"On April 6, 1992, Minesweeper was first installed on Windows 3.1, marking its thirtieth anniversary this year."
On the largest demining forum in China, "Demining Network", this is not a small demining message, and the followers only go to the 8th floor.
This may be the epitome of "Minesweeper" in this era - it once entered thousands of households as a product of a certain historical period, and now it has been thrown into the dusty corner of history because of the changes of the times. If in the early years, "Minesweeper" was labeled "childhood memory" on the Internet, then now it is bound to more words as "exposed age".
People can still find MicrosoftMinesweeper in the Win10 store, but the green grass and seven-star ladybugs are no longer the taste of memory. The Times Express is constantly rushing forward, and some old stories will be turned over at periodic time nodes for people to recall for a moment, and after the sigh of things being human, they will disperse with the wind again.
A game built for the mouse
The core gameplay of Minesweeper, the inferration of the surrounding safe area based on numbers, has been around since the 1970s. In 1973, JerimacRatliff launched the game "Cube" is the earliest mine-sweeping game that can be considered today, but at that time, this game could only be operated based on code, and the threshold for playing was not low.
In 1985, a "new version of Minesweeper" with a lower threshold and a richer play experience was born, Relentless Logic. In the game, players assume the role of a U.S. Marine Corps soldier who needs to pass confidential information through minefields in the game. Slightly different from today's well-known minesweeper gameplay, it only needs to avoid the minefield to find the nearest path, and does not need to eliminate all mines.
Ruthless Logic
Until 1990, Microsoft first released the Windows entertainment component package in the Windows 3.0 system, and "Minesweeper" and the same familiar "Solitaire" and "Free Solitaire" and other games are one of them. In 1992, "Minesweeper" was installed on Windows 3.1, and later Windows systems broke into thousands of homes.
The reason for the introduction of the entertainment component package is to make Windows and home scenes more suitable, breaking people's stereotypes of "high hardware is only suitable for large enterprises".
Before Apple used the mouse on LISA computers in 1983, for most people in the world, computers were completely dependent on keyboards, and users needed to type code like programmers. It is the birth of the mouse that greatly simplifies the difficulty of computer operation and enables home computers to be further promoted. But any new product launch has to have a familiar process for users, and the games in the entertainment package are, in a way, the "traps" that train users to use the mouse.
"Solitaire" focuses on training the function of dragging files with the mouse, while "Minesweeper" focuses more on training the combination of the left and right mouse buttons. Just like "Fruit Ninja" when touch screen devices were just popularized, every new device across the era is born, there will be software that fits the meaning of hardware, giving the public enlightenment, but because of its monotonous gameplay, it will lose its freshness after the popularization of hardware functions and be eliminated by users.
"Minesweeper" is undoubtedly such an example, although there have been many new variants of the subsequent gameplay, including "Hexagon Minesweeper", "RPG Minesweeper", "3D Minesweeper", etc., and the play platform has also been ported from the PC side to the mobile terminal, and even VR devices, but there is still no way to make it come to life. More users in China recall it from the computer room computer in the student era or the computer on the classroom podium, because the Internet can not be linked, minesweeper has become one of the few entertainment options in the system.
The reason why such "childhood memories" have now become "exposed age" is due to the fact that Microsoft no longer has built -- Minesweeper since Windows 8. Even if the user runs to the app store, it is the "green harmony version" that is found, and the classic interface is gone.
Public opinion generally believes that this change by Microsoft is related to the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines". In the early 1990s, the International Anti-Mine Organization was established to reflect on the enormous harm that landmines have done to people around the world since World War II, thus launching the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines".
After this, the "International Anti-Mine Organization" took note of the game "Mine Clearance" and began to actively promote the "International Ban on 'Mine Clearance' Movement", mobilizing people from all countries to continuously send emails to Microsoft, requesting the deletion of the "Mine Clearance" that came with the system. Although the support received for the operation was limited, a small group of people insisted on putting pressure on Microsoft.
Microsoft initially introduced a version that replaced the "landmine" icon with "flower" for users to choose from, but still could not satisfy the opponents. So when Windows 8 was launched, Microsoft chose to delete the game completely.
Many people may have lost the opportunity to figure it out before they figured out how to play it.
CN Minesweeper has no esports
But any game has a high play, and the unpretentious "Minesweeper" is naturally no exception. In a corner that no one knows, a group of Chinese mine-sweeping enthusiasts who call themselves "Lei You" have been constantly charging at the limits of human beings.
