Either the 10 HP mine king makes a huge difference or the latest update rebalanced something else -- I'm suddenly regularly able to clear the board again. :D
There once was a brave-hearted knight, Who searched dungeons by numbers of fright, Each flagstone he'd tap, Would avoid deadly traps, 'Til the dragon arose to fight!
I really enjoy the game. I need to ask, is this a bug or a feature? It is boring to set all the question marks, but pretty OP. It was on some previous versions too, when there was no question marks.
Another new version! Seems like the difficulty is better now. The original version was generally too easy, unless you got unlucky in the first few moves (not such an issue now that it takes less gold to level up, early on). I'm not actually convinced the second version could be beaten - it was still easy to slay the dragon, but having tried in cheat mode just to confirm it, I'm not sure it was possible to clear the entire map (maybe I was just missing a trick). With the latest version, it definitely is possible, and with a heart scroll to spare. I'm not sure Romeo and Juliet add much to the game. I guess the idea was to provide an extra source of hearts late in the game, without making them too abundant early on, but because they're such high level monsters (9), you're almost just spending a heart to gain a heart.
That's not the version I meant. There was (briefly) a version very similar to the current one, but with a maximum score of 360 (not 361). I think Daniel has tweaked things a couple of times, without announcing it to anyone.
Loved it! Could not stop playing until the dragon was slayed. Both this game and Fidel made me think of Diabolika (by Derek Yu and Jon Perry). Not sure if that was a conscious inspiration.
This is a great game which has provided me with hours of entertainment -- thank you for making it!
Here's some feedback about the new version:
Pros:
* New marking method: awesome! So much better than cycling through the numbers.
* Overall, I like that the game is more difficult now. In the previous version, if you don't have bad luck or screw up, you're pretty much guaranteed a perfect score every time. In this version this is more of a challenge. (Some of the difficulty is probably due to me not noticing some subtleties in the patterns; I just figured out something new while writing this comment. :) )
* New level 9 monsters -- yay! It makes guessing harder, and I like the pattern.
Neutral (not sure how I feel about these):
* Identical walls: I liked the unpredictability of the variable walls in the previous version, but maybe this didn't work as well with the adjusted stats.
* New gnome animation and sound: I don't love this, but it does make it clearer how the gnome works.
Cons:
* The board arbitrarily resizing to the window height: this causes the graphics to be antialiased / blurred, which does not flatter the pixel art, especially since different elements appear blurred to different degrees. When I resize my window to make the board smaller (the same size as the previous version), everything looks much better.
* The translucent chests and broken walls: I think this adds unnecessary visual clutter to the board.
* The board feels a lot more cramped now somehow; I'm not sure if it's the way the new crystal ball works, or the double walls, or one of the other changes. It kind of feels as if there are too many things going on for a board this size. It would be cool to be able to select between a few different board sizes and complexities with appropriately adjusted dragon health (e.g. a small board with only a small number and subset of monsters and a weak dragon, a medium board with more monsters and monster types, and a large board with everything -- that would follow the vibe of classic Minesweeper, where the three standard board sizes provide different styles of gameplay).
P. S. Will there be an updated download for the hotfixed new version?
I agree that the remnants of the chests and walls is maybe the wrong kind of addition, but if the rubble becomes a permanent fixture of Dragonsweeper, I think it would be great to have two versions so that adjacent walls form less repetitive detritus.
I love the new Battleship gameplay when it comes to the walls (and I don’t miss the lottery element). Maybe there should be a mix of two- and three-block walls to amp-up that Battleshipness?
The update adds some fun new wrinkles and I also appreciate your having fixed the bug where the game would peg the CPU at 100% whenever the character's XP bar was full.
I'd like to make one small suggestion though: please put an upper limit on the size of the board. Right now it scales to the biggest square that will fit in the window, and when your monitor is as large as mine (2560x1440) that means a lot of tedious mousing back and forth.
Mentioned in the comments of the blog post, but you need to use an http server. (like python, Linux it's: python3 -m http.server).
I also mentioned a speedrun would probably be a lot better with the old version but new marking system (which maybe somebody could splice in if nothing else, though I guess be unofficial probably isn't great).
Over time I was getting better, but the game is really challenging. There are definitely patterns (for example you can be 100% sure one enemy will be surrounded by purple slimes - and this enemy has an useful drop), but there is an rng involved, so it will take some time to adjust to it.
I like how the updated increased the difficulty, I was doing random challenges before because the mechanics are so fun but this is better. I only got to 356 so far, you really can't use any health packs until late game to get the max score it seems!
The new version seems much harder... not that I am complaining. I'm still hooked.I've noticed that when you level up it doesn't fill the new heart, so you level up and have 1 heart missing.
