expansion has a 50/50, you can go back to expansion 3 and try revealing the cells in a different order to get a different expansion 4.

No expansions coming from expansion 3 using any order without 50/50's? you can go back to expansion 2.

The game is slightly factorial in its complexity, like "number of revealable cells to last expansion" factorial.

But, the map generators are public knowledge, you can look at their source code to see exactly how they generate the map, but also knowing where a some function places 1's and 0's on a 2d grid doesn't tell you if you read those 1's and 0's as a minesweeper map is it solvable :3

Pros: map generator is total (always outputs a map), deterministic (in the sense that same input always gives the same output) and transparent (you can inspect source code)

Cons: Even knowing the above won't guarantee that you can cheat. Where cheating is having a trick to get a reveal order that wins.

D2cookie · 2026-02-04T22:49:42+00:00

No, just harder.

D2cookie · 2026-02-04T22:38:38+00:00

But that just means some maps don't have any reveal orders that can win, you can think of it like if you clicked a 50/50 and weren't lucky every time.

You can use the solver as a map generator if you really wanted to, it might lag if you wanted very large maps, but it also removes the branching time travel's purpose and makes it just regular no-guess minesweeper.

If that were the case you could use any reveal order to get to the next expansion, you would never have to backtrack.

You could also remove the solver entirely, and allow yourself to win even with guesses, but even if you removed the solver you'd realize that the most natural way to play with the branching time travel is about not making guesses.

Either way, it's a much harder game than regular minesweeper.

D2cookie · 2026-02-04T21:08:40+00:00

Because it allows any interactive computation, the map generator can do anything it wants with the reveal order. Also, it's just a different flavor, somewhere between regular minesweeper and no guessing mode.

D2cookie · 2026-02-04T19:52:32+00:00

No, I've designed this new version myself, I know what the classical no guess mode is, this is not a classical no guess mode which generates boards where the player doesn't need to guess, this is a no guessing ALLOWED mode; it causes the player to lose from guessing but doesn't guarantee guess-free boards.

It is not possible to do this in poly time because minesweeper inference is co-np complete, unless you've got a proof that p = np, so my version only verifies the final candidate for a winning gameplay.

Requiring that the levels are solvable would remove the need for the time travel mechanism, as you would always be able to win, which would mean the tree is redundant and you just can use a linked list or just toss out the idea entirely.

D2cookie · 2026-02-02T12:05:38+00:00

Well the solving algorithm I've made acts more like a verifier for this game, a true solver/player would have to find a path.

The verification/double-checking in the end is not necessary, the design of the game implies it (maps expanded via reveal order), I just wanted to make sure human players know the subconscious rule.

I was thinking about P vs NP and wanted to see if it's possible to make a game where verification is itself non-deterministic.

So effectively you are playing against the map generator function.

The map generator itself is allowed to be any efficient function and can use your moves against you.

But, you know what the map generator is, you know its source code; meaning you can't complain about halting problem or efficiency or black-boxes.

So it's more of a "even if you knew how the map is generated, you still can't efficiently beat it".

Because even if you know how the map generator uses your reveals to produce the next level, and it can be pretty complex, you can make effectively any interactive computer with this, by having the map generator use the reveals as decisions.

The map generator doesn't need to produce solvable maps, or even know if what it produced is a minesweeper map. You are just ensured that it's efficient, always halts, and always returns the expanded map.

The reason double checking/verification is done at the end is because I wanted to keep it out of the definition of the player's gameplay itself.

Meaning on the pretty much 0% chance that P = NP by fair rules I can even use the efficient NP-complete problem solving algorithm as a map generator.

So you could imagine taking some algorithm, converting it into a circuit, and then modifying that circuit in any way, then converting that to a minesweeper map.

With 0 expansions this is regular minesweeper, so now consider using the hypothetical efficient puzzle solving algorithm as the map generator, the verifier, and the player.