Open this page of the slightly rudimentary World Minesweeper Rankings and you may be amazed at the concentration of the five-star red flag – 30 of the world's top 50 Chinese. If you choose the women's ranking, the result is even more exaggerated, and the top 12 are monopolized by all Chinese players.
Women's World Rankings
But even if they win glory for the country in this way, this group of "thunder friends" does not have any voice in the public eye.
As gamers, they are almost like two worlds with today's booming esports industry. In the world of Minesweeper, there are no teammates and no opponents, and some are just fighting with themselves day after day. This also determines that it cannot have a commercial professional league, there is no professional player who makes a living from it, and the people at the forefront of the world usually have their own regular jobs, and "Minesweeper" can only serve as a hobby in their leisure time.
They came from the north and south of the heavens and the sea, and gathered in the pure land of the "mine-sweeping net". At the end of 2006, Zhang Arsenic, who was then the "first person in China to clear mines", founded the "Mine Clearance Network" in order to show off his strength. There is a "Mine Ranking" on the "Mine Clearance Network", and each "Lei Friend" will be assigned the title of the second of the tenth according to the record, the first one is called "Thunder Emperor", and there are "Thunder Saint", "Thunder God", "Thunder Immortal" and so on. For six years, "Thunder Emperor" was the exclusive term of Zhang Arsenic.
Latecomers are late.
In 2009, zhou Dan, a sophomore, accidentally learned about this website, and she found that she could only be a "cloth dress" in the website, which aroused her competitive spirit. In 2013, on an ordinary afternoon in Japan, Zhou Dan successfully broke the domestic record with 37.81 seconds.
After this, "Thunder Emperor" was no longer the exclusive term of a certain person, and its throne began to change hands frequently.
Guo Weijia, who only joined the Minesweeper Network in 2011, is also one of the strong contenders, and in addition to "Minesweeper", he is a 16-year-old shandong provincial science champion and is now a doctor at Tsinghua University. The two of them and Zhang Xianyao have become the "big three" in the new era of China, chasing each other. Compared with the barbaric competition of proficiency and luck in ancient times, "Minesweeper" at this time gave birth to more genres and rules under the frequent exchange between high plays. It can be said that "CN Minesweeper" can surpass most parts of the world in terms of overall strength, which is inseparable from the establishment of the forum ecology.
However, even as a hobby, most people can't stick to Minesweeper as long as they do. The reasons for the "minemates" to retreat from the pit are different, but the iteration of equipment and the physical damage caused by long-term high-intensity minesweepers are the two most common.
Zhou Dan was forced to withdraw from the minesweeper circle a month after breaking the domestic record because he overturned a cup of "Oden". The reason is that for this level of minesweeper players, the mouse and mouse pad are very important equipment, Zhou Dan was difficult to adapt to the new mouse and mouse pad at that time, the average speed was about ten seconds slower, almost completely withdrew from the strongest echelon. Guo Weijia was because of the strain of the arm muscles, and at the most serious time, the doctor even told him directly: "Don't play minesweeper in the future." ”
They eventually overcame all of these difficulties, but there is still an insurmountable peak that stands ahead, that is, the high world record set by Poland's Camille in 2010 - 31.13 seconds, a record that has not been broken for a decade. In China's minesweeper circles, Camille is known as an "alien", but in real life he is just an ordinary computer programmer, and now he is no longer addicted to "Minesweeper".
But the legend also has a day when it is broken, and aliens will also face "people outside the people".
In the context of fewer and fewer new people, the "Purple Micro Star" belonging to China's minesweeper circle appeared - Ju Zeen, a genius teenager born in 2008. On September 12, 2020, Juzawa broke Camille's ten-year advanced record with 29.43 seconds, and it was also the first time that humanity had stepped into the thirty-second mark. Three months later, Ju zern broke his record again, raising the number to 28.84 seconds.
Ju Zeen, who is only 14 years old this year, still insists on posting on the "Mine Clearance Network" every month to update his recent training results. His future is unlimited.
At a time when many post-05s may not know what minesweeping is, the young Ju Zeen may be one of the few surprises in this 30th anniversary old game. Even the PC is gradually declining in people's lives, will there be a day in the future, the mouse will become an exhibit that can only be seen in the museum?
By that time, will anyone else be interested in Minesweeper?
bibliography
Touch Music, Minesweeper China
GQ reports, "2019, these young people are still playing minesweeper"
Game Research Society, "Persecuted" by the Banned Mine Movement