Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Minesweeper 3D
By littlegamer
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 259 | 2.97 | 26 | |
| Fun | 211 | 3.04 | 27 | |
| Innovation | 144 | 3.34 | 27 | |
| Theme | 191 | 3.36 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 269 | 2.74 | 27 | |
| Audio | 229 | 2.43 | 25 |
This was actually a really cool twist on Minesweeper! It definitely added a new challenge - keeping track of the different layers was actually more challenging than I expected. I did find the camera and background a little disorienting, but the gameplay was really fun and solid. Nice job!
Good challenge!
I can totally imagine this being a fully released game. Maybe as a phone game it feels like a good few-minutes-of-fun kind of game.
I really like idea for such a simple game to go in 3D space. It was quite challenging but the great execution made the game fun. I had only one issue, which was with the camera, maybe it was just me being stupid, but I wasn't able to move it much in the 3D space, I was basically just able to only zoom in and out and change an angle.
But overall really fun game! :)
Would have been interesting to have the layers influence each other instead of being isolated. But nice game nonetheless. Minesweeper is always fun.
@michael-parrish Thank you for your feedback ! If it can ease a future round, if you ever replay it, note that the numbers shown on each tiles are not influenced by tiles below and above. The camera is bad I agree. Was afraid the background would be disorienting, but decided to keep it because a plain color was too harsh on the eyes.
@iluvatar this is definitely a camera problem, it was the first time I did a full 3D project (after a 2.5D one a year ago) so the cam is janky. I realized this too late in the compo too, but on big grids, the camera moves too slowly. Thanks for having pushed through the bad cam.
And thanks for playing to all of you !
@noodlemaster They do have a bit of influence, you cannot reveal a tile if the tile on the same place in the layer above isn't revealed. I originally thought to make the numbered tiles show the vertical mines too, but trying to represent it on paper already looked chaotic. I'll admit it would have been harder to code and that I decided to not bother more on it for this reason too tho. Thanks for your feedback !
Good stuff! Besides the camera stuff people already mentioned it's a super solid entry with depth of gameplay and a really nice twist on a classic. Good work :D
I like the idea of 3d minesweeper!
I think having a way to slot to more 3d revealing camera angles may help with the depth.
The background was _extremely_ nauseating to me though :( I had to stop playing after a few minutes.
Also nice cover image, reminds me of PS1 cases :)
Fun take on minesweeper! I agree it would have been interesting if the layers interacted a bit more, but the way they do interact as is is cool. Hit a couple minor issues: - A couple times my first click was on a mine, which is a bit sad. I'm not sure how exactly the original minesweeper prevents this but pretty sure they stop it happening - I couldn't find any way to hide the text after pressing the "show info" button
Like everyone else is saying, 3D minesweeper was bound to happen at some point, and for good reason. I think it adds much needed depth to the gameplay. Though, it could definitely use some more polish, (would have liked to have the layers be switchable with 1, 2, and 3) this version does the job just fine. Good job!
I really like the idea of taking something simple that all people knows and modify it. It' simple but works well and offer a real challenge.
I love the idea of 3D minesweeper. Seems like the 3D makes it a harder to rule out which spaces have a mine, so it might be more luck-based than 2D minesweeper, but it was kind of trippy trying to solve with the added depth.
Camera was a bit janky, so I mostly kept it in the same place, but the Dwarf Fortress style layer toggle worked pretty well.
Woah lot of comments today ! @argensis I originally wanted to let the player save their own camera angle in the left menu, but time was running out. Also, I tried adding more angles in the menu, but they were hard to scale with the different grids sizes (I'm not good at maths and geometry), so I scrapped the idea after an hours of struggle. Sorry for the background, I must be immune to this kind of nausea because I felt the speed was slow enough, but many people testing it after release told me it was too much.
@benskca Some minesweepers game generate the (graphical) grid, let the player click, and generate the mines and empty tiles on this first click. Was my first minesweeper and thought of doing this to late to refactore the code correctly, so I told myself "the players will think that I didn't have time"... but it's not really an excuse. The show info bug is strange. The close info button wasn't on screen ? Were you playing in browser ? It's probably a resolution problem. I'll make a test.
@coatline This is a good idea, I'll add this if I do a polished version ! Thought it'll be with arrows, since you can have more than 10 grids in height.