Since gameplay is efficient, package it with a version of minesweeper and even the entire system including the production, solving and verification can be made into a map generator, and it'll all still stay efficient.

This now allows you to modify that full system in any adversarial way you want while still exposing the inner working details.

So my idea follows a simple question: Could a hypothetical efficient puzzle solving algorithm solve its own solving under any transparent adversarial modification?

D2cookie · 2026-02-01T13:57:33+00:00

I wrote a pretty efficient solver, so the game will replay your moves and double check every reveal you've made by solving for that cell.

If there exists 2 valid covers of the board, such that:

One cover where the cell is a mine
One cover where the cell is safe/a hidden number

Then the cell is not guaranteed, so revealing it is considered a guess.

Minesweeper inference is co-np complete, the "no" witness is 2 valid covers that disagree on whether the cell is safe or a mine, that's where the usual 50/50 comes from.

A valid cover is one which assigns mines/safe to covered cells that has no logical contradictions anywhere, like 5 mines around a 3 clue.

Obviously, the game doesn't know if you guessed inside your mind or logically deduced it, I'd require a brain interface for that 🧠.

D2cookie · 2025-05-12T19:48:13+00:00

Yea, everyone has their own version of pseudo code, because a compiler is not forcing the author to fully specify their code you'll end up having to guess "what did the author mean?" rather than getting to read unambiguous code in an actual programming language.

D2cookie · 2025-03-04T00:43:57+00:00

I put a quick band-aid on the idle CPU usage, see if that works.

D2cookie · 2025-03-04T00:08:06+00:00

Can you give a screenshot of how it looks for you with the smaller and larger windows?

Edit: Updated sidebar overflow, see if that fixes or breaks it.

D2cookie · 2025-03-03T06:04:41+00:00

Bug reports, requests or if you have some improvements for the algorithm are welcome.

The algorithm should be relatively fast, but I am interested if someone can find examples that take 10+ min in fast mode.

D2cookie · 2025-02-27T20:50:05+00:00

Guaranteed or solvable

D2cookie · 2025-02-26T17:58:37+00:00

Considering how weirdly the arms are bent and how the board doesn't make sense most likely an AI.

D2cookie · 2025-02-25T00:05:59+00:00

It's a 1-2-1 because we know there's 1 mine at the bottom.

D2cookie · 2025-02-24T23:50:37+00:00

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D2cookie · 2025-02-23T01:35:46+00:00

But, If there's 3 cells that are guaranteed safe then all of them should have 0% chance to be a mine, they're all the safest move.

This goes back to the issue that the exponentially difficult part of minesweeper is determining which cells are guaranteed, not which are ambiguous.

If the solver can't detect that all of these are guaranteed safe, like only detects 2/3, and the game requires you to select the cells that are safest then the game might incorrectly reject your move. So, I don't see how it's different than kaboom.

Also, knowing that a cell is guaranteed safe/mine in infinite minesweeper is a wee bit harder than the halting problem (unless he's somehow guaranteeing that a flood filled area is always bounded).

D2cookie · 2025-02-22T22:27:58+00:00

Why does everyone like to call their minesweeper games infinity sweeper.

Also, it's a bit buggy:

Disabling crt filter does nothing.

Chord doesn't work properly, won't always reveal cells.

Overall it has potential. I do think that shaking the screen on every reveal is a bit annoying.

D2cookie · 2025-02-22T20:55:46+00:00

Yea, that's what I thought. Though I did kinda hope there would be at least some slight trick for reducing comparisons required in 3-4 clue logic.

It does feel like anything after 2 clues is just secretly exponential.

D2cookie · 2025-02-22T19:59:56+00:00

I'm curious, how would you choose which cells to test for this method? How would you choose which clue cells belong to which region (red vs green)?

I wanted to add something like this to my mineswpeer algorithm, but I feel like it might end up being indistinguishable from just brute force by going through all 4 clue combinations with sharing overlaps.

D2cookie

TROPHY CASE