Minesweeper
Rules[edit]
Place mines into the un-numbered cells in the grid, at most one mine per cell, so that each number in a cell represents the number of mines adjacent to that cell (including diagonally adjacent cells).
(Rules and example from PGP IB)
Rule variations[edit]
- Sometimes the total number of mines are given.
- Shape Minesweeper: Instead of single-cell mines, this variant requires solvers to place a given set of shapes in the grid. Probably the oldest of this type of variation is "Battleships varia #2" from WPC 1999/Part 9. The objective was to place a standard fleet of battleships so that numbers in a cell represent a number of ship segments adjacent to it. Most puzzles require shapes not to touch each other, but a puzzle from WPC 2017/Round 4 allowed it.
History of the puzzle[edit]
The first Minesweeper game on PC appeared in 1983.[1] See the Wikipedia article on the game for more details.
Variants[edit]
Shape Minesweeper and Triangular Minesweeper are both variants of Minesweeper, but since they are both recurring to WPC and very distinct from normal Minesweepers, they have separate articles.
Sudoku[edit]
Originally appeared on Grandmaster Puzzles. Author of the puzzle was Serkan Yürekli (Turkey). In WPC 2023 the name was shortened to "Minedoku".
Place mines into the un-numbered cells in the grid, at most one mine per cell, so that each number in a cell represents the number of mines adjacent to that cell (including diagonally adjacent cells). Also, each row, column, and bold region must contain exactly the indicated number of mines.
(Rules and Example from Grandmaster Puzzles)
Appearances in the past WPCs[edit]
- WPC 2023/Round 6 (part of a combination puzzle) by Serkan Yürekli
- WPC 2023/Round 7 (Sudoku, Myopia) by JinHoo Ahn
- WPC 2019/Round 9 by Ulrich Voigt
- WPC 2019/Round 10 by Sebastian Matschke
- WPC 2017/Round 12 by Amit Sowani
- WPC 2017/Round 22 by Prasanna Seshadri
- WPC 2016/Round 9 by Matúš Demiger
- WPC 2015/Round 1 (Cylindrical) by Andrey Bogdanov
- WPC 2014/Round 14
- WPC 2013/Part 9
- WPC 2012/Part 2
- WPC 2011/Part 11
- WPC 2010/Part 13 (Broken)