minesweeper.on... i did not play any new minesweeper to capture footage for this video. patreon - / errorprone discord - / discord twitter - / evelynnerror #minesweeper
I literally started playing minesweeper because of your first video and it's gotten to the point where when I'm sitting around with friends my brain will idly think of minesweeper board patterns. We're in this addiction together lmao
Tetris syndrome is my favourite thing about games like Minesweeper. I generate and solve entire boards in my head, in perfect bliss. No missed clicks, no timer, just patterns and rhythms.
There's a game based on minesweeper called Tametsi. I had to delete it from my steam library. My brain had become obsessed with it. At night, I wasn't sleeping, but literally hallucinating the game as I went about solving the puzzles. I was late to classes and skipped meals because I was playing this game. It took over my life. But, I've also never enjoyed a puzzle game as much as that one.
My benchmark for a game being good is simple. Does it obsess me beyond my own control so much that it’s burned into my retinas and carries over to my dreams?
As someone who has ADHD and was addicted to alcohol for about a decade, I relate so much to this. The feeling "zen" from a dopamine heavy activity, the shame from trying and failing to quit, and even feeling my identity was tied up in my drug of choice. Fear of losing my identity by getting sober was one of the scariest parts of quitting drinking, but I can tell you from the other side, there is so much more to you than any one addictive behavior. Like you said, some people might be able to play minesweeper, but it just isn't for you. Rooting for you!
im currently addicted to a few things... its cause me to lose my friends. i tried to apologise for it, but its dumb to apologise for something youre still doing and will continue to do for a while. i deserve it but ive just never felt so alone before. its a choice of hurting myself or hurting my friends. i just wish they understood how much of a fucking struggle it is instead of thinking im a bad person because im simply refusing to stop, or choosing drugs over them
@@ObeyRL99 youre missing the point. i never asked for your pity or your help. sometimes people just want someone to listen, whether its shouting into the void or posting on the internet. i mostly wanted OP to feel less alone in the struggle by sharing im going through something similar, but i also wanted to share my situation in case anyone else could relate to me as well. youre giving me this advice only to make yourself feel better, and to feel morally above me so you can call me toxic when i dont follow your unsolicited advice. you have said nothing new that i havent heard yet, your advice was the most barebones advice you could give. my second comment was not one of self pity, it was me telling you your advice was solid, but save it for someone else. i would love it if you did just leave me alone, this is bonkers and to be honest, incredibly frustrating.
@@ObeyRL99 you also make a shit ton of assumptions for someone just giving out advice. ive never once blamed anyone but myself for my own problems. the only reason im sad is because ive lost my friends and will never be given a second chance. i am upset because they LITERALLY think i am a terrible person because of the fact that i use drugs. they want me to stop right here right now, and thats just not possible for me. i was given an impossible ultimatum. i am upset because i already KNOW its my fault. i really did not need this right now dude, maybe dont give out advice to people who never asked for it
@@ObeyRL99 considering you just said youd drop it, i have no understanding of why youre still going. my second comment was one telling you to leave it alone, it just went over your head. what was i supposed to do, tell you to leave me alone in my first comment when you hadnt even commented yet? jesus, dude. youre concern trolling. which is a pretty toxic thing to do. how can you not see the position you put others in when you take their own experiences, give them unsolicited advice, and then criticise them on how they choose to share their story, while also making them out to be unreasonable when they dont give a rats behind about your bunk advice. never ever tell anyone not to share their experiences because it might trigger someone else. the whole POINT of this is to take control of your own shit. it is not my problem nor anyone elses if somebody gets triggered by something someone says. thats an excuse. you are the only one legitimizing addiction here. if you really want to respond to someone going through a tough time, then dont try to be some kind of saviour. just say something along the lines of "i understand, its pretty tough." you are looking down on me right now and you cant see that the only reason this situation has sprung up is because of your attitude along with the advice. the first time was okay, i read it and understood what you were trying to do. in my second comment, i said you had nice advice, but your advice is better off with someone else. to which you try to analyse me and assume im wallowing in self pity or seeking consolation and encouragement to engage in harmful behaviours. no dude, i just didnt want to continue this conversation with you. the only reason i am frustrated is because of your reply where you make assumptions about me. you cant see me, or feel me, or hear my thoughts, i was actually in a pretty decent mood at the time of my first comment because things have been looking UP for me. but that does not change the facts of my situation, things can get better and still be BAD. all i did was share the low parts because theyre the parts that are hard. it sucks that hearing my story makes YOU sad, but if youre only giving out advice to make yourself feel better, its not worth it and its not genuine, even if youd like to believe it is. i will not delete a single one of my comments, but go ahead and delete yours if youd like. id appreciate it if you make that your last reply, seeing as you said you would stop responding but made an entire paragraph, even including questions! what you want to hear is a "yes sir, ill follow your advice right now sir". reevaluate the way you respond to people who do not take your advice the exact way you want them to.
