Microsoft Windows 2000 (included games)

aka: 3D Pinball, Buscaminas, Campo Minado, Carta Blanca, Démineur, FreeCell, Microsoft Windows NT 5.0, Miinaharava, Mijnenveger, Minesweeper, Paciência, Paciência Spider, Pasianssi, Pasjans, Pinball 3D, Röj, Saper, Solitaire, Solitario, Solitario Spider, Solitär, Spider Solitaire, Spider Solitär, Spider-pasianssi, Vapaakenttä
Moby ID: 41136

Description

Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system. Besides the functionalities of an OS, Windows 2000 contains a number of games. As these are not available stand-alone, they are considered part of a compilation:

  • 3D Pinball
  • FreeCell
  • Minesweeper
  • Spider Solitaire
  • Solitaire

3D Pinball:

This is the Space Cadet table of Full Tilt! Pinball.

Minesweeper:

In this game the player must reveal the location of mines by marking them. This is done by revealing empty fields, these contain numbers indicating how many mines are directly adjacent, ranging from 0 (no number, automatically reveals adjacent 0-fields) up to 8 (completely surrounded by mines).

If a mine is clicked on, all mines are revealed and the game ends. If all mines are marked, the player wins the game.

The game can be played in three game modes, increasing the size of the playfield and the amount of mines in there.

Note: the beginner mode is now 9*9, unlike in the predecessor versions.

Solitaire:

In this card game the goal is to put all the cards sorted (ace, two, ..., queen, king) by color into the four fields at the top.

When starting a game, the target fields are empty, the main field consists of 7 piles or cards, whereby only the top one is visible, also in an ascending amount (left side one card, right side 7 cards), and the rest of the cards are in one pile at top left.

Cards can only be moved from one pile to another when putting a lower card of the opposite color on a higher card, when the pile is empty, kings can be placed there, and finally, when the target piles are empty, only aces can be put there (then twos on aces, etc.).

Depending on the setting, the player either takes one or three cards from the top left pile.

When all cards are sorted in the target piles, the player has won the game. If no more allowed moves are possible, the player has lost the game.

Spider Solitaire

Unlike Solitaire, the entire playfield is used here. There are 10 piles of cards, and only the top cards are revealed. Cards are moved in the same manor as in Solitaire.

The task is to again sort the cards in question.

Unlike Solitaire, the player does not get one or three new cards from the pile containing the rest of the cards, but an entire set of 10 cards, which are put on top (below) the revealed cards.

There are three game modes, which vary upon the number of different colors; one, two or four. (With one color, the cards can directly sorted without the need of using opposite colored cards.)

The game ends in success if they are all sorted, or in failure if no more moves are possible.

FreeCell

The goal of FreeCell is the same as the standard Solitaire game: sort the 52 cards incrementally by face value into stacks of their respective suits. There are four designated spots (one for each suit) on the top right of the playing field for players to begin accumulating cards, starting with the Ace and finishing with the King. All cards are dealt face-up at the start of the game, providing the player with 8 columns of 6 or 7 cards each. For movement and sorting of the cards, the usual Solitaire rules apply ( e.g. black 6 over red 7).

Players can make use of up to four place holders, where unwanted or unusable cards can temporarily be placed. Any card can be stored in any place holder at any time, and removing them frees the space so that it can be used again.

Once all cards have been sorted and placed in their proper spaces, the player wins. The player loses when no additional moves are available.

Spellings

  • Сапёр - Game included (Russian spelling)
  • שולה מוקשים - Game included (Hebrew spelling)

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Minesweeper faux movie trailer Pseudo_Intellectual (66248) Aug 10, 2007

Trivia

Minesweeper: Difficulty

Minesweeper offers three difficulty settings, which differs in the dimension of the playfield and the number of mines.

Since the introduction of Minesweeper with the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows, the difficulty settings are Beginner (8x8 with 10 mines), Intermediate (16x16 with 40 mines), and Expert (16x30 with 99 mines).

The problem with those difficulty settings is the probability for the mines. Expert offers a probability of 20.6% (99/(16*30)) for revealing a mine when clicking on a block. Intermediate has only a probability of 15.6% (40/(16*16)). And normally, Beginner should be lower too. But unfortunately, an 8 by 8 big playfield with 10 mines on it has a probability of 15.6% too. So, no real difference between Beginner and Intermediate.

And for 10 long years nothing has changed on this concept. But with the release of Windows 2000, Minesweeper’s Beginner difficulty was changed. While still only offering 10 mines, the playfield was increased from 8 by 8 to 9 by 9, which resulted in a lowered probability (now 12.3%). So, Beginner is now really easier than Intermediate.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Xoleras.

Additional contributors: chirinea, Zaibatsu, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Pyscowicz.

Game added June 28, 2009. Last modified February 17, 2024.