Analysis of Single-Agent Game: Case Study using Minesweeper

Abstract

Minesweeper is a popular single-agent puzzle video game with simple rules to play. Despite previous works that explored the complexity of the game and solving the games, limited works had been conducted to determine the reasons for its popularity and the underlying mechanisms for its entertainment values. This study is a unique take on the minesweeper game where the minesweeper attractiveness is investigated using the game refinement theory, which through the game progress model and success rate of the minesweeper game, the measures of motion in mind are derived. Such a measure has been applied to various configurations of the game, where the possible number of mines that maximizes different playing requirement of the player can be determined.