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1994-02-26
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/ / / / / _ / / __/ _____________________________
/ /_/ / / / / // / / _/_ |_____________________________|
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|_________| ___/ / / / / / / _/_ / _/_ / -- / / _/_ / /
/____/ /_____/ /____/ /____/ / ___/ /____/ /_/
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Version 1.1
Martin Reddy, 1994
(Requires WB2.0 or higher)
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end
of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded
yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight
million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green
planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive
that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ..."
1 - INTRODUCTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The object of MineSweeper is to locate all of the mines which are hidden in
a mine field. When the game starts you will see a blank (mine free) area in
the upper left corner of the grid which is surrounded by numbers. These
numbers (ranging from 1 to 8) will tell you how many of that particular
square's immediate neighbours that contain mines. By counting, thinking,
and the odd bit of guess work, it is up to you to figure out which squares
have mines and which are clear. i.e. You must click on all of the clear
squares to win the game: click on just one mine, and it's lights out time!
+---+---+---+ Figure 1.1 - An example square shown with all
| | | M | of its eight neighbours, three of
+---+---+---+ which contain mines (denoted by
| | 3 | | the "M" character). Therefore, the
+---+---+---+ value that will be displayed in
| M | M | | this square is "3"
+---+---+---+
2 - AN EXAMPLE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To help you grasp this really complex and difficult concept, here is a
small example which you can work through yourself. The numbers are those
which might be displayed by MineSweeper and the letters A-H are the boundary
squares to those values whose contents we don't know; but by a little bit
of elementary deduction, we can find them out...
+---+---+---+---+---+---+...
| | | | 2 # A | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+...
| | | | 2 # B | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+...
| 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 # C | |
+###+###+###+###+---+---+...
| H | G | F | E | D | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+...
| | | | | | |
: : : : : : :
A and B Must be mines since they are the only neighbours to the
2 to the left of A
C Must be free because the 2 next to the B is already
accounted for by A and B
D,E and F Must all be mines for the 4 to fill up its quota of
neighbouring mines
G Cannot be a mine due to the 2 right above F, and finally...
H Is a mine because of the 1 above it (remembering that
G was clear).
3 - USING FLAGS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To help you in your quest to keep various bits of your anatomy in the same
relative positions as they are at the moment, it is possible to mark any
square with a flag by holding down the SHIFT key whilst clicking the Left
Mouse Button (repeat the action to toggle the flag off).
It is also possible to use the Right Mouse Button (RMB) to toggle flags if
the "RMB=Flag" option in the "Preferences" window is on (the default). When
this is the case, you can still access the MineSweeper menus if you move
the mouse off of the mine field grid. If you would prefer to be able to
access the menus at all times, then you can select "RMB=Flag" to off and
use the SHIFT+LMB method.
You start off the game with the same number of flags as there are mines
hidden in the mine field, and you can use these flags to remind you where
you think that there are mines - N.B. Just because you mark a square with a
flag doesn't mean that there is a mine underneath!
4 - THE MENUS (WELL, "MENU" REALLY)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Game Starts a new game with the current preference settings
(this can also be achieved by pressing the SPACE BAR).
Abort Game Terminates the current game (also via ESC key)
Preferences Lets you change some of the default settings of the game.
These include the following:
GRID DIMENSION : (Default=10x10) You can specify an
Alternative mine field size (the bigger, the
more complex!). Minimum size = 5x5, Maximum
size = 30x30 (depended upon your WorkBench
screen size).
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY : (Default=Moderate) There are
four levels of difficulty which you can choose.
These are Easy, Moderate, Difficult and
Impossible. Changing this setting changes the
number of mines which will be hidden in the
mine field (and also alters the amount of time
you get to complete the mine field appropriately)
USE OF TIMER : (Default=ON) You can select whether
you wish to try to beat the clock by completing
the mine field within an allotted time period,
or to switch off the timer so that you can take
your own sweet time about things.
USE OF DEBRIS : (Default=ON) You can select to have
various squares of "debris" which basically
mark squares which do not contain mines and
serve to help you with your task.
RMB = FLAG : (Default=ON) Lets you use the Right Mouse
Button to place flags on squares as well as the
SHIFT+Left Mouse Button method.
