Triple-A Minesweeper

(minesweeper.mikelacher.com)

400 points | by robin_reala 6 hours ago

61 comments

  • devin 3 hours ago
    So good.

    Maybe lean into some of the metal gear solid dialogue by having a long back and forth about "What's a mine?" "What do you mean 'mark a mine'?" "How do I know when I'm done?" etc.

    • siva7 4 minutes ago
      I liked the triple-a minesweeper better than the windows original. First time i won the game.
    • mkobit 3 hours ago
      I really enjoy this trope. The "Zelda Ocarina of Time if it were a modern game" series has the MGS style discussion, and the whole series is incredible.

      Here is the forest temple video which is a short sample of what to expect: https://youtu.be/KC656o7_zVk

    • dormento 2 hours ago
      "Sweeper, press the X button to mark a mine."

      "X... button?"

      "Focus, Sweeper! Sweeper? SWEEPEEEER!"

  • Youden 43 minutes ago
    Does anyone know if the voices are AI-generated? I was a little surprised; I don't think I would have questioned it if I heard them in a real game or video but since this seems to basically be a joke, I'm doubtful real voice actors were used.
    • EleKtr1X 10 minutes ago
      they definitely sound ai generated yeah
  • NSUserDefaults 2 hours ago
    Nice but the logos are skippable, which is not realistic.
    • LugosFergus 2 hours ago
      Also, since it's an Unreal game, it's missing long load times, camera jitter, frame spikes, and dynamic resolution constantly kicking in.
    • guyzero 43 minutes ago
      I wished it was just all into logos and no actual game. That's the real AAA experience.
  • MYEUHD 1 hour ago
  • grumbel 2 hours ago
    There is also the classic "Minesweeper - The Movie"[1]

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHY8NKj3RKs

  • fidotron 3 hours ago
    But I didn't need to install a publisher specific launcher to run it.
    • ravenstine 3 hours ago
      And then be forced to download a 42GiB update.
      • ASalazarMX 1 hour ago
        And accept telemetry and marketing!
  • testycool 5 minutes ago
    Was expecting Hideo Kojima in the credits.
  • Toutouxc 1 hour ago
    I was hoping for the thing where you play through like half of the game and only then it shows you the title against a dramatic vista.
  • theroadnotbacon 3 hours ago
    I was absolutely hoping to see production babies in the credits. Can’t win ‘em all.
    • jameshart 2 hours ago
      No pets credited either.
  • cootsnuck 21 minutes ago
    I'm curious which TTS model was used for the "Nora" voice. I kept noticing vocal artifacts in her speech disfluencies. Which bothers me more than it probably should...
  • xbar 3 hours ago
    I was angry at the wasted 30 seconds of opening licensed 3rd party software listings, but I stayed through to the end of the credits roll, laughing until I cried.

    This is Art.

    • nottorp 3 hours ago
      I think the opening logo sequence is too short. Also it's missing agreement to 2-3 EULAs that you have to scroll down all the way for the accept button to get enabled. And the epilepsy warning. And the disclaimer that it's all a work of fiction.
      • jameshart 2 hours ago
        Failed certification because it didn’t warn you not to turn off when the save icon is spinning.
      • adamanonymous 2 hours ago
        Also missing the redirect to your browser to connect to Epic Games and create a SweeperPro account with 2FA
  • lapetitejort 4 hours ago
    Missing:

    Sidequest to sweep 10 mines.

