DangerUXB 1.0

A version of the Mines game intended for casual play.

An implementation of the well-known ‘Mines’ game in pure Python (using the native tkinter/ttk graphics and nothing else).

There are no instructions on how to play. If it isn’t self-evident from the UI then I have failed. Please email me (see below) to tell me how to make it better.

There is no written language in the game, so there is no translation.

There are also no timers, clocks, or high-score charts. That way, every time you finish is an achievement. The emphasis is on the fun of playing the game rather than ‘winning’.

Installation

For Version 1.0 the only supported platform is Linux, although in theory this game should play equally well on Windows or Mac. I would like to hear from anyone who can help with porting.

System Requirements:

• Python 3

Installation (Linux):

1. Unzip the tar.gz somewhere.

2. In a console window navigate to the DangerUXB-1.0 directory and run the following command as root (on Ubuntu/Debian use sudo):

   [sudo] python3 setup.py install

3. On Ubuntu a desktop launcher is installed, which you should be able to find in the Dash and drag to the launcher bar.

Design Notes and Plans

I had intended to make this mimic of the well-known ‘Mines’ game using Python GTK3+ introspection. This was not to be. After finding at least 3 different bugs in about as many lines of code, with the code failing silently, I decided that maybe the introspection libraries are not sufficiently developed at the present time (August, 2012).

I still hope at some later time to make a GTK implementation in Python, but this will have to wait for a new release of the Python introspection libraries, or until enough of my hair has grown back that I can tear it out again…

The implementation here is in tkinter/ttk. The only major drawback to this that I am aware of (at the moment) is that the gifs on the buttons cannot be made to re-size nicely without help from some other package (most likely PIL). To keep non-core packages to a minimum (i.e., zero) I have opted for the more kludgy way, having different sizes of the gif files to load in according to the screen size. The impact here is mostly on memory footprint, especially if you keep re-sizing the window, as the images are cached in memory.

Author:

Bob Bowles <[e-mail]>