SHOW FACE : (Default=ON) This is "borrowed" from the
PC Version. You can have a little smiley face
at the bottom of the screen whose facial
expressions relate to your current progress.
This also provides a method for starting a new
game by clicking on the face.
HEAD START : (Default=ON) You can use this option to
give you a little helping hand initially by
clearing some of the squares in the top-left
hand corner so that you have somewhere to start
from.
REQUESTERS : (Default=ON) Whenever a game finishes
(whether because you won or lost), a little
requester appears telling you what happened. If
you find these irritating, then you can simply
switch them off with this option.
High Scores Displays the current High Score Table (see later)
Rules This option gives you a brief run down on the rules of
MineSweeper (just because I wanted to try out the List
View gadget!)
About The usual boring window.
Quit Either makes your Amiga put on a frilly dress, sprout
five legs and do a rather festive Manchurian dance, OR,
it quits the program - which do you think it is????
5 - THE HIGH SCORE TABLE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you complete a mine field, you are awarded a score which is dependent
upon the amount of time you have left, the mine field size, the difficulty
level and whether you used the "Debris" or "Head Start" options. The ten
best scores are stored by MineSweeper and you can display these via the
"High Scores" menu item.
If the High Score Table is modified at any stage whilst MineSweeper is
running, then it will attempt to save the new High Score Table to disk
when it exits so that it can be retrieved when it starts up again. The
High Score data is loaded from ENV: and saved to ENV: and ENVARC:
(N.B. If you have put the timer off (via the "Preferences" window), then
you will only be awarded a score if you complete the game within the time
period that you would have been given if you had kept the timer on.)
6 - WORKBENCH ARGUMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To run MineSweeper, you simply double-click on it's icon from the WorkBench.
This will start up the game with a number of default settings. If you would
like to have different default settings, then you can supply any of the
following Tool Types to the MineSweeper icon (via the Information menu item
of the WorkBench):
TIMER=ON|OFF
DEBRIS=ON|OFF
LEVEL=EASY|MODERATE|DIFFICULT|IMPOSSIBLE
XSIZE=<number>
YSIZE=<number>
PUBSCREEN=<pubscreenname>
PROMPT=ON|OFF
HEADSTART=ON|OFF
FACE=ON|OFF
RMBFLAG=ON|OFF
REQUESTERS=ON|OFF
Most of these are fairly self-explanatory, with perhaps the exception of
the PROMPT Tool Type. This is a staggeringly useless option which lets you
switch off the initial title bar prompt for "Press SPACE To Play..." -
Well, hey, somebody might want to use it!
The PUBSCREEN Tool Type lets you open the MineSweeper program on any named
Public Screen. If this option is not specified (or if the specified Public
Screen does not exist) then the default Public Screen will be used (i.e.
the WorkBench Screen)
N.B. There are no command line options to the program if it is run it from
the Shell. However, it will still try to access the icon file to find any
of these settings - so you can still customise your initial defaults, even
when running from the Shell, by setting the above Tool Types for the icon.
7 - THE END AT LAST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This game is based upon the game of similar name which runs under Windows
on a PZZzzz. However, this particular implementation has been modelled more
on the PD game called "Bombs!" for the Mac which was written by Christer
Ericson. I played this game one day last week and got so addicted that I
went home and started to write it for my beloved Amiga. I would like to
thank Christer for his correspondance and much appreciated help during the
development of MineSweeper (all four days of it!).
The game was written using "High Speed Pascal V1.10". I also made use of
the GUI Builder "Designer" by Ian OConnor to design the interface and
"DPaint IV" to draw the images, and a really amazing and total brillant
text editor called "EdWord Professional V4.1" to write this doc file (if
you don't have this program, then buy it today (only £10)).
This game is "Chocolate Domain" - which is my way of saying that it is
Public Domain (so you can give it to whoever you want), but if you do like
it, then I would appreciate it if you would send me a bar of chocolate!!!
It doesn't have to be a big bar, or an exciting bar - just any old bar of
chocolate will do!
My address is...
____________________________
| |
| Martin Reddy, |
| Lossiemouth House, |
| 33 Clifton Road, |
| LOSSIEMOUTH, |
| Moray, |
| Scotland, |
| IV31 6DP. |
| |
| E-Mail: mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk |
|____________________________|
---- o - o ----
Q. In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
the proper order then why can't he?