Mineplacer – inverted Minesweeper in which you plant mines catches on in Japan 

Japanese programmer reduls released their free-to-play browser game Mineplacer on June 4. The game started generating excitement among users as soon as it came out, with redul’s original post on Twitter gaining over 6000 retweets.

Mineplacer is a game in which you fill out the cells of a grid by placing mines – the opposite of Minesweeper. The universally known Minesweeper, in which the player’s objective is to open all safe cells of a grid without detonating a mine, has been a standard feature of Windows until recently, and is a simple classic on which many other games are based, likely due to its simple rules and immortal reputation. 

So, how does Mineplacer work? Contrary to Minesweeper, Mineplacer has you use the position of the numbers to plant mines and close the cells one by one. Each open cell on the grid is marked with the number of mines to be placed around it. For example, a cell with the number 1 on it needs to have 1 mine placed around it, and a square with the number 5 needs to have 5 mines placed around it. The objective is to plant the corresponding number of mines for all the numbered cells. 

However, in Mineplacer, the number of mines that can be placed is fixed, so if you end up with a greater number of mines than specified, you can’t clear the game. The trick is to efficiently place the mines based on the numbers displayed – the correct placement of the mines will cause all the cells to close. The game can be played in two different grid sizes, an 8×16 grid and a 16×30 grid. What makes this game appealing is no doubt the way you feel puzzled at first but then gradually start feeling the satisfaction of closing the cells. 

Mineplacer, by Japanese independent developer reduls, is available for browser and can be accessed via PC or smartphone. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-06-05 15:44 JST)