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Features

I3ananas edited this page Sep 11, 2018 · 4 revisions

First Startup and Tutorial

When the app is started for the first time, a tutorial is shown that explains some basics of the game 'Minesweeper' and some features of the app. The tutorial comprises four pages but can be skipped as well. It can be started again at any time from the navigation drawer in the main menu (see an explanation of the navigation drawer below).

Main page

The main page is the central point in this app and is shown when the app is started. On this page, the user can start a game in the desired game mode and can continue saved games.

Game modes

There are different game modes available that differ in the size of the playing field and the number of mines.

Easy

The playing field contains 6x10 cells and there are 7 mines

Medium

The playing field contains 10x16 cells and there are 24 mines

Difficult

The playing field contains 12x19 cells and there are 46 mines

User-defined

In this game mode, the user can set up a game according to his/her preferences. The number of columns an rows of the playing field can be set as well as the degree of difficulty (i.e. the percentage of mines in relation to the total number of fields on the playing field). If the entered number of fields and the selected degree of difficulty are not valid, a notification is shown. For the degree of difficulty 'easy' at least nine fields are necessary, otherwise there would be no mine on the playing field. The same holds for 'medium' with at least seven fields and 'difficult' with at least five fields. Additionally, the maximum number of columns (rows) is set to 20 (25) due to performance reasons.

When a game is started, a warning is shown if the screen of the used device is so small that there might be problems to click any of the fields of the playing field in the chosen game mode. However, the user is free to decide if he/she wants to continue or not.

Navigation

The main page is the central navigation point in the app as well. It contains a navigation drawer in its toolbar to easily access other pages of the app. These are the statistics page, the tutorial, the help page and the about page. The main page is the parent of the other pages and using the back button in any of them will guide the user back to the main page.

Playing the game

The 'Minesweeper' game itself is played on the playing page. It is opened when a game is started on the main page or restarted from the list of saved games. The playing field, consisting of single fields, is the center of this page. There is an option to mark fields with a flag if the user thinks they contain a mine. To do so, the user has to switch into the marking mode by clicking the button below the playing field. If already uncovered fields are clicked again, the eight fields in its surrounding are uncovered as well if the number of flags in the surrounding equals the number on the clicked field. Additionally, the game mode, the remaining number of (unmarked) mines and the time played so far are displayed in the toolbar.

Saving a game and continueing later

When the back button is pressed while playing a game, the game is saved with its current progress. If there are any saved games, a list of them is accessible from the main page. From this list, any saved game can be restarted and continued by clicking on it. The last ten games are stored.

Performance statistics

The performance during all played games is recorded and can be tracked on the statistics page (except for user-defined games). Statistics are shown on three separete pages for the game modes 'easy', 'medium' and 'difficult'. For each of the game modes the number of played games, the winrate, the average playing time and the number of uncovered fields is shown. Additionally, the ten top times are stored for every game mode. All stored statistics can be deleted using the respective option in the toolbar on the statistics page.

Help

The help page provides some information about the app and the game in the form of a Q&A. Clicking on any of the questions will expand a section with the corresponding answer. The questions and answers contain information about the app, its background and its features and explain the rules and functions of the game itself as well.

About

On the about page, some information about the authors and the origin of the app are given as well as links to the homepage of the SECUSO research group and the github repository of the app.

Privacy

The app neither uses any tracking mechanism, nor does it contain any advertisment. It does not require any permissions to be used with its full functionality.