Can you play hex minesweeper without guessing?
Minesweeper looks like a simple game - it’s only tiles and numbers or bombs under them. The goal of the whole game is to find the hidden bombs and not to explode. But sometimes you reach a point where the numbers on the tiles do not give you enough information. So you have some information - like for example that two out of three tiles contain a bomb but then there is no way for you to know where exactly the bomb is. So you have to guess. And it is very annoying. Especially if you already solved most of the field and almost won the whole game.
Can you play hexagonal or classic Minesweeper without guessing? The answer is for sure yes but it depends on the exact game. Minesweeper from one game studio can be very different from the Minesweeper from another studio. Because the key is in how they build the grid and distribute bombs there.
Why do you sometimes have to guess in Minesweeper?
In Minesweeper, every number tells you how many bombs are in the tiles around it. In classic Minesweeper tiles are in the shape of a square and can have up to eight neighbours. Usually, this gives enough information to work out which tiles are safe to click and open and which contain bombs. A very easy example: if a tile says 1 and there is only one closed tile next to it then it’s for sure that this tile is a bomb.
Sometimes you get a situation where two tiles look exactly the same from the information you have. Both could be the bomb. For example, if there are 2 open tiles and 2 closed tiles and both open tiles say 1.
This is a 50/50 situation. At that moment, you can make your best guess and it’s 50% chance that you will lose. This is one of the things I don’t like about classic Minesweeper. The game sometimes forces me to guess instead of solving a puzzle.
What about hexagonal Minesweeper?
Hexagonal Minesweeper has the exact same idea as the classic Minesweeper. The only difference is that the board is made from hexagons instead of squares. This small thing changes the whole game completely. In classic Minesweeper, a tile can have up to eight neighbours but on a hexagonal board, every tile has only six neighbours. Then, a number on a tile tells the player how many hazards are in those six surrounding tiles instead of eight.
On YesPuzzles, both Hex Sense and Hex Minesweeper use this hexagonal Minesweeper idea.
Shouldn’t it make hexagonal minesweeper easier than a normal one?
Yes, but it adds ambiguity and makes the game less fun. That is, until we add an extra piece of information to the number tiles!
The extra clue: the Link symbol
When we were building Hex Sense and Hex Minesweeper we wanted the game to keep the logic and the fun of Minesweeper but also to remove the frustrating 50/50 moments. We wanted the hexagonal board to be fair and require no guessing.
To achieve that we added one extra clue: a small chain-link symbol under some numbers.
The number on the tile tells the player how many hazards are around the tile. The Link symbol gives another piece of information: the hazards around that number are next to each other, without gaps between them.
This gives you more information than a normal Minesweeper number. You can combine it with nearby numbers and work out which tiles are dangerous and which are safe.
You can read more about the Link symbol and the other rules in our How to play Hex Sense guide.
No guessing, just logic
Players liked this so much in Hex Sense that we decided to keep the same idea in Hex Minesweeper. So that the hazards can always be worked out from the available information (excluding daily challenge). In our article No guessing allowed: how we design every Hex Sense level to be solvable, we explain a bit more about why we wanted every level to be solvable by pure logic. The idea is simple: if you are stuck, there is a clue somewhere on the board that you are missing.
Classic Minesweeper vs Hex Minesweeper
Classic Minesweeper is a great logic puzzle and many boards can be solved completely through deduction. But randomly generated boards can sometimes create a 50/50 situation.
Hexagonal Minesweeper changes the board shape and adds the Link clue. This gives the player enough information to solve the puzzle without guessing.
If you like classic Minesweeper but do not like the feeling of losing because of a coin flip, our hexagonal Minesweeper may be worth trying.
Think carefully. Be confident. No luck required.
Written by
Ana