31-08-2003 06:41									#1
	Minesweeper scores? Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Ah, minesweeper: probably the best program Microsoft ever made. I've killed SO many hours just sitting there clicking and staring until I felt like my eyeballs were about to spontaneously extrude. The best I've managed to do, on my current computer at least, is:
12 seconds beginner
76 seconds intermediate
246 seconds expert
How well have you guys done? I know somebody here has to have beaten the 246; until recently I couldn't beat expert at all. Obviously this isn't really anything to brag about, but I'm just asking out of curiosity...

	31-08-2003 06:59									#2
	Support Apolyton

My best four on expert: 54 seconds, 57 seconds, 62 seconds and 64 seconds.

I've heard about a cheat, but never been able to remember what it supposedly is, or find anything that works as a cheat. Obviosly luck is a big factor, but there were a few things I did:

I had a 21" monitor, 6 x 8 pen tablet and trackball for my standard comp setup - the only thing I did was change resolution to 800 x 600.

Next thing, make sure the damned question mark option is off, and I used the pen tablet hand to select, the right click on the trackball hand to identify.

Then I got lucky breaks that didn't leave me with any ambiguous areas.

	31-08-2003 07:01									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I posted a thread about this not too long ago. Currently my best is 160 on expert, but several people here have said they've broken 100. MtG even claims to have had scores in the 50's on expert. There is NO WAY I will get a time in the 50's on expert, ever.

	31-08-2003 07:12									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

If you have a normal mouse/trackball set up, you can barely break 100 with luck. The way I did it was two handed - not cheating, but a definite mechanical advantage when you have a lot of squares to clear.

	31-08-2003 07:26									#5
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Oh, god.

	31-08-2003 09:10									#6
	Tired of ads?

I did 1 second on Beginner. Once. With fast clicking. And a LOT of luck. No cheating or anything. Other than that, my normal score would be about 10-15 on beginner, 60 on intermediate, and 180 on expert.

	31-08-2003 09:37									#7
	Increase the size of your Attachments

20x20 board, 50 mines, 130 seconds.
Just started playing again.
It's been too long.

	31-08-2003 10:01									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I got like a 92 second record on expert level a long time ago, but I have stopped playing Minesweeper for years.

BTW, trackball is better, though you need to get used to it.

	31-08-2003 13:58									#9
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

The cheat was with old versions of windows you could simply edit the text file that keeps the scores. Kinda defeats the purpose of playing though.

	31-08-2003 16:29									#10
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I used to play this incessantly. My expert time was 61, which is pretty much unbeatable unless you have spent hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours playing. The world record was 48. So my hat off to MtG if he is serious about his time in the 50's............we used to keep a worldwide list and the number that broke 60 seconds was small, only a couple of hundred.

	31-08-2003 16:34									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Oh, if you used 2 devices then the time would have been inadmissable.

	31-08-2003 16:34									#12
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Beginner - 3 (pure luck)
Intermediate - 39
Expert - 136

	01-09-2003 07:18									#13
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by DrSpike we used to keep a worldwide list and the number that broke 60 seconds was small, only a couple of hundred.

On expert level though luck is always an issue, so keeping a record wouldn't mean anything.

	01-09-2003 14:02									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Sure you can't go sub-sixty without a good grid. But the skill in speed minesweeper lies in not making any mistakes in the fastest time possible when the chance is there.

Ultimately the nature of the game is that there may be a 50/50 at the end. If you get it right you could call that luck I guess, but it evens out. There is no way you can say players that beat 60 seconds (something which always eluded me - actually I have checked the old lists now and below 60 was nothing like 200, more like 50 tops worldwide, and this was at a time when minesweeper was more popular) are lucky. They are the best players, period.

	01-09-2003 16:00									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Isn't Minesweeper the ultimate Sunday gamers' game Spike?

	01-09-2003 16:19									#16
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

How dare you try and pigeonhole me with such an evil group! Minesweeper (for sub 90 second times anyway) requires a great deal of skill, far more than that possessed by any Sunday gamer.

	01-09-2003 18:19									#17
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Clicking on boxes versus controlling the life of your own sim. Gee, which is more difficult?

	01-09-2003 18:30									#18
	Increase Your PM Length

When you have to click on those boxes at a ludicrously high speed without making a single mistake?

	01-09-2003 18:42									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Clearly you've never tried to get your Sim to work on time in the morning. It requires planning and split-second precision of the highest degree.

	01-09-2003 18:53									#20
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Yeah and it's especially tricky when you are worrying about overcooking the sunday roast at the same time.

	01-09-2003 19:46									#21
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

If I wanted to do that crap I would get an actual life. Geez.

	02-09-2003 19:21									#22
	Suffering from ads?

My best ever was only 69 (get it), but I can pretty easily break 100. I've noticed that it seems harder now than back on my old 486. I wonder if comp speed has anything to do with it, or I'm just getting way to old for this.

	03-09-2003 00:50									#23
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Beginner: 6 seconds
Intermediate: 37 seconds
Expert: 128 seconds

This game is pure evil when you're trying to get anything done..... My biggest gripe is that Expert is usually very difficult to win, because of the mine to square ratio, you usually end up with quite a few dubious ones and end up hitting a mine guessing. Still... 60 seconds on expert? Dear lord....

	03-09-2003 02:25									#24
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Yeah, you'll need to put the comp on the lowest resolution (which makes playing it now rather tedious) (640*480) and turn off the question mark option.

Then it is right click to mark. Right and left click to blow open spaces around marked bombs.

And as for the "dubious mines," don't save them for last. Go ahead and guess while you are there. Also don't mark obvious mines out by themselves in the middle of no where.

	03-09-2003 02:28									#25
	Inflate your Upload Space

All that is true, but if you want regular sub 100 second times there is only one real piece of advice. Play more.

	03-09-2003 05:21									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

My mum set the fastest genuine beginner level minesweeper time I've ever seen - 16 seconds. My own best is about 35.

	03-09-2003 18:52									#27
	Get a bigger avatar today!

It's all a matter of learning to recognize patterns so quickly and respond to them so instinctively that conscious thought gets left out of the loop. For example, 1-2-1 against a wall is obviously bomb-clean-bomb, because any other configuration would have the ones be lies. That setup is sufficiently frequent that if you learn to just right-click, left-click, right-click in a row the second you see it you save a lot of time. Having to actually think is your enemy in minesweeper. While you're thinking you're not clicking as fast as you could be. Sometimes you have to so it's a necessary evil.
And not saving ambiguous cases for later is a good policy PROVIDED there is no way the situation could be made less ambiguous by clearing the mines in a line towards it from another direction, e.g. if it's in a corner. If you have several ambiguous cases on one unresolved mass, it's of course best to just go for the one that offers the best odds and start clicking. Thank god for ones in a situation like that.

	04-09-2003 03:30									#28
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

13, 65 and 183 seconds on my girlfriends computer. I'm not sure if those are my bests. My own computer is turned off, so I can't check.

I'm not really trying to break the records anymore. I'm just playing for distraction and leasure. I'm not planning to get a heart-attack over minesweeper.

	04-09-2003 22:30									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I got a 126 on expert, Although I haven't got better than 150 since that time.

	07-09-2003 02:36									#30
	Increase the size of your Attachments

40-50 second on expert. Simply with mouse.

No, I wouldnt be able to do that at all. Its my friend's record. And he clicks NON STOP. I wonder how he has time to think about where the mines are.... :scary:


so what about me? I think I beat expert mode once in my life. Rest of the times I just get impatient, bored, and click random buttons until either mouse breaks or i hit mine. (How do you people play this game!!!??? )