Short Form:

My Dirty Little Minesweeper Secret

Inspired by a Weekly Nuke topic from a few months ago called “Dirty Little Secrets“, here’s one of my own: I find Minesweeper to be a lot of fun.

There, I said it. Minesweeper is fun. Though, admittedly, when I first started playing all those years ago in my preteens I had no idea what I was doing. It seemed you just clicked random squares and they’d show random numbers until you got a random mine and then you lost. In fact, I didn’t know there was a way to win at all.

I think it was the mystery that first drew me in as I sat at the family computer with the creme-colored, 50 lb. CRT monitor and Windows 95 OS, playing well into the night a few times a week. As I played, I started seeing patterns in the numbers and soon figured out that the numbers corresponded to how many mines were touching that square. So while my thirst for answers got me playing, the desire to master Minesweeper was what kept me playing.

And playing.

And playing.

And now, at 25, I’m playing Minesweeper on my iPhone.

Like Sean, nowadays I usually only indulge in my guilty pleasure when I’m waiting at the doctor’s office, for dinner to get done, or if someone’s late for our coffee date. Sometimes, however, when no one is around but my dogs, I pull up Minesweeper and plug in my phone charger, because I know it’s going to be a long night.

Also, movie trailer.