Hi! Thanks for playing our game! Haha, yeah, what are the odds of two mine sweeper games in one game jam - even with 1000 submissions! I have later seen that itch.io is littered with Mine Sweeper clones and variations, so I guess neither of us is uniqe! ;)
We didn't dream up our idea. Instead we brainstormed a lot - we hade horror diving games, hive mind insect games (which I have seen other's have actually made) and much more, but no idea seemed to spark the interest of everyone, until we had this idea of "not being alone in a standard game". Originally we though of games such as chess, but then the brainstorm turned into old classic single player computer games :D
I'm glad you liked the game. About the sometimes unfair placement, that is true. One of our team members is actually a mathematician who wanted to develope an algorithm which makes every game guaranteed to be solvable without taking a chance. But with a board that changes all the time, that didn't seem like the best use of time. Random starts with an element of luck could also be seen as part of the game. But slightly more consistency would be better, for sure.
About the tanks hitting the same spot: Initially they appeared completely at random, but that meant they became irrelevant when most of the board was cleared. Also, it was easy to get stuck with a few unexplored tiles left where it was impossible to deduce the placement of the mines. That's why we made them always aim for unexplored tiles, but that brings the problem you mention. Perhaps we should have made only every second tank or so go for the unexplored ones, and every second appear at random.
Thank you for your in-depth review! It is so interesting to read new perspectives :)