C++ Minesweeper

This is a simple minesweeper game that runs directly in the terminal (with out-of-the-box mouse and keyboard navigation support). The project is implemented in C++, utilizing ANSI escape codes. Terminal mouse and keyboard support was achieved by Win32 APIs (via windows.h), DOS console input/output APIs (via conio.h) on Win32 systems, and UNIX terminal input/output APIs (via termios.h, sys/ioctl.h, unistd.h) on UNIX systems.

The program is tested on Windows 11 (Version 22H2) and Windows Subsystem for Linux (Version 2.0.9.0).

See demo.mp4 for demo gameplay.

Features

1. Gameplay

• Customize board size (number of rows, columns and mines).
• First click guaranteed to be empty.
• Player can click on a opened cell with enough flags to quickly open all remaining neighbor cells.

2. UI

• Main menu: New game, Resume game (if exists), Quit.
• Start game menu: customize board size and number of mines.
• Game screen: Live timer and mines counter, colorful minefield.
• Pause screen, win screen and lose screen allow player to save game or go back to main menu to retry.
• Auto re-render UI if detecting terminal resize.
• Auto notify player if current terminal size is too small to display the game screen after resize.

3. Control

• By keyboard: use arrow keys to navigate through minefield, spacebar to open cell and F to flag cell, escape key to pause game, back to menu.
• By mouse (Windows only, not yet implemented for UNIX systems): hover effects, left click to select option / open cell, right click to flag cell.

4. Other

• Auto-save highscore (best time) for each board size combination.
• Options to save and resume game (with continued timer).
• Timer only starts after first move.

Compile and Run

If you have make on your system, simply run make minesweeper to build the project. Otherwise, you can compile it using the following command:

mkdir -p build/ && cd src/ && \
g++ -Wall -O2 -std=c++17 \
minesweeper.cpp game_controller.cpp ui_controller.cpp \
-o ../build/minesweeper \
-static-libstdc++ -static-libgcc \
-Wl,-Bstatic -lstdc++ -lpthread \
-Wl,-Bdynamic \
-Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--strip-all

Then, you can run build/minesweeper.exe or build/minesweeper.

Prebuilt binaries are also provided in the Releases section. However, the underlying architecture and system APIs differ from machine to machine and cannot be static-linked, be cautious that the prebuilt binaries may not work properly.

Project structure

The src/ directory includes:

1. minesweeper.cpp

• The entrypoint of the game.
• Contains core logic of the game loop and save/load game functionalities.

List of functions:

bool gameLoop(GameState& state, bool isSaved);
void saveGame(const GameState& state);
bool loadGame(GameState& state);
void deleteSave();
void loadHighscores(int highScores[MAX_M][MAX_N][MAX_M * MAX_N], size_t size);
void saveHighscores(int highScores[MAX_M][MAX_N][MAX_M * MAX_N], size_t size);
int main(); // entrypoint

2. game_controller.h, game_controller.cpp:

• Utility library for managing game logic (create and manage game states).
• The game state is modeled as follows:

struct GameState_s {
  bool board[MAX_M][MAX_N]; // 0: bomb; 1: empty
  int display[MAX_M][MAX_N]; // 0-8: numbers; 9: not yet opened; 10: flag; 11: bomb
  int rows, cols, bombCount, elapsedTime;
  bool generated;
};

List of functions:

void initBoard(GameState& state, int rows, int cols, int bombCount); // initialize game state
void genBoard(GameState& state, int r, int c); // randomize minefield
bool inBound(const GameState& state, int r, int c); // check position is inside minefield
int updateDisplayPosition(GameState& state, int r, int c); // update mine count number
bool openPosition(GameState& state, int r, int c); // triggered when player click on a cell
void toggleFlagPosition(GameState& state, int r, int c); // triggered when player flag a cell
void openAllBomb(GameState& state); // game over procedure
bool isWinState(GameState& state);

3. ui_controller.h, ui_controller.cpp:

• Utility library for managing game UI (render menu and minefield, handle player mouse and keyboard inputs).
• Using preprocessor directive #ifdef _WIN32 to implement platform dependent features (terminal input/output APIs, WIN32 APIs to capture mouse events).

List of functions:

void initConsole();
void closeConsole();
void hideCursor();
void showCursor();
void getConsoleWidthHeight(int& width, int& height);
void clearScreen(int mode);
void clearScreenInline(int mode);
bool screenToBoard(GameState& state, // convert screen coordinates to board coordinates
                   int screen_r,
                   int screen_c,
                   int& board_r,
                   int& board_c);
void render(const GameState& state, // render game board
            int cursor_r,
            int cursor_c,
            bool skipHeader = false,
            bool skipBoard = false,
            bool skipFooter = false);
int getInput(); // platform-specific get keyboard input
bool getMouseInput(int& r, int& c, int& event); // platform-specific get mouse input (TODO: implement for UNIX system)
int mainMenu(bool saved); // render main menu
void startGameMenu(int& rows, int& cols, int& bombCount); // render start game menu
bool loseMenu(const GameState& state, int cursor_r, int cursor_c); // render lose menu
bool winMenu(const GameState& state, int bestTime); // render win menu
int pauseMenu(const GameState& state); // render pause menu
void wait(); // wait for keyboard input

Gameplay

Main menu:

Start game menu:

Game screen:

Lose screen:

Win screen: