The difficulty was slightly tweaked in Windows 2000 and onwards, and Microsoft hired Oberon to do a full rewrite for the Vista version. The main alterations to the game have been simple ones. It's a relatively simple game of deduction, but satisfying. To win, you have to clear the field without touching a mine. The numbers tell you how many mines are in the adjacent boxes, the mines kill you dead. Underneath each is either a space, a number, or a mine. In the unlikely event you've never played it, the gist is that you start with an empty field (its size and number of mines determined by difficulty setting) and have to uncover squares one at a time. Minesweeper was a Microsoft original, written by Robert Donner and Curt Johnson, and hasn't changed much over the years. Typically, Microsoft has written the core games, and farmed the others out to external companies, like Oberon Media for Purble Place (and the latest version of Minesweeper itself) in Windows Vista, and Maxis for Pinball back in Windows 95 Plus! (Note: actual excitement may not have justified the exclamation point.) Most recently, Microsoft promoted Spider Solitaire to official Windows game for Vista, with the robot puzzle game Tinker the last of the utterly mis-named Windows Ultimate Extras. PINBALL: 3D Pinball was one of the most popular Plus! games, and like many, later given away free in Windows
Other games, like Pinball, HoverBowl and Spider Solitaire, have been added to Windows over the years in the form of Plus! packs, but never really become well known until added to the actual operating system. Still, it has its fans, and it served as an excellent way for Microsoft to prove that Windows 95 had a chance of replacing DOS as the gamer's operating system of choice. The more advanced Solitaire was a primer for drag-and-drop controls, just as the more recent puzzler Inkball was intended to get people more comfortable with pen based controls on the Tablet PCs that never actually took off.Įasily the least memorable of the set was Hover, partly because 3D in Windows is no longer a technological feat by anyone's standards, but mostly because it was astronomically dull. It was partly intended as a way of teaching people basic mouse controls in an era where most computing had been text-based. Like most Windows games, there's more to Minesweeper than just killing time.
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