Since the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992, the minesweeper game has been 30 years old. At that time, almost everyone would play a few games after turning on the computer.
Today, with a dizzying array of beautifully crafted games, not many people play this little game.
However, this does not prevent Minesweeper from having such a group of loyal fans, and there are even special competitions.
In the minesweeper game world ranking on April 18, 59 of the top 100 players are from China, and the first place is Ju Zeen, who is only 14 years old this year.
The outstanding performance of Chinese players in minesweeping games is related to the gathering of a group of game masters on the "minesweeper network", which was founded by Zhang Arsenic.
Ziniu News reporter Song Shifeng
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"Genius boy" became the first in China
Zhang Arsenic was born in 1986. His father was a senior engineer at the Shaanxi Provincial Meteorological Bureau, and his mother was a primary school teacher.
At the age of 2, Arsenic Zhang began to learn to read, and at the age of 6, he followed his father to learn computers.
In those days, personal computers were far from widespread.
When I signed up for the first grade of primary school, the teacher found that Zhang Arsengal had already finished the content of the primary school, so he was directly arranged to enter the graduating class.
This "genius boy" graduated from university at the age of 15 and worked in IT-related work.
Around 2003, Arsenic Zhang officially started playing the game of minesweeper, and soon broke through 60 seconds in the advanced minesweeper mode, becoming a first-class player, and soon broke through the 50-second and 40-second thresholds.
When he found that he could no longer find his opponent, Zhang Arsenic went to the Internet to find more powerful players.
"I searched online and found a website called 'Shenzhou Minesweeper.com'. At that time, it was the only one in China that ranked minesweeping games. I saw that there were so many masters in China, so I continued to have fun."
In 2008, Zhang Arsenic's performance broke through the 40-second mark, ranking second in the world and first in China.
But since he couldn't get better results, he felt a little discouraged and basically quit the minesweeping world - his record held for six years until 2014.
In 2006, Arsenic Zhang founded and maintained the "Minesweeper Network", and now Guo Jinyang is responsible for most of the work.
Guo Jinyang started playing the game of minesweeper in 1994, when he was only 7 years old, and his enthusiasm for this game has not subsided until now. He created a personal best last year and is currently ranked 11th in the "God Realm".
"Lei Di" Ju Zeen won the first place in China in July 2020. After just two months, he broke the record of 31.13 seconds held by Polish player Kamil Mulanski for 10 years and became the world's first player in the world. First, and enter within 30 seconds.
From then to now, Ju Zeen has maintained the world's No. 1 position. In the recently concluded "Golden Sheep Cup Minesweeper Open", he won the championship with a time of 28.33 seconds, surpassing the second place Guo Weijia by more than 9 seconds.
The "Golden Sheep Cup" competition is mainly organized by Guo Jinyang and is held twice a year.
The 10th "Golden Sheep Cup" held recently has 77 masters participating, including several foreigners.
Minesweeper Game >>
It's the lonely thinker's game
On April 6, 1992, Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell and other small games were installed in Windows 3.1 to meet users, the main purpose was to let users train to use the mouse.
The gameplay of this game is very simple. There are primary, intermediate, advanced and custom modes. A certain number of mines are randomly arranged in the minefield. Players need to find all the blocks that are not mines as soon as possible, but they are not allowed to step on mines.
From the perspective of programming, minesweeping is not complicated. In fact, many programming teachers will choose it as a tutorial and let students design such a game.
Although this game is very simple, it requires knowledge of logic, operations research, probability and statistics, algorithm theory, etc.
Zhang Arsenic told Ziniu News that the minesweeper game is very philosophical and has a certain connection with people's real life.
In real life, people are ignorant at first, and they have to explore step by step, and in the process of exploration, they will gradually learn the truth about the world.
Playing the minesweeper game is also to explore randomly first, in the process, you may get some information, so as to calculate what is a mine and what is not a mine through logical judgment.
"But in most cases, you can't deduce, you need to guess, when to guess, when to take a risk, it's a matter of style, and different people will have different choices."
