Re: Mine Detector Game

[Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org>]

Michal Nowak wrote:
> 
> Thanks, I enjoyed it (maybe too long as for the first time :-)).
> Especially, when I read, that it never requires guessing,
> I started to play with engagement (some years ago when I was
> in high school, there was many losses because the player had to
> guess). But finally I came to this situation:
>     _____________________
> ... | 2 | M |<3>| 1 | 0 |
>     ---------------------
> ... | 3 | M |<6>| 3 | 1 |
>     ---------------------
> ... | 3 | M | M | M | 1 | <--- ***
>     ---------------------
> ... | 2 | M | 4 | 3 | 2 |
>     ---------------------
> .....               | M |
> 
> ... - not important
> _____
> | M | - cell with marked mine
> -----
> _____
> | 2 | - opened cell
> -----
> _____
> |<3>| - covered cell
> -----
> 
> Maybe it is too late and I am missing something, but it looks like,
> I have to guess. Does this non-guessing feature means that I do not
> have to guess on the beginning of the game (that there should always
> be covered cell with <0> on the edge)? Right now the only idea of
> alghoritm eliminating totally guessing has too high computational
> complexity, but maybe it is possible to use some heurestics.

Unmark the rightmost mine in the marked row. If that cell is <2>, the
mine is in <3>, otherwise the mine is in <6>. No guessing required.

> 
> I found that, Auto Mark function sometimes marks incorrect fields.
> I'm too sleepy now to analize when, I know only tha it happens.

We have been playing with this program for several months and not
observed this. Please send a window image of such a situation to
jrcarter@acm.org if you encounter it again.

> 
> Anyway, thanks for providing some nice relax.

You're welcome.

BTW, I don't know why the announcement posted twice, but I apologize for
it anyway.

-- 
Jeffrey R. Carter
PragmAda Software Engineering