I remember spending a lot of time playing mine sweeper although I was really bad at that game... Now I know I can go beyond my present capabilities and not being just bad. I can be dragon-bad.
Bug in the puzzle ... look at the P4s on the top right corner, and the P4 near the bottom Right corner. Usually they occur in pairs, together, with their eyes giving away the position of their adjacent partner.
This isn't normally the type of game I play, as I hated Minesweeper growing up. Not only did I play this game...I kept playing until I got all the achievements.
Seriously. Adding logic puzzle mechanics to games that can screw you over with some bad RNG is a fantastic idea. I could easily see some different ways to take this game, but it's fantastic on its own!
Has anyone found the magic trick to being able to perfect the game everytime? Usually I leave the bricks until the end, and about 50% of the time I can't clear them with the energy I have left.
well, there IS the cheat code, but i'll let you research that on your own. but in order to 100% it you need a little luck, you need to find the extra exp chests early, you need the egg early and you need to find the Nome early, and even then it's not a guarantee.
Like collieman says, collecting the extra exp as early as possible is really key.
Here's my (long winded) how I try to do that...
The extra exp comes from chests, the dragon egg, the bombs, and the gnome. The chests and dragon egg are what you will collect in the early game, but the others are also important.
Highest priority is figuring out the board. This is what gives you the best chance of collecting the extra exp. as early as possible. Mark everything you can, crunch the numbers, and use all the tricks. Keep at it until you have the full board figured out.
Pick your fights carefully. In fact, fight as little as possible. Don’t just plow though the monsters because you can. The best game will have the most high power monsters still on the board when you’ve figured out where everything is. Make your picks ones you think will best help figure out more of the board. Lower power monsters let you do more exploration.
Be meticulous with your health. If at all possible, never level up or use a health scroll with any hearts remaining. Plan ahead on your fights to use up all your health, but in a pinch, banging on a wall is better than wasting a heart. It’s one less heart you’ll use at the end.
Find the purple slimes (but don’t fight them), and take out the wizard and reveal all the slimes. The purple slimes are the only 8 power monster, so if you can figure out a tile is 8 or a pair is 16 or a triple is 24 (in the right place), the wizard is within reach.
Find the rat king and reveal all the rats. I find this easier once you’ve revealed the slimes, as it’s the only other 5 power monster.
Find the lich. It’s in one of the corners. It’s important to know where it is before you reach 10 hearts. Kill it as soon as possible and collect all the bomb exp you can.
Keep track of the 4 guardians, purple slimes, lovers, and mimic. The sooner you know where all the high power monsters are, the easier it is to navigate uncertain regions. The race is on to corner the gnome.
Once you’ve figure out the full board, it comes down to carefully killing all the monsters to always use up all your health. Plan ahead. Try to kill the mimic at 11 hearts and dragon at 13 hearts. Similarly, hold off on the lovers as long as you can. Conserving low power monsters makes it easier.
Quit after the umpteenth time where I accidentally clicked a health scroll too early. All that has to change is to move using healing down by the level up, since it's the same kind of action.
But I do like the strategy of not knowing the number underneath the health scroll until I decide to use it. That would disappear if healing moved to the bottom.
It might be interesting if you made the purple psychic(?) monster's level random each game. I actually thought it was the first few times I played. Might be a silly idea, just thought I'd share.
Haven't seen anyone post this yet, so I did a full clear run without using either of the crystal balls. Took my awhile but honestly I think if you are good enough to have done all the main completions, this one is mostly about getting lucky enough to do.
Congratulations! I did the same run and I highly recommend it, it is an interesting and different challenge (since you start with no tiles revealed). I got the idea from another comment on here (at least I think that I have seen it posted here once already).
This game is amazing! After almost a month, I finally beat all of the challenges! Here are some tips:
There's only one enemy with 10 health, and it always spawns in one of the corners. When you defeat it, replaces all of the bombs with piles of gold worth 3 XP.
