Mines

Mines by Ian Heath is a Minesweeper variant for Windows 3.1, released in 1990.

At first glance, it seems very much like Minesweeper, but the goal is somewhat different: rather than finding all mines on the playing field, your task is to find a mine-free path from the upper left corner to the lower right. You can walk any direction including diagonals in order to reach your goal. The game includes the same marking functions that Minesweeper had, allowing you to mark a square as mined or possibly mined, but these are only for your reference in Mines.

Although you can’t change the size of the playing field, you can choose the number of mines on it. The default, 30 mines, is quite easy, but the difficulty grows quite a bit as the number of mines increases. The maximum, 160 mines, is very difficult indeed.

Every generated playing field is solvable: some path exists through the mines, though, as with Minesweeper, it may not be possible to determine for sure where the mines are. In the above screenshot, for example, the mine on the third column of the first row could have been moved down one without changing the numbers shown when the game started–it’s not possible to be sure any move is safe, though the square down-right of the 3 was definitely mined.

Mines can be downloaded here.

Gameplay: 8/10

The concept is great–it’s definitely one of the best Minesweeper variants I’ve played. Most ‘variants’ only change up the size of the board, or something equally tiny. The only reason this didn’t score higher is that the game lacks keyboard controls, which seem like the natural input method for a game like this, and has no timer.

Graphics: 7/10

Mines looks basically like Minesweeper, which is to say plain but not bad. The feet that represent the player blend in a little too well for my taste, but it’s otherwise fine.

Personal Slant: 8/10

The addition of a timer, keyboard controls, and maybe the ability to change the board size would have made this a 9 or even 10, but it’s still quite good even without these things.

Total: 7.7/10

Mines is a fairly original variant on Minesweeper, and a pretty well-done one at that. Anyone who likes Minesweeper ought to give this one a try.

Lucas’s Problem

Lucas’s Problem is a Windows 3.1 implementation by James Curran of a puzzle created by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas, who also created the more famous Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

The object is to reverse the positions of the colored blocks, so that red fills the right, and blue the left. Each color of blocks can only move in one direction (indicated by the arrows on these blocks) one space, or jump over a block of the opposite color.

There is, I think, only one way to solve this puzzle (up to reflection), so there’s not much to say. The puzzle isn’t hard to solve when you realize what situation leads to an unwinnable game, so this hasn’t got any replay value.

You can download Lucas’s Problem, or play a web based implementation, at Novel Theory

Gameplay: 8/10

The game works and responds to clicks as expected. The puzzle is pretty clever, though not an invention of the game’s creator. There’s nothing wrong with the game, but there’s just nothing to it, so 8 is the highest score I can give it.

Graphics: 6/10

The graphics are very simple, but acceptable given the scope of the game. One can imagine a more visually pleasing implementation of the puzzle, even in 1990, so minus a few points for not really trying there.

Personal Slant: 5/10

Although I really do think that Lucas’s puzzle was quite clever, Lucas’s Problem has no replayability and offers no value beyond the satisfaction of solving a nice, though simple, puzzle.

Total: 6.33/10

The lack of replayability in this one was a killer for the game’s score. I’m not sure what could have been done to alleviate this–perhaps if the scope of the game had been larger, implementing several similar games, like Towers of Hanoi, it might have made the game worth a second look. As it is, though, even if the puzzle is worth remembering, the game will be soon forgotten.

First Impressions: The Adventures of Rad Gravity

The Adventures of Rad Gravity is a platform shooter by Activision.

The game begins by giving us our mission: to discover teleport locations by infiltrating the computers on the planet below.

With this goal in mind, we are sent down to begin. The enemies are rather odd, and the level designs leave a great deal to be desired.

It isn’t obvious from these pictures, but certain of the blocks which make up the scene can be walked through, and others must be jumped over. There’s no particular indication which is which, although I think that they are color coded.

After passing through a few screens, we encounter these robots, which are initially very difficult to kill. The weapon we have at the beginning is some sort of energy knife or something, and its range is about the width of Rad’s body. The robots move fairly quickly, so you have to tap the button pretty quickly as well in order to kill them.

As you move through the level you pick up powerups, including additional life bars and a gun, which seems to be slightly less powerful than the knife, but has the enormous advantage of being a ranged weapon.

Not all the levels are identical, as you can see in the above screencap. The thing with the up/down arrows on it is a sort of elevator (which I got stuck on and had to jump to disembark), and the thing center-right is a teleporter.

Here we see an example of extremely stupid level design. Every horizontal line is a surface, so you can–if you release buttons at the right moments–move yourself to whichever height you desire. Of course, it’s much easier to dodge the electricity (which is bouncing between the ceiling and floor) when you’re at the bottom of the screen, since it gives you more time to run past it, so there’s no particular reason you want to be anywhere except on the the ground.

If it weren’t for the rather painful graphics and horrible level design, Rad Gravity might be a pretty good game. If you can stomach those faults, give it a try.

First Impressions: 75 Bingo

A horrible slots game by Sachen, the company that gave us Tasac and other gems.

I don’t have much to say on this one, since I don’t see the point of these games that are totally luck-based gambling simulations.

Verdict: Like other Sachen games, and other gambling sims, just don’t bother.

First Impressions: Flying Warriors

Yeah, it’s out of order. I hit ‘random game I haven’t played’ and I got this:

Flying Warriors. It sounds like some kind of shooter maybe. Airplane game. That’s cool, I liked 1943. So, what do I get? Castlevania if it sucked and had a boring training sequence. But before training, some important wisdom:

Okay, on to the training. Since the designers went to all the trouble of putting in training, this game must have some complex controls, or something. Let’s see:

Yes, that’s right. Toward automatically blocks at the right level, and B automatically punches at the right level. You get to practice these complex manoeuvres several times before you grasp them fully.

Yes! I am a master! I can now go out and make the world a better place! But, first, a practice match against sensei. Well, sure. I’m a master now. Piece of cake.

So we fight and… he beats me down. Badly.

So it’s back to training. Never mind that training couldn’t possibly help me, and that a monkey could manage these controls. So, we train again, he declares me a master again, we fight again, I lose again. Repeat. Repeat…

Finally, I win. So we get a scene change.

So, the game begins with an exciting… empty screen! I have to move off it to an entirely different scene to get to the actual game. What was the point? Why waste my time putting this scene in if there’s nothing here? The next scene is some kind of mountain area, which kind of matches with the description, but that does not explain what the point of this last scene was.

So, after that painfully long training and practice fight, we expect challenge, yes? But the enemies all die in one hit! The hardest part is managing the movement controls, since it seems to be impossible to make Rick (our hero) jump the way you want him to. After a couple of screens full of these zombie-like wimps, we enter a cave, filled with more of the same, as well as the far more dangerous bottomless pits.

In fact, these pits are so much more dangerous, that they even kill the enemies, who just jump off like lemmings. But, remember how I said that jumping correctly was the hardest part?

Yes, I too jump off like a lemming. The game tells me that Rick doesn’t let this stop him. Fortunately, it does stop me.

Verdict: You can’t skip the long intro, you have to go through boring training and practice fights, only to get to a game that acts like a bad rip off of Castlevania. Better to leave this one alone.