Even with millions of people enjoying incredibly popular titles like Fortnite or League of legends, it is hard to imagine games played by more people than Microsoft's Solitaire and Minesweeper.
Although the game has been around since at least the 1960s and was available on several computer platforms in the ‘80s, it was not until 1990 that Microsoft included it as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 1 and made it a standard part of the Windows 3.1 installation. Solitaire and Minesweeper were important productivity-killing tools in offices and college campuses around the world before social media and phones. Solitaire is almost universally loved by all, but Minesweeper wasn't as easy to solve as it could have been.
The Minesweeper is not that difficult. The players are given a blank grid of squares where they can use left or right mouse clicks to find hidden bombs or clues to flag them. The maximum number of hiding mines that can be found on a square is eight. The game is over if players accidentally click on one of the mines and they discover that all the mines are destroyed.
It sounds simple, but following the numerical clues and properly flagging every last mine is a real challenge. Until this morning, I have never been rewarded for completing a game of Microsoft Minesweeper with a sunglass wearing face that appears when a game is completed. If you are in the same boat, you should head on over to Tim Holman's One Square Minesweeper, which can be won with just a single click. I lost the simplified version of the game the first time I played it, as I forgot that a right-click is needed to flag the game's single mine. It reminded me that I still hate Minesweeper, but now that I have won it, I will never play it again.