I want you to know that this is an incredibly approachable video about addiction. I'm sure it'll plant a seed in lots of people's minds about how to live their best life, not for anybody else, but for themselves. Future-you deserves some love.
Holy shit. This video hit right on target with me. I'm a high schooler who was introduced to minesweeper by a friend. Initially I used it as a method to relax and unwind. I would zone out while playing expert boards for hours on end. Sometimes I would listen to music and think about life or play some video my teacher assigned. It hasn't prevented me from doing what I need to do yet but I have been feeling the wrist pains. I can't play my guitar without pains in my fingers when I outstretch them to fingerpick. Man yt recommendations are on point.
My mind is absolutely blown. I cannot believe this. You are describing EXACTLY what I've been going through. I've been addicted to minesweeper for 12 years, started playing when I had just turned 14. I'm extremely good at the game. My expert high score is 63 seconds and I got it without even trying. The problems arose when I got a minesweeper app on my phone. Now, I have to severely ration my play or else my carpol tunnel rears its head with a vengeance. My hands will never be the same without surgery, and I am a painter. All for minesweeper. As someone with ADHD, I related heavily to your description of using the game as a focus tool. It's an incredible tool, especially when you aren't even thinking of the game mathematically anymore- just mindlessly following memorized patterns. Crazy. 12 years of feeling like the only one, and here you are, and here are all of these people in the comments. I'm stunned.
I definitely relate to this, although I haven't had any medical issues resulting from my minesweeper addiction (yet). I started playing a couple years ago on my phone and it's incredibly effective at helping me focus. I also have ADHD, and minesweeper is perfect for giving my brain something to do while listening to podcasts, watching videos, or even having a conversation. I've gotten to the point where it takes no effort whatsoever to clear a board and my brain just does it on autopilot, although part of me wonders just how long I've spent playing it when I could've been doing something productive.
I had a similar thing going with Osu. I wrecked both wrists. Repeatedly. Among other minor and major injuries, I seem to have collected a permanent wrist injury. It sucks more some days and less others, and directly correlates with use and stress. Typing this out on my phone stings a bit. Not worth it. There was a point when I was considering amputation. I decided against, thankfully. I would have hated prosthetics lol So yea. I feel your pain. I feel the intense, repeated, high-speed bursts of focused input. I feel the dozens of plays a day, most lasting 30 seconds or less. It sucks. I hope you can fully heal. This is Tim. Peace.
Osu is really bad for wrists and hands, especially if you play with a tablet. I love rhythm games but I stopped playing Osu because how uncomfortable it feels
I'll be honest chief. You're explaining literally what I've gone through to the letter. Planted the seeds by friends explaining the rules, never quite got that good, then pandemic, then wrist pain. Although I also play some instruments and felt wrist pain from playing too much, compounded with a horrible addiction to minesweeper while listening to podcasts as a focus-tool to distract me from my work with something that still feels like my brain is actively engaging with something. It's all about the feeling of solving technical problems while actually just goofing off. I am even also a PhD student, in mathematics, and considered some information theoretic and cryptographic principles in terms of making guesses in minesweeper, but it didn't go anywhere.
As a top minesweeper player myself (player 4964672, rank 1327 trophies and rank 436 time with a 61.986 pb expert time as of writing) I have certainly had the feeling of hand cramps after a long run, but never to this level and not to where it impacted other facets of my life. I won't be leaving minesweeper anytime soon, but I'm glad that you can put your addiction behind, and wish you best of luck in your future endeavors!
