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
there's some documentations out there but they require setting up code to run the game on the browser in order to play locally. personally I'm just very lazy, I'll stick with playing the game online
Tiles drop Gold equal to the amount of hearts it takes to reveal it, some drop more.
Walls are the only thing you can hit, lose a heart and not earn gold.
Its best to spend all hearts before healing, just not on walls.
Leveling is better than using a healing scroll, because while both heal you to full, leveling increases your total health by one every two levels. Saving the healing scroll gets you more for its use later on.
There is nothing stopping you from clicking on a heal scroll if your health is full.
You can try to keep low value targets alive so you can have more flexibility in revealing risky tiles (high value possibility), or kill them to reveal as much board info as possible.
Try not to open a known spot if it doesn’t reveal new information, unless its too risky to reveal anything else.
Think of information as Venn diagrams, use that to identify the value of monster underneath.
Board Patterns (Spoilers)
Walls (0) come in pairs vertical/horizontal not diagonal (There are three pairs)
Goblins\Gargoyles (4) come in pairs vertical/horizontal not diagonal and face each other.
Dragons egg (0) spawns in one of the 8 tiles around the dragon (13), egg drops three gold.
Rats (1) face horizontally towards the rat king (5) standing up if in the same column
You can kill the Rat King and still get the Rat Pacifist Stamp. (I’ve heard it called a cat because of this)
Minotaur’s (6) face away from their chest.
One chest is a Mimic (11) be wary.
Three chests are +5 gold, the others are healing scrolls.
Bomb Skeleton/Mine King (10) is in one of the four corners dropping the bomb disarm scroll.
Bombs (100) drop three gold after being disarmed.
Lovers (9) are on the same row and face each other, they each drop a healing scroll when killed.
Slime Witch (1) is on the edge of the board surrounded by purple slime (8) and drops the slime reveal scroll
There are two beholders (5) They obscure the values on tiles within a 2 tile orthogonal radius with ?. ? get removed when slain.
There is one Guardian (7) in each quadrant of the board, indicated on the shield.
Gnome drops nine gold when all empty tiles are revealed
Killing the dragon (13) doesn’t end the game, claiming the crown after collecting the gold does.
On the board are fields that are empty. The gnome picks on of those and hides there. If you uncover that field and there is at least one other uncovered, empty field, he will jump there. Once you uncovered the last empty field, and by extension uncover the gnome, you have "defeated" him and get 9 gold (if memory serves).
Are there any updates coming for this similar to the changes from v1 to v2? I still play the game from time to time but it's too easy. I liked the modifications that were made for v2, but it's become too predictable...
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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).
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
amazing game, hope there's gonna be something more added, i'd play the continued version
Is there any documentation on how to set up and run the game once downloaded? I'm only getting a bunch of colorful bars and nothing else.
Same issue here. I can't run it locally, only online.
there's some documentations out there but they require setting up code to run the game on the browser in order to play locally. personally I'm just very lazy, I'll stick with playing the game online
pretty good game design well done keep up the great work
It's possible to get Rat pacifist despite killing the Rat King. Does this imply the Rat King is a Tyrant? If so, cool lore.
Hi! We played your game on stream and really enjoyed it!
Dragon Sweeper Tips and Tricks for v1.1.18
Tiles drop Gold equal to the amount of hearts it takes to reveal it, some drop more.
Walls are the only thing you can hit, lose a heart and not earn gold.
Its best to spend all hearts before healing, just not on walls.
Leveling is better than using a healing scroll, because while both heal you to full, leveling increases your total health by one every two levels. Saving the healing scroll gets you more for its use later on.
There is nothing stopping you from clicking on a heal scroll if your health is full.
You can try to keep low value targets alive so you can have more flexibility in revealing risky tiles (high value possibility), or kill them to reveal as much board info as possible.
Try not to open a known spot if it doesn’t reveal new information, unless its too risky to reveal anything else.
Think of information as Venn diagrams, use that to identify the value of monster underneath.
Board Patterns (Spoilers)
Walls (0) come in pairs vertical/horizontal not diagonal (There are three pairs)
Goblins\Gargoyles (4) come in pairs vertical/horizontal not diagonal and face each other.
Dragons egg (0) spawns in one of the 8 tiles around the dragon (13), egg drops three gold.
Rats (1) face horizontally towards the rat king (5) standing up if in the same column
You can kill the Rat King and still get the Rat Pacifist Stamp. (I’ve heard it called a cat because of this)
Minotaur’s (6) face away from their chest.
One chest is a Mimic (11) be wary.
Three chests are +5 gold, the others are healing scrolls.
Bomb Skeleton/Mine King (10) is in one of the four corners dropping the bomb disarm scroll.
Bombs (100) drop three gold after being disarmed.
Lovers (9) are on the same row and face each other, they each drop a healing scroll when killed.
Slime Witch (1) is on the edge of the board surrounded by purple slime (8) and drops the slime reveal scroll
There are two beholders (5) They obscure the values on tiles within a 2 tile orthogonal radius with ?. ? get removed when slain.
There is one Guardian (7) in each quadrant of the board, indicated on the shield.
Gnome drops nine gold when all empty tiles are revealed
Killing the dragon (13) doesn’t end the game, claiming the crown after collecting the gold does.
The All Pacifist Run (not killing the lovers, rats, and egg) is Possible. (Source https://itch.io/post/12152991 )
I think you made a typo with the chests. They give 5 gold.
Your right, Thanks :D
What does the gnome do?
On the board are fields that are empty. The gnome picks on of those and hides there. If you uncover that field and there is at least one other uncovered, empty field, he will jump there. Once you uncovered the last empty field, and by extension uncover the gnome, you have "defeated" him and get 9 gold (if memory serves).
Is there any way to run the downloaded version on Android?
Love it
After many attempts.. finally got the all-pacifist run <3
For the rat pacifist, do I need to avoid killing all rats or just the king ?
Only the rats. You can kill the king
Are there any updates coming for this similar to the changes from v1 to v2? I still play the game from time to time but it's too easy. I liked the modifications that were made for v2, but it's become too predictable...
Score 354 in 10 min; My highest record so far!
using LibreWolf 135.0.1-1 and the numbers don't show correctly, just colored bars.
Thought that was just me. Kept going through all extensions and settings and can't get it displaying properly.