- Use arrow keys to navigate the tiles with the keyboard.
- Left mouse button, or [space] key: Open a tile.
- Right mouse button, or left mouse button + [control] key, or touch and hold: Mark / Unmark a mine.
- [N] key or [New] button: Start a new game.
- [L] key or [Level Indicator]: Choose a different level.
- Use [+] and [-] keys or [+] and [-] buttons to adjust the size of the tiles. Pinch-zoom is available on touch screen.
- [hof] button: Open Hall of Fame.
- [about] button: Open this text.
- For added fun (and difficulty), flags are unavailable in the [extreme] level and above.
- The number in the parentheses next to the Level Indicator is the Difficulty Index (DI is explained below).
- Difficulty Index: Since I could't find any clean-cut way of evaluating the difficulty between different field configurations, ranks and levels in the Custom Fields might seem erratic. My calculation of the DI is:
- count the minimum number of clicks required to open all the tiles that are not mines (the Bechtel's Board Benchmark Value),
- which is then divided by the number of tiles.
The resulting figure is still not good enough for my purpose, but at least gives a feeling of how easy or difficult the puzzle might be. It becomes more strange when the number of mines are greater than half the number of tiles. The level division in the Custom Fields is arbitrary for these reasons. When the number of mines is limited to half the number of tiles, the greatest DI value is around 60, in which case the puzzle is practically impossible to clear.
- Probability of a tile hiding a mine:
- Level division in the Custom Fields according to the Difficulty Index:
- Up to 22: Easy
- Up to 28: Moderate
- Up to 38: Hard
- Up to 43: Extreme
- Over 43: Frustrating
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