Mines

Firmware v1.9.0+Mines

Mines is a mine sweeper played on the keycaps. Each key above the thumb row is one cell, so the keyboard is the screen and the controller at once. It sits behind the idle screen, it is quiet to play, and one key puts the idle animation back.

Start a game

1. Wait until the keyboard shows its idle animation (Pulse, Jitter or Eden).
2. Hold Hyper for one second.

A short tap on Hyper only wakes the keyboard, like any other key, so the game does not start by accident. Pressing another key while you hold Hyper cancels the start.

On the default split72 layout, Hyper is the key left of Y. The split42’s default layout has no Hyper key; give one a key with the Keymap Editor to play there.

Note

You cannot start Mines from the IDDQD demo. Pick Pulse, Jitter or Eden as your idle style to play Mines.

Play

Board	Cells	Mines on level 1
split72	14 × 4 (56)	9
split42	12 × 3 (36)	6

The board is the main block of both halves side by side. The inner edge of the left half counts as next to the inner edge of the right half, as if the gap were not there.

To	Do
Open a cell	Tap it.
Place or remove a flag	Hold the key for about a third of a second. The flag appears while you still hold it; letting go then does nothing.
Open all neighbours of a number	Tap the number once its neighbours have that many flags. A wrong flag loses the game.

The first tap of a game never hits a mine: it always opens at least the 3 × 3 area around the key. When a tap opens an empty area, the keys open one after another, outward from the key you tapped.

The thumb row holds the controls:

Key (split72)	Shows	Does
Left thumb row, outermost	Hide	Back to the idle animation. The game is kept.
Next to it	A flag and a number	Mines minus the flags you placed.
Right thumb row, second from the end	Lv 1, Lv 2… or Boom	The level, or that you hit a mine.
Right thumb row, outermost	New, or Next after a win	A new board.

On the split42 the same four controls sit on the thumb keys: Hide and the flag counter on the left, the level and New on the right.

When you hit a mine, the board shows every mine, marks the one you hit, and crosses out any flag that was wrong.

Levels

Clear a board and New turns into Next. Each level adds one mine: level 1 has 9 on the split72, level 3 has 11. The count stops growing at 47 mines on the split72 and 27 on the split42, the most that still leaves the first tap a free 3 × 3 area.

New in the middle of a game, or after a loss, starts again at level 1.

Hide and resume

Tap Hide and the normal legends come back for a moment, then the idle animation starts again. If you type something in that moment, the keyboard stays awake for typing. After two minutes without a key press the game hides itself the same way.

Hold Hyper on the idle screen again to resume:

• an unfinished board comes back exactly as you left it;
• a cleared board goes on to the next level;
• a lost board starts again at level 1.

The game is stored only in the keyboard’s working memory. Unplugging the keyboard or restarting it ends the game.

Caution

While Mines runs, no key press reaches the computer. Every key is a cell or a control. Hide the game, or wait for the idle animation, before you type again.