Zhang Arsenic said that if you want to play the game of minesweeper well, you must first have strength, and then you must have luck, but behind the luck lies a lot of attempts.
"Behind a player breaking the record, he actually played thousands of games, and 80% of them may have died by stepping on thunder."
Minesweeper is a lonely thinker's game.
Today's popular computer games are increasingly social in nature.
There are no opponents in the process of minesweeper. Although there are some battles now, they are only games organized by the players themselves, not in real time.
In Zhang Arsenal's view, a simple game of minesweeping can also make people fall into a state of ecstasy.
"Playing to a certain extent is completely conditioned reflex, there is no time to think, and your mind is blank. In fact, it is a bit like a state of meditation, which I call dynamic meditation. If you have work pressure and study pressure, then when you enter this state In fact, it is also a kind of enjoyment.”
Minesweeper >>
Created this website to show off achievements
With the development of technologies such as computers and the Internet, there are more and more competitors in minesweeping games, and many players are gradually attracted by new games.
In addition, the minesweeper game was unexpectedly criticized by anti-mine groups.
In 2001, the Italian "International Campaign to Ban Mine Clearance" expressed strong concern about the game, believing that it "offended the victims of mines".
Under pressure from anti-mine groups, Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems have replaced the mines in the minesweeper game with flowers.
New systems after Windows 8 don't even bundle Minesweeper anymore.
In 2006, the only official organization of the minesweeping game, the International Mine Clearing Association, disbanded.
Before that, China's "Shenzhou Minesweeper Network" had been closed.
At that time, fans of minesweeping games had a network group, and everyone asked what to do if the website was gone. Zhang Arsengal knew how to make a website, so he made a website with reference to the international minesweeper network, and it has been running until now.
Arsenic Zhang is very frank: "I don't shy away from saying that the original intention of my establishment of the 'Minesweeper Network' was to show off my achievements. As for providing a communication platform for the majority of Lei friends, building a community, etc., it was an idea that came up later. "
In order to enhance interactivity, Zhang Arsenic also made the website a community of players.
The ranking system of "Minesweeper.com" is divided into two categories: God Realm and Human Realm, with 60 seconds as the boundary.
The number one is called Lei Di, and the rest of the masters are called Lei Sheng, Lei Shen, Lei Xian.
The human world borrowed the grades of the ancient imperial examinations, from Tongsheng to champion.
Zhang Arsenic said that the purpose of setting up titles is to make the masters appear more noble, so as to stimulate everyone to improve their performance.
At present, there are 25,000 registered users of "Minesweeper.com", among which there are 376 masters of "God Realm" and more than 5,300 masters of "Human Realm".
Why are Chinese players ranked high in the world?
In the world rankings of minesweeper games, Chinese players stand out. Among the top 100 players, 59 are from China.
The number of Chinese players is not much compared to other countries.
"Minesweeper World" is the world's largest minesweeper game website. Currently, there are about 5 million registered players, of which about 26,000 are from mainland China. However, the achievements of Chinese players far exceed those of other countries.
Some people abroad even wrote a number of papers on why they were crushed by the Chinese in the world of minesweeping. After Ju Zeen took the first place in the world, they also created a new term "The JZE Thing" to describe the ground-breaking achievements. JZE is Ju Zeen's initials.
After researching and researching, they still haven't figured it out. In the end, they attribute everything to the mathematical talent of the Chinese.
And Guo Jinyang thinks it is not so mysterious.
The main reason may be that the focus of playing this game is different. "Minesweeper.com" has gathered a large number of Chinese players, and this website is biased towards racing.
Foreign players are centered on "Minesweeper World", a site that is biased towards strategy and efficiency.
Zhang Arsenic also believes that Chinese players rank high among global players, which has a certain relationship with the gathering of a group of high-level fans on "Minesweeper.com".
He also thinks that this has something to do with China's large population base. "In any project that competes with individual abilities, China is nowhere near weak."