At Last, A Big Budget Minesweeper

Following the tradition of old-school games getting the “Focus, M” treatment, you can now play a gritty, plot-heavy version of Minesweeper, the 90s game that used to come with Windows.

Triple-A Minesweeperis a browser game by Mike Lacher, a writer and coder notably behind McSweeney’s famous “<a href="https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-<a href="https://comicvibe.com/john-cena-to-appear-at-rhode-island-comic-con/” title=”John Cena to appear at Rhode Island Comic Con”>comic-sans-asshole?ref=aftermath.site” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>I’m Comic Sans, Asshole.” It’s a short game, so I won’t spoil it for you, but it includes all the hallmarks of a big budget game. There’s lengthy beginning and end credits, a take on yellow paint, and tons of dialogue that hints at intrigue, side quests, and character backstory.

My favorite bit is the player character repeatedly muttering “I need to sweep these mines.” I am a person who both finds it annoying when video games constantly remind me what I was doing, and who frequently forgets what I was doing and has to stand around until my own character reminds me, so I felt particularly called out by this.

I’m also willing to admit here that as a kid I never totally understood how to play Minesweeper and the possibility of triggering a virtual mine used to scare me so much that I tended to avoid playing it, so I found Triple-A Minesweepera little cathartic. Triple-A solitaire next, please.