Gnomine

Infobox Software
name = Gnomines



caption = A game of Gnomines
developer = Gnome team
latest_release_version =
latest_release_date =
operating_system = Unix-like
programming language = C
genre = Personal computer game
license = GNU General Public License
website = [http://live.gnome.org/Mines live.gnome.org/Mines]

Gnomines (or Mine) is a minesweeper game for GNOME is licensed under the GPL as part of Gnome Games. [ [http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGames?highlight=%28%28Mines%29%29 Gnome Games page at live.gnome.org] ] The game was written in C by Pista and it was later improved by face artwork made by tigert. The faces are written in SVG and they are used to demonstrate the state of the game.

Overview

The game's premise is that the player has to locate mines floating in an ocean.

Themeablity

Most games have an unusual user interface, however, Gnomine decided to behave like other applications with themes and colorings. The game is written with GTK to allow theming with GNOME. In 2004 there were some incompatibilities that were noted on the games-list mailing list. [ [http://mail.gnome.org/archives/games-list/2004-September/msg00010.html Gnome Games mailing list at mail.gnome.org] ]

Gnomine Solver

Gnomine provides a hint system which can be used in the file menu or by clicking CRT+H. A hint system is not implemented in the Windows version of Minesweeper. The disadvantage of using the hint system is that 10 seconds are added to the time per hint. Using hints to solve a beginner level puzzle will often take three minutes or longer, as a result it can be considered to be a disadvantage. The algorithm behind the hint function gets the layout of all of the squares and if they aren't empty it does the move that is the most revealing.

Multiplayer Support

Several ideas for multiplayer support were discussed on the gnome-games mailing list. An algorithm proposed by cdellasanta [ [http://mail.gnome.org/archives/games-list/2004-December/msg00001.html Gnomine solver mail.gnome.org] ] was thought of to produce a computer that could solve any minesweeper position by using game logic implemented in his algorithm. The hint function is already adequate for its purpose so multiplayer support was proposed for Gnomine where a user could player a computer on one or more separate boards. A user could play on a single board taking turns or play on two or more boards taking turns.

In addition to a computer multiplayer option network support was also proposed on bugzilla. [ [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=306506 Bug 306506 – Gnomine network support] ] . In multiplayer games the hint function would not be allowed.

Face Icons

The face icons originally were considered to lack consistency. As a result, a bug post was made on bugzilla asking for the icons to be "tangoified" (to use the Tango Desktop Project). [ [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400386 Gnome Games mailing list at mail.gnome.org] ] Using tango would have the advantage of being able to have consistency with other open source applications.

The Gnome games developer Robert Ancell eventually posted a topic on the gnome-games mailing list [ [http://mail.gnome.org/archives/games-list/2007-November/msg00012.html Tangoifying the Gnome Mines face] ] where he said "Someone has wisely suggested the face in Gnome Mines could do with some Tango love" followed by a link to the bug report. The developer Robert Ancell fixed the issue on 2007-11-19.The changelog says "Use new tangoified faces from Lapo Calamandrei and Ulisse Perusin."

External links