This is very similar to “Mosaic” on Simon Tatham’s puzzle webpage. There it is noted that: “This game is variously known in other locations as: ArtMosaico, Count and Darken, Cuenta Y Sombrea, Fill-a-Pix, Fill-In, Komsu Karala, Magipic, Majipiku, Mosaico, Mosaik, Mozaiek, Nampre Puzzle, Nurie-Puzzle, Oekaki-Pix, Voisimage.”

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

Single click places an x instead of a sunflower. I solved the puzzle but placed those xes instead of sunflowers and was confused why it doesn't say I solved it. I would suggest making a single click be the main action, ie placing a sunflower.

But you have 3 mistakes you can make, and you spend one when you accidentally place a sunflower. I played through all the daily puzzles and have started into the master puzzles and I'm glad flower is double click, because a misplaced X is free, but a misplaced flower is not.

It would be far too easy to accidentally tap the screen and burn a Mistake, and if its your last one that would be frustrating.

Rather than counting mistakes, just allow mistakes, and just not let the puzzle get solved until it’s complete without mistakes.

This is how most of Simon Tatham’s puzzles work, and that works well.

Sure, but then it's easier, and you can just keep clicking around by trial and error without thinking about it, which is a boring way to play.

> This is how most of Simon Tatham’s puzzles work, and that works well.

They btw also have a feature that swaps main and secondary action when toggled, which could work here.

It has the option to play a tutorial that explains the controls

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

It's reverse in the sense that you've been given the numerical hints, and instead of clearing the mines, you need to place them. That feels pretty "reverse" to me.

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

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

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...

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

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. :-)

linking my favourite sweeper variant: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=mamonosweeper&ia=web ;

try this one in html5: https://hojamaka.com/game/mamono_sweeper_h2/html5/en.html

Great thanks for sending these

This reminds me a bit of one mode (squared) from Picture Enigmas (https://picture-enigmas.com/#features) which I like to play from time to time.

I agree with you that it's not quite minesweeper, but I also agree with the parent that it's not reverse either. It's sorta just expedited minesweeper

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.

You don't place the bombs, but still find the bombs. And you still explore by finding x.

Because "contrapositive minesweeper" doesn't roll off the tongue.

Hello Daniel! Do you have a landing page/portal for all these games so I can go through them one by one of a morning (a bit like the NYT games)?

Not to take away from the poster's work, but I believe this exists already (please correct me if I'm wrong): https://puzzlemadness.co.uk/minesweeper/hard

I've been doing these for a long time, which is why this game seemed familiar to me.

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

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

I think i experienced the same thing: there appeared to be no logical next step and it was necessary to make a best guess. I probably just didn't see the next step, but I thought it's ok if you have to occasionally guess. Anyway, great game! Congrats, very entertaining, I reckon you have a good chance of going viral.

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.

It is also possible to implement minesweeper such that all positions are solvable unambiguously, see https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mine...

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

It is really good but it needs a dark theme. My eyes!

There is one hidden away in the settings menu if you tap the sunflower top left! Will make it more clear it exists

This is great! Did a few rounds, will come back.

A few months ago someone on HN shared Dragonsweeper and it completely hooked me and my wife to the point that we had to agree to break up with it. https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper

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.

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.

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.

The "4" clue forces the solution imho.

The "2" in col 1 row 5 already has 2 flowers, meaning the empty space in col 2 row 4 must be blank. So a flower belongs in the square above that one and the corner will be blank. No guessing needed.

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.

I know it as binairo, which I have seen in paper magazines. On Simon Tatham’s puzzle collection it is known as unruly: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/unru...

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/

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

this is great! very nice ui, and quite challenging on the high difficulties.

reminds me of 14mv a bit - and judging by the reactions to it on steam you're going to get so many false bug reports from people not used to the long deduction chains haha

(a suggestion to try the hints near the feedback form might help curb this a bit..)

one qol thing I missed is that clicking a number to fill in the neighbours only works for crosses and not sunflowers (and doesn't work for "0" clues)

Actually really fun

Maybe count perfect solves in a separate average than solves with mistakes?

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?

For any game that is able to procedurally generate a "random" puzzle, you can simply seed a deterministic PRNG with a seed derived from the date. No AI or hand-generation required.

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.

Strangely I also easily solve insane, then I try extreme. First I can solve with difficulty, second I almost gave up and it do need some whole board logic. Haven't tried third.

Cool idea but the page doesn’t scroll and the bottom of the puzzle is cut off on smaller res, so - broken for mobile

Could you let me know which device please and i will fix

I love it. Reverse minesweeper describes it perfectly.

Very fun. Shared it with my parents and they're into it too.

I'm not a big fan of puzzle games but these are great.

Are the clues hand coded?

Awesome idea

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

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

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

I trained to play insane, usually a just bit slower than average, after using hints for couple times.

I suggest larger levels (yes, scrolling and zooming might be required). After all, minesweeper is the most interesting on the largest level.

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!!

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

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.

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

Neat game! I enjoyed it!

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!

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 and that is the word for "end"

No, that was regular minesweeper. The difference in this new version is that all the clues are revealed in the beginning.

Ah yes - my bad. I fixated on the part where you have to uncover the mines instead of avoiding them.