There are only five slimes with 8 health, and they're always on an edge, surrounding an enemy with 1 health. When you defeat that enemy, it reveals where all of the slimes are.
Make sure you use as much of your health as you can before you level up or heal.
kill the 10 hp enemy (there's only one, spawn in one of the corners) and it will drop a scroll that replaces bombs (it's like chests, you click chests and it reveal a heart scroll or 5 gold
Good find. Based on the alignment of the text it seems like its a font issue. OP's "9" character just isn't rendering for some reason. That's a 109 and a 29 that's glitchy
I love the gameplay but its lacking a little bit of surrounding like a menu/savestates or a replay button. also id love being able to change the grid size and amount of each monster present.
Also i think its extremely fun sniping the purple thing through the ? things
Game is too unforgiving. You are charging me too much for the privilege of instant death.
I don't like the spending hearts mechanic. I would like to see my power separated from my hp. Like, even if you just changed the swords to hearts and gave me 3 lives, I'd be so happy.
the spending hearts mechanic is actually very important. it acts sort of like a countdown
you can't just stay comfortably slaying monsters, you must explore the map and find the xp chests, heart scrolls, and other things to delay the heart mechanic's countdown like nature
although I have to say, without this key information, the game is very frustrating. I was very confused and angry the first games I played till I looked up a guide. they should really give a hint or something to tell players to explore the map
I wrote an article exploring the question: Is the game always solvable?
– a fun topic from a game design perspective!
While it focuses on my Android version (approved by Daniel), the ideas apply to Dragonsweeper too. I get this question a lot, so maybe my version just ended up a bit harder!
I can confirm that the game is always 100% solvable, and it's always possible to get a clear 100% screen BUT you do need some luck, especially in the early parts. you NEED to find the extra experience point chests sooner rather than later, you need to get some lucky shots in the early/random phase, and you need some luck to get the nome as early as possible BUT after you get up to 8 or 9 hearts it's purely a matter of skill to kill the dragon. I can't count how many times I messed up near the end because I'm getting tired and "brain no do math good no mo".
After I got good I used the cheat code to explore every question and secret, and still with total understanding of every aspect i STILL love playing to pass the time, truly a great game.
Also if you want the mouse stamp you need some SERIOUS luck not to accidentally hit a rat before you clear some space, or SUPER lucky to hit the rat king with the first few hits. The other 2 passive stamps are far easier to skill it out.
The game is always solvable, but guessing is generally undesirable — even though it technically remains solvable in a strict sense. There are certain patterns that could make the board unsolvable, or more often, situations where guessing becomes necessary. The real question is: can any board be solved on the first try, given ‘optimal play’? That’s the central point I aimed to explore in my article.
EDIT: Seeing the full comment chain now, it seems like we are just using different definitions of solvable. I'm in the "optimal play ensures victory" camp.
I'm not sure if it was clear that I responded to collieman's comment. I think we have different definitions of solvable. I say a puzzle is solvable, if there is always a logical next move, that will lead to the player winning the game, given the limited information the game provides at the time. From a game-dev perspective, you might think of solvable, just from a generation standpoint, that there are enough enemies of certain values, that it is not outright impossible to level up enough to win. From a player standpoint that's not enough, since in addition to these enemies existing, I also have to have enough information to find them at the time that I need them. Minesweeper itself (on expert level) doesn't have that and includes forced guesses, which can be somewhat skewed in your favor by calculating probabilities. But that means it is not 100% solvable, because you cannot solve it (without guessing) 100% of the time. And, obviously, when you have to guess, you sometimes lose, without any wrong play on your part. I'm not even necessarily disputing, that the game is always solvable, if you ignore the pacifist achievements. But them saying, it's 100% solvable, but you need luck just makes no sense.
Agreed - players and devs often see this slightly different. Essentially, it’s “guess” vs “no-guess” maps.
