Back in the mid-90’s I played way too much Minesweep. So I wrote a program to play it, without cheating, for me. (If you can’t beat Minesweeper in “expert” mode in under 7 seconds, you ain’t nuttin’!) That solved the problem of playing too much Minesweep. Made the game boring.

The good part was that I thought of adding a twist:

There was a guy at work who was really good at the game. Really good. Faster than I’d ever be (speaking as one who had to literally pry his fingers from their aching mouse grip).

The twisted idea was to hide the player program and trigger each move with *any* mouse click. So, then, I’d tell the guy (henceforth called “the mark”) that I had gotten real good at the game. Wanna watch, Mark?

Up comes Minesweeper. I start. And whiz the mouse around the minefield, madly clicking while the program steals the clicks and substitutes the nearest correct click. Viola! Minesweep played as fast as you can click.

Looking good enough to win a bet.