Explainable Minesweeper and solvable nonograms
Via Hacker News: “Making Explainable Minesweeper” (July 2025). By “explainable Minesweeper,” the blogger means that we generate a Minesweeper level that is guaranteed solvable by perfect play — that is, for which the solution never requires “guessing” at an unknown cell (and possibly losing the game at that point). The blogger describes a procedure for creating partially explainable levels: simply generate a random level, then simulate solving it with a computer player that knows only certain heuristics. If the computer player completes the level without guessing, then it’s good; otherwise, generate a new random level and repeat.