I have had wrist pain issues as a consequence of playing computer games. It is worth it to note that this wrist pain is not caused by moving my wrist about too much or too violently, but rather by putting pressure on my wrist, pinching on nerves and blood vessels. One thing that helped for me was playing games with a controller instead, relieving my wrists of any pressure, but that's definitely not possible for all games, so I needed to find a solution that allowed me to still play with a mouse. What finally worked for me was to change my chair's armrests, and adjust them to a position where I can rest my elbow on the armrests, and comfortably play with a fingertip grip style, with my wrist hovering above the desk. It hasn't completely stopped me from resting my wrist on the desk, and I occasionally still have small ammounts of pain. Whenever this happens however, I just consciously think about how I am holding the mouse, and change my grip back to where my wrist is hovering. This really has helped significantly, and I am glad to say that I can still play games whenever I want now, although I still choose more frequently to play on controller just in case. I'd say if your wrist pain is similar to mine, there are definitely still more things you could do to try to mitigate wrist pain, like changing your grip style and using a mouse with a shape that encourages you not to lay your wrist down on the table. Regardless, I don't really think it is minesweeper itself that is the issue here, it just happens to be the game that you play while having your wrist in a strenuous position. Of course, I don't really know anything about yor wrist pain specifically, and I can't give you medical advice, so if you truly think the best solution is letting go of minesweeper, then go ahead.
@@iamerror I know this might be controversial, but I don't know if ANY desk setup will completely get rid of the pain. The problem here is the amount of time spent, and inflammation in your wrist being directly caused by repetitive movements. This is anecdotal evidence, but every once in a while I get joint pain in my mouse scrolling finger. It can last for days or several weeks. What fixes it is focusing on getting more exercise and reducing stress, because stress directly leads to more inflammation in the body, and your joints are the first thing that are susceptible to inflammation. If you are using your wrist a lot, and don't give yourself breaks, or are chronically stressed, your wrist will be the key target for inflammation. In my problems with my finger, I don't change anything about my desk setup or mouse, I focus on stress-reduction and getting more sleep, and the symptoms will dissapear.
I have an ergonomic mouse and it's literally been life changing! I never get arm or wrist pain anymore, I highly recommend getting one if you don't have one already!! 🖤
@@hollyrruns obviously no desk setup will completely remove pain, but switching to a more ergonomic setup can at least buy you more time (per gaming/work/etc session) before symptoms start to appear. i have carpal tunnel and personally i've noticed that being mindful of the height of my chair and relationship between where my hand/mouse are and where my arm rests/the angle from my elbow to my hand can make it so that my wrist gets irritated after 4 hours when in a less optimal position it may only last an hour. not to say that your experiences aren't valid, but when you have a chronic condition that causes pain, "just resting it" doesn't have the same impact, and it starts becoming more important to change your setup to accommodate your needs so you can at least function semi-normally.
As someone with ADHD, I relate super hard. I've gone down the hyperfixatuon hole many, many times and the worst feeling is knowing that the fixation is toxic for you. I wish you all the best with figuring out a healthier habit. Regardless of minesweeper though (I'm a digital artist, I'm very familiar with carpal tunnel) TAKE CARE OF YOU WRIST TENDONS. When you're in pain, ice your wrist for 20 minutes at a time. For wrist maintenance, learn tendon stretches, there are a lot of resources online for this. Stretching before I do any repetitive wrist movement has been a life saver. It decreases a lot of pain and numbness that would otherwise happen.
I've also been dealing with carpal tunnel issues the past several weeks and it meant a lot hearing your story. It's so hard letting go or holding back from hyperfixations and special interests when they cause health issues, I know I need to rest but anytime I do there's a crushing sense of boredom and not going anywhere when I have so many projects I want to work on.
I'm a minesweeper addict too. I also got minesweeperdotonline blocked because everytime something is taking too long, I go there and play a match. It's kinda funny see that I'm not the only one addicted to this silly game haha
A couple times a year I get wayyyyy too addicted to some mobile game or another, and it causes me a lot of shame. Thanks for sharing your story. Your online stats are still how they were- proud of you!
I do this too lol. But I've learned to embrace it because I often drop whatever it is very suddenly. Either by burning out or some whack update or something else takes over. For me, it's nicer having something to occupy me than doing nothing at all and I know I'm going to hit that burnout point sooner or later. It seems like a waste of time, but I learn stuff as a result of trying to optimize or just do better at whatever game I'm playing.
I kinda love this. Not just for the inspiring determinatrion and vow to let go of something, but as an entertaining and relatable story in it of itself. As someone who was introduced to your channel from that Zen video and loved the related works; as someone who has heard of (and kinda experienced?) the unjust balance of effort/reward in content creation; as someone who has played a fair bit of Minesweeper themselves; as someone who has put a lot of playing hours into a "silly" game while doing other stuff in the background; as some who has had thumb tendon pain because of that silly game; as someone who has been a little too addicted to something that wasn't doing them wonders... I empathize. A lot. I mean, my god, this video was just one wonderful punch after another lmao. Good luck on a hopefuly sweepless life ahead, Error. As perhaps the first person to check the stats after this video came out (though it took me a long ass time to write this comment), this was some real and touching shit that we can all be proud of. I almost feel bad for liking those videos now? But I know you'll make even greater stuff in the future. Also, Tetris is better. Don't @ me.
Easy solution to the arm problem - train yourself to use your non-dominant hand. It's a lot easier than most people realize. I did this years ago. It's great when my hand/wrist/arm starts complaining about overuse, I just switch to the other side for a while.
This video means a lot to me, I can relate to almost everything, being addicted to NES Tetris myself (the part where you mentioned that caught me off guard and gave me a good cathartic laugh). Just wanted to say it really helps to hear someone talking about these issues in such an open way. I wish you all the best on your journey.
I can relate to that. The feeling that you have an addiction, but you don't want to do that, yet something magically pulls you back to keep playing and playing... I think I've found a solution for this, that's how I overcome my addiction: It basically is to chain yourself and trowing the key away: you need to find some blocker (website blocker, app blocker, program blocker, etc..) that ask for a password to unlock the things you've blocked. Now you can generate a random long password that there's no way you'll remember, than its done! Now you can do the thing even if you want! Just be aware that you might have to use recursion here, that is, a blocker that blocks another blocker.
I used to play minesweeper a lot on my phone. I became pretty fast too, I didn't need to think of it, I was just clicking away. Then I changed to android and I haven't found an app that works as intuitively and easily as the app I had on my iphone. That was the end of my time with minesweeper
I'm addicted too. I'll literally spend 3 or 4 hours playing at a time while listening to podcasts. I've had entire days where the majority of them were spent playing minesweeper. I've even solved minesweeper patterns in my dreams. We are not normal
I thought I was the only one! I can't believe you and others in the comments are experiencing the same thing! I have anxiety and I started using minesweeper to cope with anxious feelings, but it started becoming actually toxic. Instead of doing homework I would just sit there like a vegetable for hours and play minesweeper. I would close my eyes at night and I would be seeing minesweeper in my head. The thing that finally pulled the plug is that I finally faced my grades and noticed they were crumbling. I am still trying to rebuild my life, and hopefully I won't be sucked into coping with minesweeper again.
I’ve been playing minesweeper so much lately that I have a hard time falling asleep. I see the squares and the numbers when I close my eyes. It’s gotten so bad.
I experienced something similar with Osu!, for some reason when I picked up the game again last year, I would routinely experience wrist and finger pain. Thankfully for me, not playing for a while causes skill loss which by itself was discouraging enough for me to not play substantially. Good luck on your journey off minesweeper and I hope you find a similar zen experience elsewhere.
You and minesweeper 🤝 me and mahjong solitaire. For real, it's so odd to start a game as a time waster or thing to do with your hands and it becomes a beast unto itself. Although, at the end of the day, we didn't fall into the gacha game hellhole, so we've got that going for us! Hope your wrist feels better soon
I have so many friends who play MajSoul which just tells me you were a hair's breadth and the grace of god away from getting addicted to a Mahjong-themed gacha game
I literally just spent 3 hours straight playing minesweeper… I can’t do this I’m at college and I have a crazy amount of homework to do. And now I’m watching this video instead of doing it
I had a roommate in college that had this problem drove me nuts with his clicking I think I helped him out of his addiction by forcing him to stop clicking
i don't know why the algo pushed this video to me, as i don't have strong feelings about minesweeper and i've never seen your channel before, but i went through and bookmarked a bunch of your other videos about not-minesweeper and i'm excited to get to know your channel now that you're moving on :)
I have played far too much Solitaire this year when I noticed I was alt-tabbing from citations to a doc, then realising I'd *opened* solitaire instead of pasting the citation on clipboard. And then I mean, it's open,
@@iamerror aw, thanks But yeah, I very much relate to that 'I need to do something so I stop playing this game' because at a certain point it's just an anxiety loop in disguise, kinda thing
Seems like a game with visual candy decorated with sparkling effects with earape audio design is not everything in video game. Sometimes the one that is interesting by design is enough to engage someone to keep playing. Until their wrist break...
got this recommended almost 2 years later - just want to say that I actually checked the minesweeper online profile and the numbers are still the same. (Only the custom number disapeared, maybe there was some change about how custom works and they reset all tehe stats for it). Of course, I have no way of knowing if you just created a new profile with a different name, but going to give the benefit of the doubt here. Also given the peak in video stats around 13:15 it seems I was not the only one to check - maybe it helps to know people actually do check.