Many Minesweeper fans today prefer no-guess boards, while others enjoy the added challenge of probability-based decision-making. It adds another layer to the game. It’s a matter of preference.
In Dungeon Squire and Dragonsweeper, most maps don’t require guessing, but some rare tough seeds do, like this one. I actually enjoyed it, even though (or because of) some guessing involved. The fun is to determine the safest square vs the square promising progress, that is: risk vs gain. There wasn’t any 50-50 though, but more like 1:3 or better, which feels fair.
the full clear stamp is also almost impossible for me, i did get it but i need serious luck or a bunch of planning if i know every cases in the board because sometimes in the finale i have like 14 hp but i only have a 7, 3 and a 5 and a 1 which can't add up to 14 and if i hit a wall i might not get enough experience to level up and finish the whole board
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Best I'm gonna get lol
Great game btw!
Really cool game. Love the concept and it's well polished!
I have become the master pacifist! (ignoring everything else I murdered)
woot 248 of 365 but my time was 17:58 I got lucky by finding the anti mine. my first time beating it, I have been playing for 3 days.
I remember spending a lot of time playing mine sweeper although I was really bad at that game... Now I know I can go beyond my present capabilities and not being just bad. I can be dragon-bad.
After all, I had fun. Awesome game
Almost scored a perfect game. Off by 3 hearts.
this is how i did after finaly beating it. I foud it a lot of fun dispite beeing quite difficult
This isn't normally the type of game I play, as I hated Minesweeper growing up. Not only did I play this game...I kept playing until I got all the achievements.
Seriously. Adding logic puzzle mechanics to games that can screw you over with some bad RNG is a fantastic idea. I could easily see some different ways to take this game, but it's fantastic on its own!
Has anyone found the magic trick to being able to perfect the game everytime? Usually I leave the bricks until the end, and about 50% of the time I can't clear them with the energy I have left.
well, there IS the cheat code, but i'll let you research that on your own. but in order to 100% it you need a little luck, you need to find the extra exp chests early, you need the egg early and you need to find the Nome early, and even then it's not a guarantee.
Like collieman says, collecting the extra exp as early as possible is really key.
Here's my (long winded) how I try to do that...
The extra exp comes from chests, the dragon egg, the bombs, and the gnome. The chests and dragon egg are what you will collect in the early game, but the others are also important.
Highest priority is figuring out the board. This is what gives you the best chance of collecting the extra exp. as early as possible. Mark everything you can, crunch the numbers, and use all the tricks. Keep at it until you have the full board figured out.
Pick your fights carefully. In fact, fight as little as possible. Don’t just plow though the monsters because you can. The best game will have the most high power monsters still on the board when you’ve figured out where everything is. Make your picks ones you think will best help figure out more of the board. Lower power monsters let you do more exploration.
Be meticulous with your health. If at all possible, never level up or use a health scroll with any hearts remaining. Plan ahead on your fights to use up all your health, but in a pinch, banging on a wall is better than wasting a heart. It’s one less heart you’ll use at the end.
Find the purple slimes (but don’t fight them), and take out the wizard and reveal all the slimes. The purple slimes are the only 8 power monster, so if you can figure out a tile is 8 or a pair is 16 or a triple is 24 (in the right place), the wizard is within reach.
Find the rat king and reveal all the rats. I find this easier once you’ve revealed the slimes, as it’s the only other 5 power monster.
Find the lich. It’s in one of the corners. It’s important to know where it is before you reach 10 hearts. Kill it as soon as possible and collect all the bomb exp you can.
Keep track of the 4 guardians, purple slimes, lovers, and mimic. The sooner you know where all the high power monsters are, the easier it is to navigate uncertain regions. The race is on to corner the gnome.
Once you’ve figure out the full board, it comes down to carefully killing all the monsters to always use up all your health. Plan ahead. Try to kill the mimic at 11 hearts and dragon at 13 hearts. Similarly, hold off on the lovers as long as you can. Conserving low power monsters makes it easier.
