A gaming classic or just a very frustrating piece of junk?
I've been playing it quite a bit lately, on the hardest difficulty (the one with 99 mines). Best time so far is 190 seconds. I lose the majority of games though.
One thing that's really frustrating is that there are sometimes situations where it's pure chance, that is you're down to the last mine, only two squares still covered, and you can't deduce which one is the correct choice...it's pure luck in that case.

I had a spell when I played a lot mid 2000s. Best score was 150 on hardest, 17 on medium and 3 on small. Thought myself pretty good till I saw people going way faster on the net. eh...
You know you can click with both buttons to unmark all squares around a number if you've got all its mines marked? (if you made a mistake in marking, you lose though).

It is best to deal with random squares right then and there, then you feel less like you wasted an entire game.

I won expert in 92 seconds 11 years ago

A month or two back, I got a recorded score of 87 seconds. Diminishing returns on continued play :D

It's a classic. Try Mines Perfect - a clone with the option of custom sized and hexagonal, triangle, etc, shaped boards.

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Kinda fun. I liked to imagine the numbers as miners trying to get the other numbers out from the rock (squares).

Very good!

It is slightly annoying but I never quite managed to get under 2 minutes on the biggest board and as I am getting older and slower I have given up on ever doing so and rarely play it anymore. Fast deductions and a bit of luck, a good arcade game.

Go to sleep, Themken, it is late! :P

Also, thanks, ZFR! Looking at the video now, so many cringey mistakes!

There is a community for competitive minesweeper at http://www.minesweeper.info. Back in the days when the game was bundled with Windows in its original non-downgraded version, it was very active.

I enjoyed it as a neat little pastime back in the days, but haven't played it or even felt the need to play it for ages. I did play through Hexcells two years ago, which IIRC was an enjoyable variation of the formula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56dPMEyPmTQ

I just started playing the game within the last week, I never knew how to play it til I looked it up - I mean years/decades of seeing it and opening it up and not knowing how to play is a crime now that I know how to play it.

I really like/love it now and while I do play it on the PC it is by far the best phone/tablet game there is(for me).

Tried playing Hexcells on steam and I couldn't get into it, really just didn't hit off with me even though the rules are somewhat similar to Minesweeper.