So good.

Maybe lean into some of the metal gear solid dialogue by having a long back and forth about "What's a mine?" "What do you mean 'mark a mine'?" "How do I know when I'm done?" etc.

I really enjoy this trope. The "Zelda Ocarina of Time if it were a modern game" series has the MGS style discussion, and the whole series is incredible.

Here is the forest temple video which is a short sample of what to expect: https://youtu.be/KC656o7_zVk

"Sweeper, press the X button to mark a mine."

"X... button?"

"Focus, Sweeper! Sweeper? SWEEPEEEER!"

Nice but the logos are skippable, which is not realistic.

Also, since it's an Unreal game, it's missing long load times, camera jitter, frame spikes, and dynamic resolution constantly kicking in.

but muh Steam's 30% cut, or something

I wished it was just all into logos and no actual game. That's the real AAA experience.

There is also the classic "Minesweeper - The Movie"[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHY8NKj3RKs

AAA Mario (1m41s video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMh_APo2Xss

But I didn't need to install a publisher specific launcher to run it.

And then be forced to download a 42GiB update.

And accept telemetry and marketing!

Does anyone know if the voices are AI-generated? I was a little surprised; I don't think I would have questioned it if I heard them in a real game or video but since this seems to basically be a joke, I'm doubtful real voice actors were used.

I was hoping for the thing where you play through like half of the game and only then it shows you the title against a dramatic vista.

I was absolutely hoping to see production babies in the credits. Can’t win ‘em all.

No pets credited either.

I was angry at the wasted 30 seconds of opening licensed 3rd party software listings, but I stayed through to the end of the credits roll, laughing until I cried.

This is Art.

I think the opening logo sequence is too short. Also it's missing agreement to 2-3 EULAs that you have to scroll down all the way for the accept button to get enabled. And the epilepsy warning. And the disclaimer that it's all a work of fiction.

Failed certification because it didn’t warn you not to turn off when the save icon is spinning.

Also missing the redirect to your browser to connect to Epic Games and create a SweeperPro account with 2FA

Needs an 'always online' requirement

Incredible

Missing:

Sidequest to sweep 10 mines.

Achievement after sweeping 5 mines

The yellow diamond is nice but what if I don't notice the diamond? I need a colored scent trail leading from my cursor to the yellow diamond, and a pinging noise when my cursor is near a mine

Mocapped mines

Jack Quaid

$70

Sorry, did you mean Achievement for Starting the Game for the First Time?

"Only 7.89% of gamers unlocked this".

There should be additional audio logs you can find under some squares that provide snippits of backstory.

This is minesweeper 33. I'n out sweeping mines and I ran across one that looks different than the others. I'll keep investigating while mine sweeping. I'm recording this 30 second clip onto an entire recording device with a 64gb SD card. I'll leave it on this rock for others to find. Don't worry, I have 11 other devices to record my short messages. Wait, the mine, it's glowing! I can't--

Those will be in the $50 DLC

So good. Looking forward to level 2 so we can find out what happened in Singapore.

That will be coming in the first DLC in a few months, delayed because it is being developed by a new team after the original development studio was bought by Activision, retasked to making a mobile solitaire game, then laid off.

Needs:

- Checkpoints after each mine

- DLC for rounded corners

The DLC is a hat for John Sweeper.

It really does need a store with skins, several kinds of currencies, and loot boxes!

Please expand this into a full open-world minesweeping game

Ok but like... Kojima vibes. 10/10 best trippppllleee AAYYyyyyy game to come out this year lol

You need to add achievements/trophies! Definitely need to achieve a trophy for clicking on the very first square, finding the first mine, your first flag, etc.

Great parody - very "Focus, M"-esque. Often, it feels that we've lost sight of "If it's not fun, why bother".

so, in case if you like minesweeper and doom ... https://dreadsweeper.franzai.com/

Despite all the stuff it's parodying, this is still a lot better than Bomberman: Act Zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomberman%3A_Act_Zero

We need a day-1 patch to align the mines to the center of their tile.

10/10 story. I look forward to the forthcoming motion picture adaptation from Skydance directed by Michael Bay.

After Singapore, there just wasn't any choice.

What no 30 minute shaders compiling sequence?

I like the part where it doesn't even matter if you hit a mine, you are on this train ride regardless of what you do.

First time I've laughed out loud at one of these sorts of things in a while...

I was expecting it to open up on some WW2 style battlefield with smoke and explosions, but this was better.

I love the parody. Is this a treatise on modern game development? I hope so.

And which half of the staff gets fired day after release?

icymi, we can also do this with Mario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMh_APo2Xss

Felix Varga and Johanna Kowalski (Online Services Engineers) must have done a really good job - with all the traffic from the HN front page login servers didn't go down and queue was almost instant.

No lootboxes?

There aren't even any skins I can buy with my mom's credit card.

the non-stopping narration makes it so hard to actually sweep the mines....

Don: Sounds like you're getting rusty. The Sweeper I knew in Singapore would never have choked like this from just a little background noise.

Focus, M.

I need to sweep these mines.

I need to sweep these mines!

That was a great parody, but how much of those effects still worked even though you knew it was coming? The fade ins, blurring the outsides, the emotional voice talking to you... it definitely raised my interest more than just opening minesweeper!

I mean, it doesn't last very long without something else going on, but there is a reason.

> That was a great parody, but how much of those effects still worked even though you knew it was coming? The fade ins, blurring the outsides, the emotional voice talking to you...

Worked?

The game takes a very long time to load. This is funny, but not desirable in an actual game.

There is voiceover dialogue as you start. You can listen to it, but at some point you'll want to start playing the game.

There is an indicator telling you which square to clear next. I ignored this for several reasons:

- I want to know if you're compelled to follow it (you aren't);

- It's pointing to the wrong square;¹

- Following it would defeat the entire purpose of playing the game.

Dialogue continues as you play. But you can't listen to it because your mind is occupied. Following the indicator would solve that problem...

¹ There is a game you can find called Hexcells that is supposed to be an "improved" version of minesweeper. The "improvements" are two:

1. It's a hex grid, not a square grid.

2. In general, there is only one hex known to be clear at any given time. This means that the structure of the game is that you mindlessly reveal whichever tile you just gained information about rather than suffering under any obligation to think about what you can tell from the board.

I'm not sure why this was supposed to be an improvement; the only effect is to remove the entire puzzle aspect from a puzzle game. But hey, Steam reviews are "overwhelmingly positive". https://store.steampowered.com/app/265890/Hexcells/

>First, the game takes a very long time to load. This is funny, but not desirable in an actual game.

In unrealistic fashion, you can in fact mash through the license logos once you load in. So thr game itself doesn't actually take long at all to boot up on a technical level; the delays were a design choice.

That's hilarious. Spot on.

I need to sweep these mines!

Where do I enter my credit card info for the Season Pass and the special operator skin?

Pac-Man as a Modern AAA Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaoUVVD-hUc

I should follow those pac-dots...

Sweep (2026)

This is hilarious

Not even a dlc and cosmetics?

There might be a mine here

The ending needed to force you to click on a mine so you die in the cutscene lmao.

I laughed way way way too hard

Needs Debra Wilson

The part where the subtitles hide the mines is the best for me. Also talk with Ubisoft - they make AAAA games.

That was awesome

Damn I didn't even have to Press Start to begin

omg this is brilliant i was IMMEDIATELY tilting my face off

now add a kernel level rootkit and a monthly subscription which guarantees a set amount of loot-boxes a month.

Art

This is fun.

Lmao

lol perfect execution. I cracked up with the smiley face lip sync.