About this game Mine Rush
Development notes
One seed, one fair opening
Both players dig a field built from the same seed, because with different boards 'mine was harder' would always be true. I first set only a minimum size for the free opening. Across 500 measured boards it covered a median 34% of the safe cells and up to 77%, so match length depended on the draw. The generator now rerolls up to 200 times until the opening is 12 to 20 cells, and all 500 measured boards land in range.
Freezes instead of elimination
If one mine ended the match, a four-minute game would turn on a single mistake, and a fixed 3-second freeze would make a 50/50 guess a fair trade, so the penalty grows with every hit. Several mines from one chord count once, and exploded mines count as flags: that one wrong judgement has already been punished.
Smoke hides what you know
Covering unopened cells would barely hurt, since the opponent could dig elsewhere. Hiding opened numbers turns solved cells back into guesses. Smoke charges as you make progress on your own board, so it rewards reading the board rather than guessing. The shooter isn't told which cells were covered, because that list would show where the opponent has dug.
The mines stay on the server
Online, your device receives only the results of your own moves, and the mine positions arrive when the match ends. The opponent is a progress bar, not a minimap, because their opened cells would give away answers. Practice and Today's minefield build the board on your device from a seed. The server replays every daily run, but anyone computing the board from the seed could still submit a flawless one, so the public daily board stays closed.
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