CheatMine

Welcome to Cheatmine !!! This is a new version of the well known game Winmine for Windows. The list of new features in this version, will definetely revive your interest in the game (in case you have lost it), and will make your enjoyment even greater! In fact you will wonder why all these features were not in Winmine from the very start.

So check out all the new features ... and enjoy !!!

Cheat mode !!!

Greatly Improved Speed

Millisecond accuracy in timing

Best 5 times recorded for standard or custom games

Right click for new game

Board not slippery

Huge custom games possible

Custom configurations remembered

Mine density displayed for custom games

About the Author


Cheat Mode

This feature is the one that gave the actual name to this version. When playing in cheat mode, then the game lies to you in some way. Not all the numbers that you will see on the game board will be true. You will have to prove that they are true in order to be able to open up a square safely.

This most of the times is a real challange for the mind, and is meant basically for the winmine gurus !!! If you are not very proficient in winmine, then don't try this mode yet. It will only give you frustration.

The general problem would be very difficult to solve, so the game provides you with a few hints. Or rather you provide the game with these hints initially. That is, you tell the game in which ways to lie to you, so that at least you get a fair chance to solve the problem.

How the whole mechanism works

Firstly you define how many errors there are going to be in the game. This is absolutely neccessary. If you don't know how many errors there are, then it is impossible to reason, and prove if a number you see on a square is true or not.

Secondly, you define which numbers you trust, and which not. All errors that will appear are "off-by-one" errors. So if you decide not to trust i.e. "three", this means that when you see a "three" on the board you cannot be sure if it is truly a "three", or it is a "two" or a "four" that became a three due to the cheating introduced by the game.

The same thing goes generally. Not trusting a specific number, means that when you see it you cannot be certain if it is what it claims to be. The error will always be "off-by-one". If X is not trusted, then a X might really be a (X-1) or a (X+1).

Of course  you are not restricted to not trusting one number. You can specify any combination, for example not trust 2's and 4's. It is up to you to decide how you want to play. As you can probably imagine it is easy to specify

Menu Commands

To specify the number of errors in the game, choose "Options" from the "Game" menu, and then "Error".  The following dialog box appears :

If you want a normal game, simply choose zero errors.

To specify the trust settings choose "Options" from the "Game" menu, and then "Trust". The following dialog box appears :

Error Information

It's not as easy as it seems to remember the trust settings. For that reason a small popup window appears (by default) when you are playing in cheat mode. This little window shows the number of errors, and the trust settings in a very neat form. Here is an example of it, when the user requested 1 error, and that 2's are not to be trusted :

You can enable/disable the appearing of this window by selecting the command "Show Info" from the "Game" menu. When then are no errors in the game, then this window is automatically hidden.

Best Times

Because the level of difficulty of the errors that actually occur may be radically different from game to game, it was considered that best times should not be recorded for games with errors. That is because what you are trying to achieve when you are playing in cheat mode is not speed, but the uncovery of the error(s), which is conceptually different from trying to solve the board as quick as possible.

Note

It is obvious that you can request non-realistic trust settings, for example "Give me 10 errors, but I only don't trust 7s". It is fairly obvious that such a game is impossible to construct if you are playing in begginer. It is indeed very difficult to find such a board configuration even in expert (searching in random means of course). Chitmine will give a fair try to find a game that suits the number of errors and trust settings that you request. If it is very difficult to find a suitable configuration, then the closest possible configuration will be set, and you will be notified of the achieved number of errors.

Note that in this case the popup window does not reflect the number of errors achieved but the requested number of errors. Trust settings obviously remain correct.


Greatly Improved Speed

Now this is one thing that will be fairly obvious to everyone. Cheattmine is much much faster than Winmine in all aspects.

A new game is initiated in a mere instant. No flushing, and no delays (which are very irritating especially in slower machines). An empty area on the board is opening up lightning fast !!! The bombs are drawn in an instant if you lose.

The speed improvement is definetely obvious, and it contributes to better enjoyability of the game.


