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Have you ever encountered a minesweeper level where just luck is involved?

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derk last edited by

I've encountered a problem while chilling and playing minesweeper today.

I reached the end of the game, but with two remaining slots and only 1 of them is a mine. I can't think of any logical way where I could have finished solving this without a coin flip and hoping for the best.

Was there anything I could think of to actually know the last mine location? Like, is there any known pattern? Is this normal for you? I don't remember encountering these problems back in the days.

Please find the board below:
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terrea last edited by

On harder difficulties is a common situation, as https://nothings.org/games/minesweeper/ . There's no strategy for those cases, only luck is involved:

There is no way of getting any further information about the likely location of the one mine that remains in these two spaces. It's a 50-50 chance--a toss of a coin. When you find something like this, you're probably better off taking a guess right away, rather than saving it for later--so if you guess wrong, you won't have wasted a lot of extra time solving the rest of the board.

An example of unlucky board:
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minesweeper 20

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Enemy levels determine the target time for a battle, and consequently, these post-battle stats: Points per second Score Stars TP recovery Item and shroud drop chance Based on the Game Mechanics guide on GameFAQs: Target time Given: Target time T HP at start of battle H Enemy level L Highest party member attack power Ap ATB level A Thus: T = (H * L / 16) / [(Ap * A) / (3.5 + A)] + 8 if enemy level L is less than or equal to 50, otherwise: T = (H * 50 / 16) / [(Ap * A) / (3.5 + A)] + 8 Points per second Given: Points per second P Target time T Thus: P = 10,000 / T Score Given: Score S Points per second P Target time T Battle duration D Thus: S = (T - D) * P + 10,000 Stars, TP recovery, rare drop chance, shroud drop chance Score | Stars | TP | Rare | Shroud 13,000 | 5 | 8x | 5x | 1x 12,000 - 12,999 | 4 | 3x | 3x | 1x 9,000 - 11,999 | 3 | 1x | 1x | 1x 8,000 - 8,999 | 2 | 1/2x | 0 | 2x 7,000 - 7,999 | 1 | 1/4x | 0 | 4x < 7,000 | 0 | 1/8x | 0 | 8x
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The odds of hitting that mine were 1/9 ≈ 11%. The odds of hitting a mine anywhere else on the board were 98/471 ≈ 21%. So you made the right choice, and got unlucky. That's Minesweeper.
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Beyond the innocuous cosmetic changes that you mention, it's not known (nor can I find any proven studies) whether the algorithm was changed as well. However, it is known that the pre-Vista/7 versions of Minesweeper did not always start your first click on an empty or 0 square (that is, a square with no adjacent mines), while the new version always does. In both versions, though, you never lose on the first click. This means in previous versions, your first click often opened only a single number, rather than a large, enclosed area. This made gameplay substantially more difficult as you had to continue clicking around to avoid guessing situations. However, in the new version, you always start with a 0 square, opening a minimum of 9 squares on your first click (the one you click plus the 8 squares surrounding it, which may or may not have numbers). This gives you a better head start for the most part, as you can easily find mines to flag right away. Another difference is with chording: when you surround a numbered square with flags, you can chord by clicking on the number with both the left and right mouse buttons to immediately open all the unflagged squares around it. This may or may not set off mines, depending on whether you places the flags on the right squares or not. In the new version, you can also chord with a double left click on the number. When you attempt to chord with the wrong number of flags around a number, nothing happens in the previous versions, but in the new version the number will flash a red X signaling the error. You will still lose if you have the right number of flags in the wrong positions, though. The new version also allows you to save your progress (like all other built-in games), as well as to restart a lost game with the exact same layout. These are the main gameplay differences. Other differences include Freecell-like player statistics, tooltips, annoying dialog boxes and so on. Minesweeper as a whole remains largely unchanged from Windows Vista to Windows 7.
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The board is consistent, but your logic is flawed: you've added a flag to a non-mine space. That's what this crossed out mine means: Incidentally, the mine with a red background is the one you triggered. Other mines that are displayed at the end of the game are ones that you haven't flagged yet. The remaining flags were correct - they mark the space of a mine. I assume the board area looked similar to this before you clicked (you'll have to excuse the quick MS paint mock-up): Yellow arrows represent 'solved' mines. Purple diamonds represent safe squares (the '2' above them already has two mines associated with it) so that just leaves the question marks as the 'unknowns'. Note the '2' in (R6,C7) already has one solved mine (which you correctly flagged) next to it at (R6,C6). This means that the clicked mine (red background) and the mis-flag (crossed mine) could not both be mines: From the position of the '2' and '1', both of those squares had an equal chance of containing a single mine, thus they weren't logically solvable before the detonation. However, the '3's in Column 9 (Row 6 and 7) would have confirmed that the square you clicked (R7,C8) had to be a mine; there's only 3 unchecked positions surrounding them, two of which you've flagged already, therefore leaving the detonated mine as the final position: or

Have you ever encountered a minesweeper level where just luck is involved?

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