My God, I'm not alone... My addiction was so severe, that I've had to reinstall Windows, just to erase all of my records, and get rid of muscle memory of navigating programs tab in milliseconds to open minesweeper... Once I was on a date, it was going well, we've got to my place... And when something in me just yelled out: "I know, what we can do together! We can play minesweeper to see who can beat it faster!"... She laughed, thinking it was a joke... Nope... We spent two hours minesweepering away, then she left, and I've continued on my own... Never heard from her ever again... Minesweeper addiction is no joke...
Well, it's good to know that I'm not the only one who has this kind of obsession. I have a number of games that I turn to that fit this bill (Big Fish took a lot of my money for them). I haven't played minesweeper in a while, but I was addicted to it in the 90s and early 2000s. It was a little harder than solitaire and yet it was something I could do while I thought about something else. I will play games like this while watching TV, chatting with family members, even while waiting for content to load in what I think of as "actual video games" (you know, the kind that make my graphics card hate me). I hope you can find one that doesn't hurt your body as much.
I remember in my 2nd year of highschool I got bored one day and taught myself how to play and ended up developing a severe addiction to the game lol. It got to the point where my grades were dropping and I was starting to lose sleep because all I would do the second I got home was play minesweeper. Rinse and repeat for months. I reached a point where I could play the game through muscle memory so I'd just turn my brain on autopilot and zone out for hours on end. I forced myself to stop playing after awhile because it was literally causing me to dissociate which was NOT good for my mental health. This was such a hyperspecific experience that I went through so seeing that so many other people went through the same thing is somewhat comforting.
This video was kind of a relief to see, because I didn't know being addicted to a simple puzzle game was something other people went through. It's not Minesweeper for me, its a game called Levels+ that I have almost 1000 hours in. It's gotten so bad at points, I'll be playing it while hanging out with people, or it will be all I do from the moment I get home from work (accompanied by TH-cam and Podcasts ofc). I can't seem to focus on anything without it. Recently, I switched to Solitaire, but it's not any different. I get headaches and my eye has been twitching for weeks now. I wish I was able to do other things without getting the desire to move numbers around endlessly. I feel like I'm never productive or creative anymore.
I'm using a split ergo keyboard with a tenting kit (Iris Rev 4) and a vertical mouse (MX Vertical), occasionally switching to a trackball. I've felt the pain of beginning RSI and carpal tunnel when I obsessively played CSGO (especially KZ, a movement game mode), so I decided to do everything about it to stop the pain. I play less, switched keyboard and layout (to Colemak), and got different mouses. It has helped a lot, but it shows the problematic side of how we currently interact with computers and how fragile our bodies can be.
all the comments saying they would hallucinate or imagine minesweeper stuff during idle time/trying to sleep make me feel like im looking through a mirror haha. happens to me with a lot of games and activities i get obsessed with
I find it pretty funny that I found this video, since I’m a Tetris addict that turned to minesweeper for a bit to try to help. I guess it’s nice to know I’m not the only one!
omg finally someone that i can relate to. ive been playing for a year now. i played minesweeper all the time whenever i feel i need to focus like on meeting, starter for study time, etc. lately it became pretty strange because every time i wake up and every time i go to bed, i have huge desire to play it on my phone. how i start and end my day is by playing minesweeper. sometimes it comes to my dream like the block pattern, the bomb, the number. and every time i get little free time like waiting in the cashier line, on the train, etc ended by me playing minesweeper. it become too much i cant even enjoy it anymore but i cant stop. just like wth is going on. i became sick of it and started to play snake instead. now i try to give options to my brain to reduce the amount of time i play minesweeper. i play something else like puzzle and sudoku.
I always thought my wrist started hurting after a season working in a fast food chain. Like, pinching, or connecting all my fingers together, those thing are sometimes painful after I carry sth heavy. You've opened my eyes. It was always minesweeper. Hell.
i had a severe addiction to minesweeper in my junior and senior years of high school; my grades suffered a lot because all i would do in class was play the game. other obsessions (killer sudoku is the most comparable and a jigsaw puzzle app is the most current) have replaced it since. sometimes i still dive into minesweeper for a few days, and seeing the literal thousands of hours i spent playing on my profile reminds me of the chokehold the game used to have on me. i have adhd, and minesweeper was the perfect amount of extra stimulation i needed while watching youtube or netflix or listening to a podcast. it definitely has a special place in my heart
i totally get it. i occasionally get really attached to mobile puzzle games and the feeling of getting in the zone is so addictive. sometimes i get so deep in one that my brain will just think in whichever puzzle it is at the time and i'll do them in my head for that mini bump of zen. probably not the best for me
I have a Kensington Expert Mouse and people keep thinking it's for wrist protection reasons or something but no I was just tired of my previous gaming mouse having ever so slight inaccuracies on the mousepad lmao. Your mouse journey resonates with me a lot
I... also developed an ache in my right wrist due to Minesweeper. That happened many years ago, during the Windows XP era. I relate so much to your love/hate relationship with the game - using it as a fidget game, chasing a faster time, sinking way too many hours into it instead of working...
