Simply Minesweeper

Genre: Board Game / Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Simply Minesweeper is a game with Board Game and Puzzle elements released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2011, as well as being released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game is a version of… well, Minesweeper. You know, that game that’s come bundled in with every Windows PC over the last 3 decades or so.

The presentation here is decent but unimpressive, using simple 2D visuals for the game board and backgrounds, backed by soft music that seems like an odd choice… perhaps to lull players into a false sense of security until they accidentally click a bomb? I’m not sure I agree with that design choice, but I suppose that’s one way to go.

The gameplay here works pretty well, for the most part. Players can use the touchscreen to tap a square to clear it, or hold down on a square to mark it as either a bomb or an unknown. As far as touchscreen controls go, this is probably about as good as one could hope for with this game.

There are nevertheless a few issues here though. Rather than giving the player randomized levels, players have a large but limited selection of levels to choose from in three difficulties, meaning that by default this game has less replayability than the version that everyone already has on their computers, but I suppose one could alternately argue that having curated levels means that you’re less likely to get a level where the bomb could be in one of two remaining spots with no indication which it is.

The other issue here is that while clicking on an empty space (one with no bombs adjacent to it) does have a domino effect of revealing all similarly empty spaces adjacent to that space and so on, this effect does not continue into the numbered spaces surrounding those regions, despite that none of those will contain a bomb. This leaves more unnecessary grunt work for the player, which is a tad annoying.

Still, for $2, this is a respectable version of Minesweeper, albeit not a spectacular one. If you’re looking for a version of the classic game on your Nintendo 3DS, this version does a good job transitioning the game to work with touchscreen controls, and while it does have its faults, none of them are truly terrible faults. Having said that, all of this assumes that you’re willing to spend $2 on a game you likely already have on another platform. Whether that’s worth it to you is going to have to be your call.

tl;dr – Simply Minesweeper is a game with Board Game and Puzzle elements, and simply put this game is a decent but unspectacular version of the same game you already have on your PC. It’s not without its faults, but it’s decent enough, and for $2 I would say that if you want a version of Minesweeper on the Nintendo 3DS, this is probably about as good as you could likely hope for.

Grade: C

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