So I noticed the Guardians have tiles on their shields for their quadrants, and that Romeo and Juliet are reflected across the y axis towards each other. I am confused about the minotaurs now though, they seem to face in a direction when you click a tile but I have no idea what it means
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Either the 10 HP mine king makes a huge difference or the latest update rebalanced something else -- I'm suddenly regularly able to clear the board again. :D
Whoa, whatever you're doing with revising mechanics and, specially, adding new music, KEEP DOING IT!!
Super sick game! Love a good iteration on a classic :)
This is a minstrel's song to minesweeper.
There once was a brave-hearted knight, Who searched dungeons by numbers of fright, Each flagstone he'd tap, Would avoid deadly traps, 'Til the dragon arose to fight!
finally got 361!!! love the new version, It's much more difficult to get the max score now.
I did it!! What a great game!!
Conquered the new version! interesting update. Love the crown
why did the music just end like that
I really enjoy the game. I need to ask, is this a bug or a feature? It is boring to set all the question marks, but pretty OP. It was on some previous versions too, when there was no question marks.
wow that's cracked haha
Another new version! Seems like the difficulty is better now. The original version was generally too easy, unless you got unlucky in the first few moves (not such an issue now that it takes less gold to level up, early on).
I'm not actually convinced the second version could be beaten - it was still easy to slay the dragon, but having tried in cheat mode just to confirm it, I'm not sure it was possible to clear the entire map (maybe I was just missing a trick). With the latest version, it definitely is possible, and with a heart scroll to spare.
I'm not sure Romeo and Juliet add much to the game. I guess the idea was to provide an extra source of hearts late in the game, without making them too abundant early on, but because they're such high level monsters (9), you're almost just spending a heart to gain a heart.
The second version is definitely possible to clear. Max score 303. Theres a couple strats that make it pretty easy to clear with a little luck
That's not the version I meant. There was (briefly) a version very similar to the current one, but with a maximum score of 360 (not 361). I think Daniel has tweaked things a couple of times, without announcing it to anyone.
very good
Loved it!
Could not stop playing until the dragon was slayed.
Both this game and Fidel made me think of Diabolika (by Derek Yu and Jon Perry). Not sure if that was a conscious inspiration.
I've been had
This is awesome!
I just finally got my first 303
Did the mimic and the mine king swap HP again? 🤔
Dragon did not go up an HP... Dragon used to be 15, now he's 13.
It was 12 for a short time, too.
Finally got it! Update definitely increases the difficulty level by quite a bit for a max score.
Like the update. I do wish there were some difficulty levels, but plenty of challenge and enjoyment as is. Thanks for your work.
Mixed feelings about the update.
Is it possible to have the og version and current one as separate game modes?
This is a great game which has provided me with hours of entertainment -- thank you for making it!
Here's some feedback about the new version:
Pros:
* New marking method: awesome! So much better than cycling through the numbers.
* Overall, I like that the game is more difficult now. In the previous version, if you don't have bad luck or screw up, you're pretty much guaranteed a perfect score every time. In this version this is more of a challenge. (Some of the difficulty is probably due to me not noticing some subtleties in the patterns; I just figured out something new while writing this comment. :) )
* New level 9 monsters -- yay! It makes guessing harder, and I like the pattern.
Neutral (not sure how I feel about these):
* Identical walls: I liked the unpredictability of the variable walls in the previous version, but maybe this didn't work as well with the adjusted stats.
* New gnome animation and sound: I don't love this, but it does make it clearer how the gnome works.
Cons:
* The board arbitrarily resizing to the window height: this causes the graphics to be antialiased / blurred, which does not flatter the pixel art, especially since different elements appear blurred to different degrees. When I resize my window to make the board smaller (the same size as the previous version), everything looks much better.
* The translucent chests and broken walls: I think this adds unnecessary visual clutter to the board.
* The board feels a lot more cramped now somehow; I'm not sure if it's the way the new crystal ball works, or the double walls, or one of the other changes. It kind of feels as if there are too many things going on for a board this size. It would be cool to be able to select between a few different board sizes and complexities with appropriately adjusted dragon health (e.g. a small board with only a small number and subset of monsters and a weak dragon, a medium board with more monsters and monster types, and a large board with everything -- that would follow the vibe of classic Minesweeper, where the three standard board sizes provide different styles of gameplay).
P. S. Will there be an updated download for the hotfixed new version?
I agree that the remnants of the chests and walls is maybe the wrong kind of addition, but if the rubble becomes a permanent fixture of Dragonsweeper, I think it would be great to have two versions so that adjacent walls form less repetitive detritus.