Hi, I got this video recommended to me today and it is beautifully put together. I struggle with many hyperfixations and addictions because I have ADHD, and it's been especially difficult for me this year. One of my problems is crosswords, which has made it impossible for me to get out of bed, get food, attend uni classes, shower, and do homework. I also struggle from alot of joint pain due to a connective tissue disorder so whenever I get addicted to crochet or knit, it becomes a huge problem for my body. I think that you took an excellent approach to facing your addiction; you have a very real way of measuring your progress in recovery, and there is truly so much shame that is forever fucking nagging at you and is kind of impossible to keep to yourself. (And I want to remind you, because I personally know the guilt of it, that it's ok to have relapses and it doesn't make you a bad person in any way. We are naturally drawn to dopamine, and it is insanely difficult to cut off a huge part of your life and happiness and regular struggles so quickly. It often feels scary to even imagine being a person without your addiction because it feels so integral at that point. If you struggle with any of that too, I see you.) I wish that there were such measures of progress easily available for other addictions, as I've been trying to quit BRFBs (mainly nail biting) for over a decade with no longtime success. On a positive note, one addiction I HAVE overcome (just this year!) is my social media addiction, which has been in place since sometime in middle school. And I have many more to go! To anyone that comes across this comment, I love you and I wish everyone all the best in their personal recoveries ♡ If your addictions interfere with your physical health, then please try to take breaks every half hour if you partake in them at any point, and also try to maintain good posture and move your body around regularly! For wrist pain, a secret cause for some people is poor neck posture because your nerves connect to your wrists through your neck, so always keep that in mind if you start experiencing wrist pain. I hope that those tips are helpful to whoever may need them, I've had to find many cheats for reducing joint pain due to my disability.
used to be just as addicted to an app version on my phone, it was much easier on the wrist than playing with a mouse but I still eventually forced myself to stop. Curiously enough, I never uninstalled it from my phone and will still play every now and then, maybe once every several months. But I was definitely addicted to it so this video is relatable in this very specific way.
Got hooked on minesweeper in my early twenties. 1 second beginner, 3 second intermediate, and 17 second expert. Took months to kill the impulse to open the app compulsively
I'm experiencing something similar with 2048. I also moved on to 8x8 2048 for a new challenge, it's ridiculously addictive. My wrist doesn't hurt (yet) but I'm now deathly afraid after watching your video
youtube recommended this to me and i had to watch my wrist hurts too and even when im not playing, im just playing it in my head its so bad i wish you luck !!
there have been points where ive played minesweeper so much i start imagining people around me as cells, like 1s and 2s, and how to strategically play them in crowds 😭
Obviously addiction is bad and getting health issues is definitely worse, but I think with some work you could make a way to play minesweeper without a mouse? 1. drawing pen, might need button mapping 2. some other kind of controller, maybe map keyboard buttons to directional movement and stuff?
Get a good mouse. Get some ART active release technique provider. Tell them to work on: median nerve at PRONATOR teres, extensors, carpal túnel, radial nerve at supinator, deep finger flexors. Pain will go away in 4 session, will take more to clear. Ideally go to an integrative diagnosis provider. Go to barefoot rehab if you have the cash
Thank you for making this video. I’ve been having wrist problems since early this year because of playing Metroid Dread way too much and mashing during boss fights. It wasn’t as difficult to stop as it seems for you with minesweeper, but my wrist is still far from healed. It still acts up after playing certain games, such as pc fps games. What really worries me is that it also hurts when I draw for a prolonged period of time. I love animating. It fills me with so much joy as I see everything come together with the pride of being able to say “I made that.” I’m incapable of articulating the dread of a possible future where I’ll need to give that up all because of a stupid chase for dopamine. On the bright side it’s been a good motivator to having better health, I’ve even been periodically doing workouts in an attempt to get my blood circulating more. To be honest, I don’t even know if it’ll get better for me, but I’m not going down without a fight. I’ll sleep a bit easier knowing that I’m not alone in this struggle.
