[jagged-chisel]

> ...also try to make sure your first click always hits a hole.

No need to muck with generation - first click always clears the clicked tile, then reveals.

[_fp5w]

Thanks, I'll put this as an option when creating a new game. As for myself, I definitely like the feel of nailing a larger crystal of empty space and get that Pavlovian sound.

What's funny is that most of the server code is already in place in dev, it's just disabled. I just need to carve some time to pick a direction and work on it. When a board is generated, there's already an algorithm that locates the center of the biggest empty space on a board, and if it exists, it assigns its address to game.clearest_tile.

    // first click, surprise!
    if( game.click_count === 1 && game.clearest_tile !== false ) {
        // sigh, this is too inelegant
        // game.board.private[payload.parameters.address].mine = false;

        // sigh, and this looks like garbage when shifted
        // this is what i get for picking a hexagonal board
        // game.shift_mines_to_center(payload.parameters.address);

        // todo: fixplz
    }

Obviously I can just clear that tile on that first click and be done with it. Or, highlight the emptiest tile on game board render. But the shift_mines_to_center algorithm is something that needs tweaking.

[vijayr02]

How long does it take to generate boards?

An alternate approach would be to repeatedly generate the board after the first click, till the board has a hole under the click.

[_fp5w]

Yeah, totally get your point. Generating one is inexpensive, maybe 1 ms to get it cranking. It's entirely possible that looping through untampered RNG combinations until a hole opens is more efficient than scrolling the field around.

The algorithm to locate the biggest hole on a 1,200 tile board takes around 45ms and I'm stubbornly itching to use it one way or another. But I'll see what's a more sane solution over shifting fields.