I love the new Battleship gameplay when it comes to the walls (and I don’t miss the lottery element). Maybe there should be a mix of two- and three-block walls to amp-up that Battleshipness?
Finally I got the max score on the new Dragonsweeper version!
I love this game. I'm having a lot of issues adapting to the new update. But I love this game.
The game is really good! Somee suggestions:
- Maybe displaying current score somewhere on the screen, that would make it easier to understand how to get max points
- A main menu with selecting difficulty levels(that should change field size and dragon hp)
- Ability to spend gold( i guess it's XP) to not only buy character upgrades, but maybe buying some ability or something like that
The new update if fire and the game has great potential, keep up the good work!
The update adds some fun new wrinkles and I also appreciate your having fixed the bug where the game would peg the CPU at 100% whenever the character's XP bar was full.
I'd like to make one small suggestion though: please put an upper limit on the size of the board. Right now it scales to the biggest square that will fit in the window, and when your monitor is as large as mine (2560x1440) that means a lot of tedious mousing back and forth.
nice game and music
It's "d"ebug mode. A cheat code. Not a bug though
How does the gnome work in the new release? What determines, if he teleports away or is caught?
I think it's the same rule as before: he teleports away if there's an un-revealed empty square for him to teleport to.
Never mind. Figured it out.
We are a few players waiting for a stable new version for grinding speedrun again at speedrun.com ! https://www.speedrun.com/Dragonsweeper
Thanks for making the original version still available so we can keep this category on the site.
Sadly, I can't seem to make it work with the downloaded files. On both folders I have the same issue:
Uncaught SecurityError: Failed to execute 'getImageData' on 'CanvasRenderingContext2D': The canvas has been tainted by cross-origin data.
Mentioned in the comments of the blog post, but you need to use an http server. (like python, Linux it's: python3 -m http.server).
I also mentioned a speedrun would probably be a lot better with the old version but new marking system (which maybe somebody could splice in if nothing else, though I guess be unofficial probably isn't great).
Thanks, someone in the speedrun community made a great guide to use python http.server so I can continue grinding the WR in the 1.0 !
I love the new upgrade. made the game more interesting. Thanks!
Nice Job. Like the upgrade. Should consider letting player attempt both versions.
I like how the updated increased the difficulty, I was doing random challenges before because the mechanics are so fun but this is better. I only got to 356 so far, you really can't use any health packs until late game to get the max score it seems!
The new version seems much harder... not that I am complaining. I'm still hooked.I've noticed that when you level up it doesn't fill the new heart, so you level up and have 1 heart missing.
end at 353, it's hard to get a full score
Hey Daniel Benmergui, I think you need to do another hotfix, the Romeo and Juliet thing suddenly only works like half the time
so for the new highest values
11 (mine king) + 10 (mimic) + 9 (Romeo or Juliet) + 16 (two big slimes) + 7 (guardian) + 18 (three minotaurs) = 71
13 (dragon) + 18 (Romeo and Juliet) +10 (mimic) + 14 (two guardians) + 18 (three minotaurs) = 73
10 (mimic) + 18 (Romeo and Juliet) + 24 (three big slimes) + 14 (two guardians) + 6 (minotaur) = 72
800 (eight mines) = 800
hlol
yeah well that's obvious, so I skipped it
the music stops playing after 1 loop? i think the update broke it somehow
edit: it did in fact come back eventually, but it took a while
edit: nope, now it's gone again
Multiple tracks with some down-time between. I agree it sounds like an error at first when the beat starts coming back, but I think it works.
I thought that too but then it kicks back in and is all the sweeter. Great music
What just happened? I was playing when suddenly the mimic went from 11 to 10, the mine king went from 10 to 11, and the dragon went from 12 to 13
Surprise hotfix!
Also, I noticed that you can select 12 for what you think one of the spots is even though there isn't a p12 monster. what's that about?
Wow thanks for the hotfix, No wonder the Mine King killed me when I had 10 hearts...
I got the first completion of the new dragonsweeper!
...Also I got softlocked into not being able to touch anything, like the crown, Jorge, or monsteromincon, because I took a screenshot
So I noticed the Guardians have tiles on their shields for their quadrants, and that Romeo and Juliet are reflected across the y axis towards each other. I am confused about the minotaurs now though, they seem to face in a direction when you click a tile but I have no idea what it means
Minotaurs seem to always have a chest in the eight squares adjacent to them... And they get mad when you steal their treasure!
It appears the chest is always one of the 3 squares behind them!
Oh that makes more sense...
Okay, two bugs I noticed right away
1. Romeo doesn't have a death animation, unlike Juliet
2. Jorge's dance is very fast, much faster than the origional (bug or feature?)