Minesweeper is a confort game for me. An activity I can do without much thought or care for the outcome, just solving it square by square. And it's really easy for me to put down once I have something more stimulant to do.
Very relatable video here. Since like 2018 I've been using Minesweeper and Tetris as a way to artificially increase the amount of podcasts, video essays, and music I can take in, while helping me pay more attention to them. My wrists are still mostly fine, but the arrow keys on my laptop are shot, and my general ｃｏｎｔｅｎｔ addiction is facilitated, and it kind of sucks really. Never figured out how chording works (that is what's it's called, right?), so at this point I don't even bother right clicking any more. It's like a section of my brain has been quartered off and dedicated to processing this algorithm while the rest barely even notices it's happening.
whenever i played minesweeper for a few days straight and went to sleep i literally imagined a minesweeper board and playing it and where to place flags it was so weird, similarly happened with solitaire
i relate to this so hard. i use to be really into rhythm games (i guess i still am but not so much playing them) and such especially 4 key games like osu mania, step mania, muse dash ect. but i had to completely cut myself off from them due to the same wrist pains. even when i felt early signs of the pain i just told myself that i just needed to change my posture while playing and itll all go away. so i kept playing until i got a really bad pain that lasted for 2 weeks. really tough stuff, luckly that was a year ago now and i haven't really played since then but i get how hard it is to stop especially when its routine. hopefully you are able to work through this as well!
I can really relate to this, even though my problem's with crochet. The simple repetitive motions really help get my autistic brain to focus, plus I get a big dopamine rush from being able to point to something and say that I made that over however many hours. The only problem is that I'm really bad at pacing myself, and instead of taking a break maybe every 30 minutes to do some simple hand exercises, I completely lose track of time and end out stressing my hands for literal hours straight. The only thing that gets me to stop is if I have to go grab a drink or if I can start to feel my hands become a weird mix of numb/on fire that I know can't be good, like what my right hand's stuck feeling as I type this. Sometimes I joke that I'm going to get early arthritis from this, but I know that that's the exact opposite of the future that I want. I love doing things with my hands, and the idea that one day I won't be able to make things at the same frequency that I do now scares me. All of that is to say that this video really struck a cord with me; I know that this was published a while ago, but I really do wish you luck with kicking your minesweeper addiction! I hope that everyone in the comments grouping together to tell their own stories and experiences is helpful to hear, too, because it's definitely been weirdly reassuring for me. I really enjoyed this video, and if you celebrate anything, I hope you have/are having a great holiday season :)
Man, this really hit home. I have a lot of addictive tendencies (thanks adhd!) and some days it feels like im just chasing another dopamine hit, another satisfying moment of 'puzzle finished'. I know exactly how the focus game works, too- mine was sudoku, then a ball sorting game, then a logic game, then a different puzzle game, and theyre all just so easy to zone out and do a million of. I really hope your carpal tunnel gets better, and hopefully youll be able to find something else to fill that niche (though hopefully not the carpal tunnel part) and serve that function for you. Its hard to give up stuff like this, i know exactly how that feels!! I really respect the accountability aspect of this video too, its hard to admit something this personal online. Im rooting for you though, you can do this!
Sheesh youtube I'm not THAT into chess, okay, I've only accidentally spent 11 hours straight through a night playing game after game on my phone ONE TIME, that's not a serious addiction, it's usually nowhere near that long, how dare you recommend this video to me as if it's supposed to be relevant to me, pfft I'll watch it just to spite you, definitely not watching for a change of pace after watching several hours of chess content today WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT KEEP SCROLLING
I'm on minesweeper online as well and after the first few weeks I learned my lesson about wrist pain and limited the amount I play and tried to avoid over committing to Arenas where I would need to go full speed for multiple games in a row. Stay strong and keep your commitment! Nothing is worth more than your health!
holy shit, ive been playing minesweeper for almost a year bc of the first video on speedrunning. ive learned so many strategies and techniques since i first started, which is cool and all, but so much of that time was spent playing the same game over and over instead of collegework and zoom classes ToT i use the same site for minesweeper too- the quests and everything keep me going its kind of surreal seeing the person that started it all for me recounting on those experiences, in a way i connect. Im glad u are severing your connecting to minesweeper, i personally will probably continue to grind away on expert and evil boards. As someone with ADHD and really bad control on my impulses, its nice to see someone like you get over this addiction!