    Achievement after sweeping 5 mines

    The yellow diamond is nice but what if I don't notice the diamond? I need a colored scent trail leading from my cursor to the yellow diamond, and a pinging noise when my cursor is near a mine

    Mocapped mines

    Jack Quaid

    $70

    • rf15 3 hours ago
      Sorry, did you mean Achievement for Starting the Game for the First Time?
      • buran77 2 hours ago
        "Only 7.89% of gamers unlocked this".
    • jandrese 3 hours ago
      There should be additional audio logs you can find under some squares that provide snippits of backstory.
      • lapetitejort 3 hours ago
        This is minesweeper 33. I'n out sweeping mines and I ran across one that looks different than the others. I'll keep investigating while mine sweeping. I'm recording this 30 second clip onto an entire recording device with a 64gb SD card. I'll leave it on this rock for others to find. Don't worry, I have 11 other devices to record my short messages. Wait, the mine, it's glowing! I can't--
    • RobotToaster 1 hour ago
      Those will be in the $50 DLC
  • donkey_brains 3 hours ago
    So good. Looking forward to level 2 so we can find out what happened in Singapore.
    • jameshart 2 hours ago
      That will be coming in the first DLC in a few months, delayed because it is being developed by a new team after the original development studio was bought by Activision, retasked to making a mobile solitaire game, then laid off.
  • TheAtomic 24 minutes ago
    Is there a help card? Or, how do you turn off the CC captions? They obscure the bottom of the play field on my Mactop.
  • 1970-01-01 14 minutes ago
    Needs a 128GB RAM, 100GB free disk space requirement.
  • LunicLynx 2 hours ago
    Needs:

    - Checkpoints after each mine

    - DLC for rounded corners

    • thesuitonym 1 hour ago
      The DLC is a hat for John Sweeper.
      • hiccuphippo 47 minutes ago
        It really does need a store with skins, several kinds of currencies, and loot boxes!
  • MisterMunchkin 3 hours ago
    Please expand this into a full open-world minesweeping game
  • franze 3 hours ago
    so, in case if you like minesweeper and doom ... https://dreadsweeper.franzai.com/
  • mlekoszek 41 minutes ago
    Needs an 'always online' requirement
  • xoxxala 2 hours ago
    10/10 story. I look forward to the forthcoming motion picture adaptation from Skydance directed by Michael Bay.
    • test6554 2 hours ago
      After Singapore, there just wasn't any choice.
  • m_w_ 1 hour ago
    Great parody - very "Focus, M"-esque. Often, it feels that we've lost sight of "If it's not fun, why bother".
  • jandrese 3 hours ago
    I like the part where it doesn't even matter if you hit a mine, you are on this train ride regardless of what you do.
  • progforlyfe 1 hour ago
    You need to add achievements/trophies! Definitely need to achieve a trophy for clicking on the very first square, finding the first mine, your first flag, etc.
  • ben_w 1 hour ago
    Despite all the stuff it's parodying, this is still a lot better than Bomberman: Act Zero.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomberman%3A_Act_Zero

  • derac 1 hour ago
    What no 30 minute shaders compiling sequence?
  • NSUserDefaults 2 hours ago
    And which half of the staff gets fired day after release?
  • larrydag 1 hour ago
    I love the parody. Is this a treatise on modern game development? I hope so.
  • isoprophlex 3 hours ago
    No lootboxes?
    • ravenstine 3 hours ago
      There aren't even any skins I can buy with my mom's credit card.
  • hiccuphippo 51 minutes ago
    We need a day-1 patch to align the mines to the center of their tile.
  • 361994752 3 hours ago
    the non-stopping narration makes it so hard to actually sweep the mines....
    • nvme0n1p1 3 hours ago
      Don: Sounds like you're getting rusty. The Sweeper I knew in Singapore would never have choked like this from just a little background noise.
    • MitPitt 3 hours ago
      Focus, M.
  • jordigh 1 hour ago
    icymi, we can also do this with Mario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMh_APo2Xss
  • magnat 2 hours ago
    Felix Varga and Johanna Kowalski (Online Services Engineers) must have done a really good job - with all the traffic from the HN front page login servers didn't go down and queue was almost instant.
  • wredcoll 3 hours ago
    That was a great parody, but how much of those effects still worked even though you knew it was coming? The fade ins, blurring the outsides, the emotional voice talking to you... it definitely raised my interest more than just opening minesweeper!

    I mean, it doesn't last very long without something else going on, but there is a reason.

