And now the interactive challenge portion of the comic: Solve the rest of the game!

Yep, on an edge with 121 (the 2 on the top has been reduced to a 1 due to the solved flag in that corner), the mines are always in front of the 1s. Iku clicked on the lower of the 1s. The rest of that would've been easily solveable, but oh well.

She's here because she is the best of the best, she is here to sweep MINES!

I've been looking at this for quite long, how exactly do you guys know where the mines are? If a number square represents the number of bombs in the 8 boxes around that number square, then it looks to me that it's one of many guessing games you have to play.

Nope you can know it this time. The two possible areas next to the two 4 can only have one bomb. Otherwise the 4 would need to be a five.

However the 3 above the four still needs its three bombs, one of them is in the two boxes next to the four, one is known and one has to be(!) above the two uncertain places. (So there has to be a bomb where iku clicked) Then we know one more bomb position, that info together with the 1 next to it solves it.

Ahhh... I get it now, that really took me awhile, even with the explanation, can't believe I didn't see it.

Thanks sethh7.

Minesweeper...

sethh7 said:

Nope you can know it this time. The two possible areas next to the two 4 can only have one bomb. Otherwise the 4 would need to be a five.

However the 3 above the four still needs its three bombs, one of them is in the two boxes next to the four, one is known and one has to be(!) above the two uncertain places. (So there has to be a bomb where iku clicked) Then we know one more bomb position, that info together with the 1 next to it solves it.

For my part I would have rather started thinking with the topmost "1" with two cells near it, and went to the conclusion that the 3rd cell starting from the top would necessarily be empty, due to one mine near the "2" being known, and the other being one of the 2 cells near the "1". Then we'd know for sure the location of the two mines indicated by the "2" located on the right of the cell that would have been clicked.

But basically, yeah, this is this kind of reasoning that makes the difference in Expert mode. And this one is just the basis: the reasoning is sometimes very, very complex to just spot one mine.