@butterflan Thanks for your kind comment !
@sudocoffee omg my game got compared to DF thank you so much, even if it's on a trivial detail this brigthen my day ! I actually thought of doing it in 2D with DF like layers for like, 10 minutes in the jam, but told myself it would be better to experiment 3D a bit with this idea. The 3D does add difficulty here because I haven't written an algorithm that evenly places the mines between layers. Say you have a 10x10x10 grids with 100 mines ; while still unlikely, it's possible you have 9 grids with one or two mines and on grid with the 80+ mines.
Thanks everyone for your feedbacks !
The cover image and overall look and feel reminded me strongly of [roll away](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kula_World).
I miss the ability to clear all cells around a number, and I think the "auto-clear zero" might be a bit bugged (a few cells wouldn't auto-clear despite neighboring a zero cell). Other than that, it's a solid game of minesweeper.
@henk nice catch, Kula world was in my mind when doing the cover image and screenshots ! I take note of the problems you mention.
A fresh take on classic Minesweeper! The sounds ended up a bit loud. But otherwise, a great game!
Graphics and audio are great! There are lots of situations where I have to guess, which isn't great.
A 3D Minesweeper is a good idea. Perhaps a different color scheme per depth level would be a plus.
Nice, solid minesweeper. I was bit off-put by the loud explosion sound. Wish it could've been adjusted.
There is actually a proper place for a link to your game in the game page here. For future reference.
Nice work!
Nice 3D minesweeper. Was not initially clear on the 3d rules but it became obvious after a few plays.
I appreciate the customizability of the minesweeper board it makes it more replayable. The depth mechanic is interesting and fun to work with. The center camera is handy and be able to select what layer to look at. The explosion sound is a bit too loud but the other sounds are great. The graphics and models are great.
This is an interesting change up on classic minesweeper - and a great use of the depth theme. I found the camera controls to be a little awkward but the layer selection was quite good. I'm still unsure on whether the layers interact with each other or not though or if it's effectively just separate games of sweeper but either way it's a cool concept.
Not much to say that hasn't already been said. The implementation is a bit awkward in spots but it's a fun idea that could really see a future if you develop it a bit more.
Not sure you even need an actual 3d world, even just color coded layers would probably be fine.
Cool entry, nice work!
Was on vacation so I couldn't answer for somedays. Thanks to all above this comment for playing and giving feedback !
@pegasys each grid is basically its own minesweeper game, the interaction is only in the fact that you can click on tiles that don't have a tile just above themselves. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to clean each grids because sometimes just clicking one tile of a grid frees enough space to have the tiles below clickables. Schematic example : numbers are the differents floors, O are tiles you can click on, X are tiles you can't click on, _ are empty, freed tiles :
1 _ _ O
2 _ O X
3 O O X
4 X X X
Now let's say here that I click on the left tile on the 3rd floor, and that the three tiles are empty :
1 _ _ O
2 _ O X
3 _ _ _
4 O O O
Even if the 2nd floor right tile is unaccessible, you can still try to click on the 4th floor tiles now because the ones just above it have been freed. It might be clear in game.
@fireslash I'm more and more thinking about digging a bit the idea because several people here said it could be a nice game. The 3D choice was essentially because I'm not confortable with 3D, and want every jam I participate in to help me learn something. It was also a bit easier to visualize the full 3D grid in 3D than in a Dwarf Fortress stimulated 2D manner because it can be rotated in any angle. On big grids it can help to see some intricated or hidden parts and I felt it added to the fun to be able to watch your grid in full 3D (I didn't test this tho, I tried to imagine how the gameplay experience would go with both systems, and tried drawing a 2D version).
Thank you both for your feedback !
I actually enjoyed the background quite a bit, as it fit well with the ps1 cover image. All the puzzle games of that era had weird 3d backgrounds for no reason. As for the game, it felt a little unfair at times because there are no safe places to try on any of the three levels. Original minesweeper doesn't even generate the board until you click, which is why you never lose on the first reveal. You could use something like that since the three layers are independent. Furthermore, I seemed to get into situations where there couldn't possibly be any unflagged mines left but it wasn't clear what to do then. Great work on the late 90s/early 00s vibes and the puzzle game was an interesting twist on a classic.
Great idea good entry !