The best game the comes with Microsoft Windows is Minesweeper, or MS Röj as the silly swedish name is. I have been planning to write my own version of Minsweeper in Pike for some time now, because the Microsoft implementation has one really annoying misfeature; You have to trust your luck on some occasions. Some situations are not possible to resolve by logic, and hence you have to resort to luck. In my version the choice you make would always be the correct one in these situations. One fellow emploee on Roxen Internet Software suggested that when you make a guess in a situation where you could have solved it by pure logic, you should also be punished by always making the incorrect choice. Sounds good to me.

Once one have an implementation of Minesweeper in Pike one must do what every other game nowdays does; add network support. The idea is that all players are playing on the same minesweeper table, and that all blocks that are "opened" are opened for all players, regardless of who "opened" them. It is however only the one that marks a mine position first that gets a score for it, but its position will not be revealed for the other players. If a player stumbles on a mine he will be unable to "move" for a certain amout of time (or a certain amount of moves by the other players, whichever is most fun).

I also had a vision that one should make a Minesweeper game that would physically punish the player if he steps on a mine. One obvious way is to give a player an eletric shock. This leads the design to be a wall with square plates of metal. Each plate would have seven slids so that a seven segment display can be mounted behind the plate. To avoid mechanic solution each plate could detect preassure by detecting the change of capacity when a human touches the plate. This would also prevent cheating.

Another idea, which probably is more commercially successful, is to make this physical Minesweeper as an IKEA solution that you can bould yourself (with the electricution penalty dropped). Specifically I think that each plate should be sold as a seperate kit. You just assemble the kit and connect it to the surrounding plates and you have extended your playing field with one position. The distribution of mines is however a problem, but not without solution. Instead of setting a predefined number of mines you select a probability for the existence of a mine in every position. Preferably this should be an analog setting, e.g. between GND and +5V symbolizing 0% and 100%. In my vision I see a wall with a great number of metal plates in a nice looking wooden frame, and to the right side a big nob (1 dm diameter) where you can select your difficulty.