The best I’ve done is 8 hearts remaining.
Such a satisfying game to beat, took me so many tries!
Here's a fun challenge, kill the dragon without disabling the mines. It's possible, but it's tricky without the exp boost from the dead mines.
This isn’t remotely hard.
1 health too little to break the last brick to get Board Clearer I am in pain
(Very good game)
Finally got the perfect rat pacifist with rat king run (no guesses were made)
Quit after the umpteenth time where I accidentally clicked a health scroll too early. All that has to change is to move using healing down by the level up, since it's the same kind of action.
But I do like the strategy of not knowing the number underneath the health scroll until I decide to use it. That would disappear if healing moved to the bottom.
what about having a confirmation pop up if you have hearts remaining/can level up
I finally ran a perfect game! Now I can die happy
This was the board fully mapped by level 8
My first attempt at a speed run. 3:34
I saw a few people post this one. I left the rat card as well. 7:14 but spent some time taking the screenshot
Not as fast as you but I had a couple of hearts left
I'm not sure what classifies as a perfect game, but this is the most amount of hearts I've ever ended up with. Did it in a modest 10:29.
很好的游戏，值得一玩
I LOVE all the changes in the update! feels so fresh right now
Dragonsweeper Speedrun | Is It Possible?
It might be interesting if you made the purple psychic(?) monster's level random each game. I actually thought it was the first few times I played. Might be a silly idea, just thought I'd share.
would be a bit too unpredictable imo because you wouldnt have any information about it whatsoever
Haven't seen anyone post this yet, so I did a full clear run without using either of the crystal balls. Took my awhile but honestly I think if you are good enough to have done all the main completions, this one is mostly about getting lucky enough to do.
That is impressive. Bravo.
Congratulations!
I did the same run and I highly recommend it, it is an interesting and different challenge (since you start with no tiles revealed).
I got the idea from another comment on here (at least I think that I have seen it posted here once already).
Got it on 2nd try.
This game is amazing! After almost a month, I finally beat all of the challenges! Here are some tips:
There's only one enemy with 10 health, and it always spawns in one of the corners. When you defeat it, replaces all of the bombs with piles of gold worth 3 XP.
There are only five slimes with 8 health, and they're always on an edge, surrounding an enemy with 1 health. When you defeat that enemy, it reveals where all of the slimes are.
Make sure you use as much of your health as you can before you level up or heal.
wait how do you replace bombs?
Kill the 10hp enemy.
kill the 10 hp enemy (there's only one, spawn in one of the corners) and it will drop a scroll that replaces bombs (it's like chests, you click chests and it reveal a heart scroll or 5 gold
i see, thanks!
Very cool and addictive game! I didn’t get it to the dragon, but it’s very fun!
very fun
I can't believe I did it!!!
Dragonsweeper Gameplay
Amazing game, thank you Daniel
Here’s a single file version I’ve made for myself which you can download and open without launching an http server.
Fantastic game. It is difficult and you can get unlucky, but Minesweeper and Rogue -like/lites are like that. Love the music.
Awesome game! I think I ran into a bug where a mine was being treated as 1 rather than 100.
You have 9 not rendering for some reason, look also below the purple slimes.
Good find. Based on the alignment of the text it seems like its a font issue. OP's "9" character just isn't rendering for some reason. That's a 109 and a 29 that's glitchy
I love the gameplay but its lacking a little bit of surrounding like a menu/savestates or a replay button. also id love being able to change the grid size and amount of each monster present.
Also i think its extremely fun sniping the purple thing through the ? things
In general a really great game
Music credits?
Game is too unforgiving. You are charging me too much for the privilege of instant death.
I don't like the spending hearts mechanic. I would like to see my power separated from my hp. Like, even if you just changed the swords to hearts and gave me 3 lives, I'd be so happy.
the spending hearts mechanic is actually very important. it acts sort of like a countdown
you can't just stay comfortably slaying monsters, you must explore the map and find the xp chests, heart scrolls, and other things to delay the heart mechanic's countdown like nature
although I have to say, without this key information, the game is very frustrating. I was very confused and angry the first games I played till I looked up a guide. they should really give a hint or something to tell players to explore the map
it sounds like you're looking for an entirely different game. i hope you find it!
