Microsoft Minesweeper

Minesweeper was first created for the IBM’s OS/2. It was first officially released as a part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack one and was first included in the standard install of Windows 3.1. In Windows 8 and the later versions of Windows it was removed, but an updated version of it was placed into the Microsoft Store. This is what that version of Minesweeper looks like. (this version of Microsoft Minesweeper has a lot of advertisements, so think twice before downloading this particular version).

 

Minesweeper is a classic puzzle game where your objective is to find all the mines without dying to them. As you can see from the picture above, there are currently six modes that Microsoft Minesweeper has to offer. 

The first four modes are normal modes, The first one is easy and it has a 9×9 playing field, the second one is medium with a 16×16 playing field, the third one is expert it is a 30×16 playing field and the fourth one is custom. In custom mode you can choose how big your playing field is and how many bombs there are. Your playing field can have a minimum of 9×9 and a maximum of 30×24. The maximum amount of bombs in the 9×9 is 64 and the maximum for the 30×24 is 667.  

The other two modes of Microsoft Minesweeper are Adventure and Daily challenges. The Adventure mode gives you a change of pace if you are tired of just plain old Minesweeper. The goal of Adventure mode is to get as much gold as possible and reach the exit while avoiding traps and monsters. Traps and monsters? The traps in Adventure mode act as the mines in normal mode and monsters are a new addition. In adventure mode you start with three hearts, each time you uncover a “trap” you lose a heart. There are a lot more features in adventure mode such as weapons, clovers, dynamites, and pickaxes etc. That’s all that we will cover on adventure mode as there are a lot of features that can be talked about another time.  

The Daily challenges mode is self-explanatory. There are five different kinds of challenges that you can encounter, flags, treasure hunts, taps, detonation and classic. The classic mode gives you a time limit to complete the level and a maximum number of mines you can activate. The taps mode requires you to clear a certain number of squares with a maximum number of mines that you can detonate. The treasure hunt objective is to find the treasure surrounded by bombs with a maximum number of bombs you can detonate. The flags mode will make you flag a number of mines. The detonate mode requires you to detonate a certain number of mines in a certain amount of moves in a certain amount of time. That is what Microsoft Minesweeper has to offer as of 2021.