    • thaumasiotes 2 hours ago
      > That was a great parody, but how much of those effects still worked even though you knew it was coming? The fade ins, blurring the outsides, the emotional voice talking to you...

      Worked?

      The game takes a very long time to load. This is funny, but not desirable in an actual game.

      There is voiceover dialogue as you start. You can listen to it, but at some point you'll want to start playing the game.

      There is an indicator telling you which square to clear next. I ignored this for several reasons:

      - I want to know if you're compelled to follow it (you aren't);

      - It's pointing to the wrong square;¹

      - Following it would defeat the entire purpose of playing the game.

      Dialogue continues as you play. But you can't listen to it because your mind is occupied. Following the indicator would solve that problem...

      ¹ There is a game you can find called Hexcells that is supposed to be an "improved" version of minesweeper. The "improvements" are two:

      1. It's a hex grid, not a square grid.

      2. In general, there is only one hex known to be clear at any given time. This means that the structure of the game is that you mindlessly reveal whichever tile you just gained information about rather than suffering under any obligation to think about what you can tell from the board.

      I'm not sure why this was supposed to be an improvement; the only effect is to remove the entire puzzle aspect from a puzzle game. But hey, Steam reviews are "overwhelmingly positive". https://store.steampowered.com/app/265890/Hexcells/

      • johnnyanmac 2 hours ago
        >First, the game takes a very long time to load. This is funny, but not desirable in an actual game.

        In unrealistic fashion, you can in fact mash through the license logos once you load in. So thr game itself doesn't actually take long at all to boot up on a technical level; the delays were a design choice.

  • codeulike 1 hour ago
    I need to sweep these mines.
  • dllrr 3 hours ago
    That's hilarious. Spot on.
  • cgannett 50 minutes ago
    Ok but like... Kojima vibes. 10/10 best trippppllleee AAYYyyyyy game to come out this year lol
  • lafalce 52 minutes ago
    I need to sweep these mines!
  • Lucasoato 30 minutes ago
    Incredible
  • colordrops 34 minutes ago
    First time I've laughed out loud at one of these sorts of things in a while...

    I was expecting it to open up on some WW2 style battlefield with smoke and explosions, but this was better.

  • pianoben 1 hour ago
    I need to sweep these mines!
  • forgotTheLast 3 hours ago
    Where do I enter my credit card info for the Season Pass and the special operator skin?
  • Razengan 3 hours ago
    Pac-Man as a Modern AAA Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaoUVVD-hUc
    • kennywinker 2 hours ago
      I should follow those pac-dots...
  • ixo 2 hours ago
    Sweep (2026)
  • UtahDave 3 hours ago
    This is hilarious
  • avereveard 2 hours ago
    Not even a dlc and cosmetics?
  • cckolon 3 hours ago
    There might be a mine here
  • jjmarr 2 hours ago
    The ending needed to force you to click on a mine so you die in the cutscene lmao.
  • etchalon 4 hours ago
    I laughed way way way too hard
  • duhballs 3 hours ago
    Needs Debra Wilson
  • b3lvedere 3 hours ago
    That was awesome
  • ReptileMan 2 hours ago
    The part where the subtitles hide the mines is the best for me. Also talk with Ubisoft - they make AAAA games.
  • viccis 2 hours ago
    Damn I didn't even have to Press Start to begin
  • bbeonx 2 hours ago
    omg this is brilliant i was IMMEDIATELY tilting my face off
  • serf 2 hours ago
    now add a kernel level rootkit and a monthly subscription which guarantees a set amount of loot-boxes a month.
  • bentt 3 hours ago
    Art
  • justmaris 6 hours ago
    This is fun.
  • fHr 1 hour ago
    Lmao
  • IshKebab 1 hour ago
    lol perfect execution. I cracked up with the smiley face lip sync.
  • peterramsing 3 hours ago
    [dead]
  • iwontberude 3 hours ago
    [dead]