Love this game! Me and my friend played it for hours yesterday and today.
I love minesweeper!
I love dungeon crawlers!
I love this incredible combination of the two!!!
Took me a few tries and my first win came at exactly 13:37! So LEET!!
I wrote an article exploring the question: Is the game always solvable? – a fun topic from a game design perspective!
While it focuses on my Android version (approved by Daniel), the ideas apply to Dragonsweeper too. I get this question a lot, so maybe my version just ended up a bit harder!
I can confirm that the game is always 100% solvable, and it's always possible to get a clear 100% screen BUT you do need some luck, especially in the early parts. you NEED to find the extra experience point chests sooner rather than later, you need to get some lucky shots in the early/random phase, and you need some luck to get the nome as early as possible BUT after you get up to 8 or 9 hearts it's purely a matter of skill to kill the dragon. I can't count how many times I messed up near the end because I'm getting tired and "brain no do math good no mo".
After I got good I used the cheat code to explore every question and secret, and still with total understanding of every aspect i STILL love playing to pass the time, truly a great game.
Also if you want the mouse stamp you need some SERIOUS luck not to accidentally hit a rat before you clear some space, or SUPER lucky to hit the rat king with the first few hits. The other 2 passive stamps are far easier to skill it out.
If you need luck, it's not 100% solvable. It's only that, when the only way for you to lose is to make a mistake. Getting unlucky is not a mistake.
The game is always solvable, but guessing is generally undesirable — even though it technically remains solvable in a strict sense. There are certain patterns that could make the board unsolvable, or more often, situations where guessing becomes necessary. The real question is: can any board be solved on the first try, given ‘optimal play’? That’s the central point I aimed to explore in my article.
EDIT: Seeing the full comment chain now, it seems like we are just using different definitions of solvable. I'm in the "optimal play ensures victory" camp.
I'm not sure if it was clear that I responded to collieman's comment. I think we have different definitions of solvable. I say a puzzle is solvable, if there is always a logical next move, that will lead to the player winning the game, given the limited information the game provides at the time.
From a game-dev perspective, you might think of solvable, just from a generation standpoint, that there are enough enemies of certain values, that it is not outright impossible to level up enough to win. From a player standpoint that's not enough, since in addition to these enemies existing, I also have to have enough information to find them at the time that I need them. Minesweeper itself (on expert level) doesn't have that and includes forced guesses, which can be somewhat skewed in your favor by calculating probabilities. But that means it is not 100% solvable, because you cannot solve it (without guessing) 100% of the time. And, obviously, when you have to guess, you sometimes lose, without any wrong play on your part.
I'm not even necessarily disputing, that the game is always solvable, if you ignore the pacifist achievements. But them saying, it's 100% solvable, but you need luck just makes no sense.
Agreed - players and devs often see this slightly different. Essentially, it’s “guess” vs “no-guess” maps.
Many Minesweeper fans today prefer no-guess boards, while others enjoy the added challenge of probability-based decision-making. It adds another layer to the game. It’s a matter of preference.
In Dungeon Squire and Dragonsweeper, most maps don’t require guessing, but some rare tough seeds do, like this one. I actually enjoyed it, even though (or because of) some guessing involved. The fun is to determine the safest square vs the square promising progress, that is: risk vs gain. There wasn’t any 50-50 though, but more like 1:3 or better, which feels fair.
the full clear stamp is also almost impossible for me, i did get it but i need serious luck or a bunch of planning if i know every cases in the board because sometimes in the finale i have like 14 hp but i only have a 7, 3 and a 5 and a 1 which can't add up to 14 and if i hit a wall i might not get enough experience to level up and finish the whole board