Automine

Welcome to the Automine homepage

General Features This Version Record Times Downloads

Super-cheesy webcounter:

(since 11th June 1998)

General Information

Automine is a RISC OS desktop version of the (now legendary) logic/strategy game Minesweeper.

Often, in the past, I lamented the lack of a high-quality minesweeper game for the RISC OS desktop. True enough, there are several desktop minesweeper games available, however none of them completely satisfied me - either they lacked some fundamental feature I expected, or their user-interface and/or graphics were below the standard I expected.

Then, one day whilst playing the Windoze version of minesweeper (for my sins), I got to thinking about different ways a computer player might be implemented. After that, Automine was pretty much inevitable really.

Basically, Automine is a high quality desktop minesweeper game that is absolutely brimming over with features.

There's a screenshot here if you want to get an idea of what Automine looks like. There are actually three other sets of graphics (one of which mimics the Windoze ones), an alternative display for the time/flags, etc...

Features

Interactive help support
High score table
Hint facility
Save/Load game facility
Standard difficulty levels
Special psychic level for a quick, but hard, challenge
Two different timer/flag display modes
Four sets of handcrafted graphics
Specially optimised graphics for 2, 16 and 256 colour modes
Specially optimised graphics for high and TV resolution modes

621 lovingly !Paint-ed sprites!
Corners are safe option
Autoclear option
Mark facility
'Double-click' autoclear
Pause facility
Masochist's game completion test (ie. no flags used!)
Automatic 'first click protection'
All graphics compressed to save disc space
Automatic player with statistics

Version Information

The current version is 1.61, which was (finally...) released on the 18th September 1999, having languished on my harddisc since April... The first general release was version 1.60.

Previously, version 1.59 was released through the Acorn User PD Scheme (on the April 1998 cover disc).

What's new in 1.60

Small fix to the templates to cope with very large numbers in the autoplay statistics window.
Autoplay speed and continuous setting are now saved with the other options.
Minor cosmetic changes to the info window and welcome screen.

Known bugs and problems

It's possible (although unlikely) for autoplay to get stuck because it has run out of flags. In over 100,000 autoplay games, I've only seen this happen once...

Record Scores

 Level         Time  Holder          Date/Time
 Beginner        5s  Antony Sidwell  19:46, 14th July 1998
 Intermediate   31s  Jain Crilley    00:30, 18th Sept 1998
 Expert        105s  Antony Sidwell  23:33, 14th Dec 1999
 Psychic        11s  Jain Crilley    20:01, 18th Sept 1998

If you beat any of these times, send me your scr file (from inside !Automine.Resources) and I'll ammend the table accordingly. My email address is in the documentation, and is musus@verelanthe.co.uk.

Downloads

If you already have version 1.59 or 1.60, simply copy the contents of the archive over your existing !Automine - your scores, options, etc. will be preserved.

Download:
Automine version 1.61 (Full version, 108K Zipfile)

Automine is the property of Musus Umbra (A.J.Holdsworth), and is Copyright Musus Umbra 1998. It is released as freeware, i.e. you may distribute verbatim copies of it by any method, so long as you do not charge for doing so (a reasonable charge to cover media and handling is acceptable however). Please read the licence and disclaimer in the documentation supplied with Automine.

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