Millisecond accuracy in timing

Now this is a really big issue. It is more or less known that Windows timers are not accurate. What you can't probably imagine is how much inaccurate they really are !!!

For example if you play Winmine in expert and achieve a time, let's say 115 seconds, then your real time (if you could record it with a hand held timer clock) is something around 120 seconds !!!

That is really annoying, because it a distortion of reality.

What was also annoying is the slight jump in time that Winmine favours in taking at the beginning of each game. You start a game and the clock immediately jumps to second 2 or 3.

Both of these problems are corrected, and moreover now time is recorded in milliseconds. So you now exactly what your best times are. This makes a real difference, because for example 30.015 is not at all the same as 30.995, as the case would be in Winmine. Now you know if your playing is getting better and better.

The area where the time is being displayed has been widened. Now there are 4 digits for seconds and 3 smaller for the milliseconds, as shown in the picture below :

When playing in beginner, then there is not enough space for 7 digits. So the timer displays 3 digits, only for the seconds. The exact time in milliseconds is displayed on the title bar of the window, as shown below.

Combine this with the fact that the best 5 times are recorded for each kind of game (standard or custom), and now you have new goals to achieve !!!


Best 5 times recorded

The 5 best times are recorded for each game category. This stands for both standard categories (beginner, intermediate, expert), and all custom games. When you designate a specific custom configuration, any recorded high scores for this category are automatically loaded, and displayed in the Best Times dialog box, if you choose the custom option. This way you can play in any favourite configuration and keep track of your progress and records.

Games played in cheat mode (errors>0) are timed, but the best times are not recorded. See the note in the section Best Times of the topic Cheat Mode for more details.

Here is how the best times dialog box looks :


Right click for new game

Yet another killer enhancement !!! If a game is over, you can start immediately a new one with a right click. No need to keep your fingers over the F2 function key, or have to target the little face button in order to start a new game.

This is an immediate addiction feature! Once you try it you will not ever want to use any other way to start a game.


Board not slippery

How many times has it happened that you are playing so fast that the mouse is not following you ? How many times have you clicked on a square in order to open it up, but because your hand was moving fast the square next to it was ultimately opened up, causing you to lose the game and end up in real frustration and anger ?

Well, slippery is the board no more! If you press down the left mouse button on a certain square, it will be the one to open up even if you move the mouse over another square and release it there. The only way not to open the original square is to release the mouse outside the window.

This is a real game-saver, time-saver and sanity-preserver !!!


Huge custom games possible

You can create a custom game as big as your screen can fit! If you try to specify a board width or height that is greater than the screen can fit, you will be notified by an error message.


Mine density displayed for custom games

When you specify the dimensions for a custom game, the mine density is calculated and displayed while you are changing the game settings. Moreover the standard games' densities are also displayed so that you can have an idea of how easy or difficult is the configuration that you have in mind.

Here is how the dialog box looks :


Custom configurations remembered

Custom configurations are remembered by the game, and you can instantly use any of your favourite custom configurations, simply by choosing it from the "Used Configurations" drop down list. The values in the various controls are automatically adjusted when you make any choice from the list.

This way you no longer need to remember the various configurations that you have played. Here is how the dialog box looks :

Note : For a custom configuration to appear in the "Used Configurations" drop down list, you must have finished successfully at least one game in that configuration.


About the Author

The author of Cheatmine is Dimitrios Staikos. I am a graduate student of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. Currently I am a post-graduate scholar in NTUA and the National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos". Feel free to contact me for any bugs (please ...), suggestions for future features, or simply for expressing your opinion ("I hate the game", "I like the game", "I like the game, but I hate you", etc).

My e-mail addresses are :

dstaikos@iit.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr

dstaikos@softlab.ntua.gr

And a (touch of a) copyright notice :

The original idea for the game is definetely not mine, so I can't claim much. This program is freeware. It can be distributed to anybody for private use. Still, distribution of the program through the press (computer magazines and the like in companion diskettes), should not occur without prior permission of the author.