Widget Watch: Minesweeper
There goes all my productivity for the next month. Apple Downloads is featuring a Minesweeper Widget. It's free. It's a replica of the only aspect of Windows I have ever loved. I knew a guy once who could finish the large minefield in Minesweeper in under 2 minutes on the hardest setting without setting off a bomb nine times out of ten. Ever since I witnessed this near-ninja feat, I have been addicted to this game and the idea of becoming just that good at it. I've already downloaded this widget, but so far I've managed to resist the ever-growing temptation of installing it.
If I disappear for several days, you know what has happened....

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Al said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Still doesn't beat my 273-game winning streak in FreeCell (don't ask me how long I played)
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Andrew Kaufmann said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
It's possible he near-ninja feat was accomplished through the old tried but true Minesweeper cheat... http://www.pcgameworld.com/cheat.php/id/3457/Minesweeper_Cheats/
Not to imply that your friend is a cheater. Just something to think about... I never knew someone that was ninja-good that didn't use the cheat! I knew people that were very, very good -- but not 9 out 10 ninja good. i've found that sometimes there are simply times when you can't determine, definitely, where a mine is. And probability laws I'm guessing would state that happened at least one out of 5 times... so assuming you played the perfect game every time, you'd still lose more than 1 out of 10. But I could be wrong. As usual.
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doug said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
One day, I decided "Hard" wasn't hard enough, and decided to do an entire expert level board without marking a single bomb.
I highly recommend it if you want to test your concentration for an inordinately long period of time.
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Brian said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
I love Minesweeper too....but I'm hoping for one to come out that is a little more advanced in looks. a nice gel-like, ready to lick one.
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samkim said 6:16AM on 12-06-2005
i just downloaded that earlier today. My friends best time on Expert Mode (the biggest one) is 81 seconds. She's a boob that way. Watched her do it. AMAZING...
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Michael May said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
I was very happy until I came to post here - then I realised that 144 seconds for beginner wasn't such a good time.
But I just realised playing now what the numbers stand for - I thought before the number was how many squares away the nearest mine was. Needless to say, I didn't used to do too well. I'm still not sure how I didn't work that out previously, when I was playing on windows.
See, OS X makes you smarter! QED.
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pocket said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
I'm gonna go with the first poster, Al. My girlfriend has been playing Freecell for the last few years on her PC. Since Freecell produces the same arrangement of cards based on the game #, she decided she wanted to beat them all. While beating them all is pretty much impossible, she has beat several thousand of them in consecutive order.
Now if only there was a Freecell widget... she would have no more excuses for not switching. And yes, she loves Freecell that much that she uses it as an excuse for not switching.
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Jonathan Horak said 6:07PM on 9-07-2005
Sweet! My girlfriend will totally dig this — she's a Minesweeper (on Windows) addict.
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Jonathan Horak said 6:07PM on 9-07-2005
Weird... No icon for this widget in the Dashboard Bar?
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Noah Brier said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
I was a Minesweeper addict. My best time was 119 seconds on expert. Then I found out that a friend of a friend got 81 seconds and I was ruined forever. I could never play with the same level of excitement again. Just thought I'd share.
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Jack said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
MINESWEEPER WIDGET DEVELOPER: Anyone from a species that has mastered intergalactic travel raise your hand?
APPLE COMMUNITY: I'm sorry. Your game is very nice.
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Detrusor said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Of course they are many cheats in Minesweeper, but there is now a clone of Minesweeper which allows to record videos and also provide proofs of records. This way, most of records displayed on the official best ever ranking are genuine
http://www.planet-minesweeper.com/bestever.php
If you want to watch the videos linked on that list, you need to download the Minesweeper Clone
http://www.geoticies.com/minesweeperclone
Btw, my personnal records are 1sec for beg, 13 for int and 54 for exp
Bye
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Jonathan Horak said 6:07PM on 9-07-2005
Restart seems to have brought me a Minesweeper Dasboard Bar icon. Now that I've seen it though, I'd be happier to find it gone again.
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