The game is always solvable, but guessing is generally undesirable — even though it technically remains solvable in a strict sense. There are certain patterns that could make the board unsolvable, or more often, situations where guessing becomes necessary. The real question is: can any board be solved on the first try, given ‘optimal play’? That’s the central point I aimed to explore in my article.
EDIT: Seeing the full comment chain now, it seems like we are just using different definitions of solvable. I'm in the "optimal play ensures victory" camp.
I'm not sure if it was clear that I responded to collieman's comment. I think we have different definitions of solvable. I say a puzzle is solvable, if there is always a logical next move, that will lead to the player winning the game, given the limited information the game provides at the time.
From a game-dev perspective, you might think of solvable, just from a generation standpoint, that there are enough enemies of certain values, that it is not outright impossible to level up enough to win. From a player standpoint that's not enough, since in addition to these enemies existing, I also have to have enough information to find them at the time that I need them. Minesweeper itself (on expert level) doesn't have that and includes forced guesses, which can be somewhat skewed in your favor by calculating probabilities. But that means it is not 100% solvable, because you cannot solve it (without guessing) 100% of the time. And, obviously, when you have to guess, you sometimes lose, without any wrong play on your part.
I'm not even necessarily disputing, that the game is always solvable, if you ignore the pacifist achievements. But them saying, it's 100% solvable, but you need luck just makes no sense.
Agreed - players and devs often see this slightly different. Essentially, it’s “guess” vs “no-guess” maps.
Many Minesweeper fans today prefer no-guess boards, while others enjoy the added challenge of probability-based decision-making. It adds another layer to the game. It’s a matter of preference.
In Dungeon Squire and Dragonsweeper, most maps don’t require guessing, but some rare tough seeds do, like this one. I actually enjoyed it, even though (or because of) some guessing involved. The fun is to determine the safest square vs the square promising progress, that is: risk vs gain. There wasn’t any 50-50 though, but more like 1:3 or better, which feels fair.
I only play NG minesweeper. The frustration of working on a puzzle for 5-10 minutes, only to lose through no fault of my own defeats the purpose for me. I had long talks with other minesweeper fans to try and understand what the allure is. Sure, being able to do the probabilities correctly raises the skill ceiling a little bit, but if it doesn't lead to victory, then what was the point? What skill have you demonstrated?
There's not another human player who was simply better, so doing your best still has meaning, or it's not a very hard end boss in a video game someone has designed to be obtuse and a bit random. It's just bad RNG.
But like I said, it's just my outlook. Perhaps my expectation, that any given task should be solvable, or at least should've been if I was more skilled, is flawed.
I suppose those who like traditional (guessing) boards over NG, accept the risk of losing in order to benefit from the added meta games guessing-boards provide.
There’s 2 layers “meta games” added compared to NG.
- analyse which fields got the lowest risk of a mine
- analyse which field provides most “gain”, that is progress or meaningful hints
Often higher risk fields provide better gain, which makes it worth taking the risk.
It’s that added challenge that makes it fun (for me), even at the risk of losing the game without making actual mistakes. Nevertheless I also like playing NG, to me it’s just a different way to play 🙂