The Most Successful Online Game ever Mines Games ph
In the unlikely event you’ve never played it, the gist is that you start with an empty field (its size and number of mines determined by difficulty setting) and have to uncover squares one at a time. Underneath each is either a space, a number, or a mine. The numbers tell you how many mines are in the adjacent boxes, the mines kill you dead.
To win, you have to clear the field without touching a mine. It’s a relatively simple game of deduction, but satisfying.
The main alterations to the game have been simple ones. The difficulty was slightly tweaked in Windows 2000 and onwards, and Microsoft hired Oberon to do a full rewrite for the Vista version.
Sadly, this cut out our favourite feature of the originals: the cheat code. Pointless as it sounds, if you’re still on Windows XP, give it a try. Load the game, type ‘xyzzy’ and press the left shift key.
Now, watch the very top left of your screen. When your mouse cursor hovers over a safe square, you’ll see one single white pixel. Move over a mined square, and it becomes black. It’s an eyesight-killer of an easter egg, but an excellent way to impress your friends.
For a few seconds, anyway.
Minesgame controversy
As innocuous as it seems, Minesgame hasn’t been without its critics. To most of us, mines are just a handy framework to wrap the deductive gameplay around.
This isn’t the case elsewhere in the world, where they remain a threat, and a symbol of pain and suffering. In 2001, a group calling itself the International Campaign to Ban Winmine attempted to make Microsoft choose something less controversial as its subject matter, and there have been other similar protests over the years.
For Vista, Microsoft finally capitulated, and began offering a flower based alternate tileset.
