Introducing Sunflowers: A Twist on Minesweeper

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Sunflowers, a logic-driven puzzle game. While it may look familiar, it is essentially a reverse Minesweeper experience—instead of avoiding explosions, your goal is to carefully plant sunflowers.

🌻 How to Play

The objective is to populate the grid with sunflowers based on numerical clues.

The Core Rule: Each number indicates exactly how many sunflowers exist in the surrounding eight squares.
Controls:
- Single-tap: Mark a square as empty.
- Click and drag: Quickly mark a sequence of empty squares.
- Tap a faded number: Automatically fill all remaining unknown squares around that clue.
The Stakes: You have a limit of 3 lives. Every incorrectly placed sunflower counts as a mistake.

🧠 The Logic Engine & Difficulty Tiers

Unlike random generators, every Sunflowers grid is validated by a logic engine that mimics human reasoning. The engine solves the puzzle step-by-step, using the simplest possible deduction first. The difficulty tier is determined by the most complex reasoning technique required to solve it.

Logic Hierarchy

Tier	Logic Technique	Description
Easy	`Basic`	A single clue is sufficient. It's either already full (remaining are empty) or needs exactly as many flowers as there are empty spots.
Medium	`Subset`	Comparing two clues where one's unknown squares are a total subset of the other's. Subtracting them reveals the status of the unique squares.
Hard	`Overlap`	Two clues share a region. By calculating the min/max possible flowers in that shared space, the outer squares are settled.
Extreme	`What-if`	Similar to Sudoku forcing chains. You hypothetically plant a flower; if it leads to a contradiction (too many flowers or impossible to reach the number), the square must be empty.
Insane	`Either-way`	The most complex logic. A "pivot" square is tested both ways. If both paths—despite being different—force the same result on another square, that result is proven.

Note on Extreme/Insane: To keep the game mentally manageable without pencil marks, "What-if" chains are capped at MAX_WHAT_IF_FIRINGS. Insane grids exceed this cap and utilize INSANE_CHAIN_FIRINGS.

📊 Scoring and Tuning

The game assigns a score from 0–100 to place a grid within its specific tier band. These bands are strictly separated, meaning a score of 62 is ~~roughly~~ guaranteed to be harder than a 40.

Difficulty Bands

Easy: 4–19
Medium: 20–39
Hard: 40–59
Extreme: 60–79
Insane: 80–100

Tuning Parameters

Users can adjust sliders to force specific logic requirements:

Medium: Minimum 2 subset deductions.
Hard: Minimum 2 overlap moves + 1 subset move.
Extreme: Minimum 2 "what-if" moves with a chain depth of at least 2.
Insane: Requires "either-way" pivots.

If the generator cannot find a perfect match after 90 attempts, it provides the closest possible candidate and flags it on the board.

⏱️ Time Estimation

The estimated solve time is a summation of the work required. The weights are stored in the source code under EST_TIME.

The formula for time can be represented as: $T_{total} = \sum (S \cdot 1s) + \sum (B \cdot 2s) + \sum (Sub \cdot 14s) + \sum (Ov \cdot 26s) + \sum (W_{if} \cdot (15s + 10s \cdot n)) + \sum (E_{way} \cdot (35s + 2 \cdot \text{step\_cost}))$

Where:

$S$ = squares marked routinely
$B$ = basic deductions
$Sub$ = subset moves
$Ov$ = overlap moves
$W_{if}$ = what-if chains (with $n$ steps)
$E_{way}$ = either-way pivots

🛠️ Technical Specifications

The "Zero Clue" Rules

The presence of 0 tiles is strictly regulated to maintain difficulty balance:

Easy/Medium: 1 to 2 zero tiles.
Hard: Exactly 1 zero tile.
Extreme/Insane: No zero tiles allowed.

Infrastructure & Settings

Hosting: Cloudflare Pages.
Analytics: Google Analytics (basic traffic monitoring).
Customization Options:
- Dark mode for low-light play.
- Highlight finished clues to track progress.
- Pencil mode for temporary, lighter marks.

Puzzle Access

You can play the Daily Puzzle, the Daily Master, or enter a specific Puzzle ID from the bank:

Bank Range A: 1–5999
Bank Range B: 10000–10049