alt.hn

7/26/2026 at 12:51:03 PM

Show HN: Reverse Minesweeper

 https://sunflowersgame.com/

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 9:29:05 PM

MSN MESSENGER HAD THIS!

I used to play this with a friend. You would take turns, that is, the mines would reveal themselves in real time, and your turn ended if you missed a mine.

Then the game would call you a slut when it ended, because my friend's MSN was in Swedish.

by Kuraj

7/26/2026 at 8:05:42 PM

There were a few boxes in the game I just played that didn't have enough information; e.g. only one number pointed to them and you couldn't reason it out. I think it's the kind of thing in regular minesweeper where it would've auto-cleared it when I opened a box next to it. I didn't take a screenshot but I hope that makes sense - I suppose maybe once you play the game more you'd learn that these are safe x's, but I found it to lack real information. I looked around for a tip or something on it but didn't quickly find anything

by ltsSmitty

7/26/2026 at 9:22:11 PM

Helpful feedback thanks.

But yes there is always a logical next step to be made that can be fully reasoned out. The hint (lightbulb) icon will show you this step when you are stuck.

Disclaimer the hint system is definitely not perfect yet but should at least point you in the right direction.

Please do send a screenshot if you find yourself stuck again it would be useful for me to improve the deisng

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 8:21:13 PM

it is possible in normal mine sweeper to have a postion where you cant determine 100% whether a square is a mine or not. In this cases you just have to guess. Try to identify them early as possible since they can ruin the game with an unlucky guess.

by jaffa2

7/26/2026 at 9:22:58 PM

Yes this was possible in minesweeper but something I tried to eliminate in sunflowers. You never have to guess even at the hardest difficulty levels

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 8:39:41 PM

[dead]

by MagicMoonlight

7/26/2026 at 3:25:26 PM

I don’t understand how this is reverse minesweeper when it’s just minesweeper with flowers instead of bombs.

by hyperhello

7/26/2026 at 3:32:36 PM

Yeah it's maybe not the best way to describe it, but my intention is all clues already visible at the start rather than exploration, and adding in flowers rather than avoiding mines.

The main difference is having all the clues visible at the start changes it to a search and deduction logic style rather than reveal and react

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 6:55:27 PM

It is the right way to describe it, that guy just doesn't remember how minesweeper worked.

by tracerbulletx

7/26/2026 at 3:50:11 PM

In that sense, this game is similar to Mosaic[1] where the clues are all initially visible, except in Mosaic the count includes all 9 cells since black squares can be placed on the numbers themselves.

[1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mosa...

by omoikane

7/26/2026 at 4:25:56 PM

Another example is this Steam game which I play occasionally: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3083300/Proverbs/

by kevinwang

7/26/2026 at 6:32:17 PM

From the same developer

> https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/divide-the-plunder

I particularly like "Mosaic of the Strange"

> https://store.steampowered.com/app/3444650/Mosaic_of_the_Str...

You will in particular like this game if you are into conspiracy theories. If one switches the difficulty to the hardest one, HN readers might have some fun with this game. :-)

by aleph_minus_one

7/26/2026 at 9:23:53 PM

Great thanks for sending these

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 4:31:58 PM

In minesweeper you start with nothing visible and explore while avoiding the bombs. In this you start with all of the hints visible and place the bombs.

However in practice it is very similar since identifying where the bombs are to not click them is exactly the same logic as identifying where the bombs need to go. The only functional difference ends up being that all of the hints are visible upfront rather than needing to discover them.

by kevincox

7/26/2026 at 4:54:08 PM

it reverses right and left click

by testaccount28

7/26/2026 at 8:21:18 PM

This is very similar concept to "0h h1" https://0hh1.com/ which I've been playing every day on Android for a couple of years now. I had never considered it to be a reverse minesweeper.

by amanzi

7/26/2026 at 8:33:56 PM

Isn't that just like Binoxxo? I've solved Binoxxo's every time I came across a newspaper.

Online example for the curious: https://raetselwelt.online/en/puzzles/binoxxo/

by TobTobXX

7/26/2026 at 8:47:53 PM

That looks like an interesting game, I'll bookmark it. But no - it appears to be a different concept.

by amanzi

7/26/2026 at 7:15:31 PM

I did have to guess. If I'd have known how many mines there were, I wouldn't have though.

https://imgur.com/a/idfj1my

edit: I'm wrong. Thanks steve.

by yammajr

7/26/2026 at 9:29:10 PM

For everyone: Whenever you think you have to guess, use the hint feature.

In the more advanced levels you essentially have to "guess" then check whether the guess (e.g. using "pencil mode") leads to a valid solution or a conflict.

by tgsovlerkhgsel

7/26/2026 at 7:50:55 PM

First column, there's a 2 in the second row from below that already has two sunflowers. So the 3rd adjacent field must be empty.

by Tepix

7/26/2026 at 7:30:58 PM

The "4" clue forces the solution imho.

by MK2k

7/26/2026 at 7:36:10 PM

[dead]

by Steve6

7/26/2026 at 7:58:44 PM

Im curious how youve set up the multiple puzzle games you have to generate two daily puzzles each? It cant be entirely by hand or entirely AI driven?

by dyarosla

7/26/2026 at 5:38:37 PM

Jumped from medium to insane and didn't notice any difficulty bump. Were the puzzles designed by AI, eg arc agi puzzles are trivial for humans but very difficult for LLMs.

by 0x1ceb00da

7/26/2026 at 3:46:56 PM

Actually really fun

by adzm

7/26/2026 at 4:56:21 PM

I love it. Reverse minesweeper describes it perfectly.

by gkfasdfasdf

7/26/2026 at 4:35:17 PM

It's cute and friendly, how it explains the rules. Maybe instead of a red box for making a mistake, the sunflower could "shake its head" to mean "no". Anyway the game feels well-designed with a focused scope, nice work!

by lioeters

7/26/2026 at 1:02:41 PM

Awesome idea

by da-x

7/26/2026 at 1:06:51 PM

Thanks! Not perfect yet but I think it has potential. Would love any feedback

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 3:31:32 PM

I jumped directly to insane and completed it on the first try. It's too easy.

by Kuinox

7/26/2026 at 3:49:44 PM

And if you find a puzzle you like the difficulty of could you tell me the puzzle id at the top left please

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 3:47:07 PM

I've just tried to bump insane up a bit if you could test it to let me know what you think?

I'm struggling to play test the higher difficulties because it above my own skill level haha

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 4:01:52 PM

Insane is still far too easy. For the highest skill level it should be -really- hard. Was still able to solve one in under 3 minutes.

I -love- this idea though!!

by kybishop

7/26/2026 at 3:21:12 PM

I guess I am mildly discomfited by the red flower. if the program is going to tell me every time I fail to think through things properly, then my role here is kinda limited to driving the mouse.

by convolvatron

7/26/2026 at 3:28:59 PM

Helpful feedback thanks. I am trying to make it a bit more forgiving for first time players to learn the logic.

Then in easy mode and above you are given max 3 mistakes similar to sudoku.com and other popular logic puzzles

by pompomsheep

7/26/2026 at 4:53:35 PM

Honestly looks far more obvious than the original to me.

I like how ai agents make it possible to experiment with different game concepts.

I merged Go with Tetris while brainstorming some ideas.

https://goban.molodtsov.me/

by ymolodtsov

7/26/2026 at 1:16:39 PM

[flagged]

by Recoordinates29

7/26/2026 at 3:41:18 PM

[dead]

by fllkfsalkdsfds

7/26/2026 at 5:24:58 PM

[dead]

by BlackSharkDev