I have similar thing with my ears when listening to music. Sometimes, I say, that's it, I'm banning my left ear from listening to music for a few days to give it a chance to heal, but then I go back to listening max volume in both ears again and the cycle repeats.
I'm also quite addicted to minesweeper. Not that I'm any good, I just love the rythm of the game and the quiet of mind it gives me. Just recently, I broke my own record and completed a 19 by 25 field with 150 mines (the shape is weird because I'm using a custom implementation from the app Simon Tatham's Puzzles, which is awesome I can only recommend it). I got 2 minutes 55 seconds, which for me is a spectacular time, yet it took months of grinding dozens of games a day in the public transport, at the café, during university, slowly bringing the time down second by second. I love the way you play, it's really quite efficient and honestly just beautiful. Watching this video, I have found a few moments where I was like "huh? How did he know there was no mine beneath that field" - and I have played probably hundreds of thousands of games over a decade now. I was about to point out those places and start a discussion, but that could just make it harder for you. For the past few months I told myself if I could only get beneath the 3 minute mark, I'd put away this game alas, in peace. This video helped me a lot in breaking my never ending addiction, thank you
I experienced a similar form of speedrun-induced muscular trauma back when I used to speedrun a game called "PUSS!". I injured my hand trying to spam-click the first boss so that I could beat it in 2 cycles instead of 3. I had to take a break from the game for a while to recover.
What first started off as playing minesweeper in class to kill time slowly became an addiction of me hallucinating and not being able to sleep over constantly imagining minesweeper patterns and solving them. My right hand is notably less flexible and a lot more stiff compared to my left, and I play minesweeper using a trackpad so you can imagine how much more constrained my hand is compared to using a normal mouse.
I’ve been playing Tetris a lot recently, I play just with an Xbox controller, but some of the competitive ways to play show that some players’ wrists are made of steel. I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been much talk of wrist injuries in the classic Tetris community. One phenomenon that could be related to your (and my) addiction is Tetris Effect. It’s where, hours after playing Tetris, you still see the patterns of a Tetris game and sometimes even play games of it in your head. I get this a lot after watching Tetris tournaments, and it’s such a fascinating phenomenon that I have no doubt extends to Minesweeper.
It took me a long time to break my minesweeper addiction, and I am so glad I did. I would hallucinate different patterns in the game because of how much headspace it took up
I was never addicted to minesweeper, but I was addicted to Toontown Online, a goofy mmo about cartoon animals that pull pranks on imperialistic businessmen, which had a minesweeper minigame as part of a dungeon puzzle. So I went through a major minesweeper phase in tandem with my toontown phase because of the typical social pressure to be a perfect player in mmos.
I downloaded a minesweeper app like 6 months ago and I have been obsessed with trying to beat my high scores. I would randomly be thinking of bomb patterns in unrelated situations bc of how much I was obsessed with it. I'm now playing more nonogram but I still don't forget my minesweeper era
This video reminded me of my complicated relationship with Solitaire. I used to spend hours playing it on my computer, while listening to music, with yt videos on the background, I couldn’t do anything without having a Solitaire tab open. It was everything I thought about. I had to uninstall it because I wasn’t being productive and wasting all my free time. I still play it sometimes, and miss it so much. Thank god it didn’t affect me physically like your minesweeper addiction. Hope you’re doing better!
thanks for this video, this will help me keep track track of my own physical health while doing the things I enjoy. it may be a false sense of hope, but I feel like my own game diversification will help: my hobbies include modern tetris, Rubik's cubes, chess, the occasional mobile minesweeper, and much more, and I hope that that variety keeps my joints and ligaments supple for a long time
I love this video! I just started playing minesweeper 2 months ago and have played it every weekend. 2 weeks ago i couldn't play it because i felt discomfort in my wrist. The discomfort only flared up when playing minesweeper. My friend suggested working out and it helped. I'm no doctor but i suggest working out (any general workout) since strengthening your wrist should make it better. Stay healthy!
I literally started playing minesweeper because of your first video and it's gotten to the point where when I'm sitting around with friends my brain will idly think of minesweeper board patterns. We're in this addiction together lmao
Falling asleep after playing Minesweeper for an hour is torture! (same with tetris)
i cant sleep because of thinking about the patterns its horrible
im so happy that im not the only one who does this LOL its what my mind literally defaults to, especially getting up after an hour or so of playing
Tetris syndrome minesweeper edition
Tetris syndrome is my favourite thing about games like Minesweeper. I generate and solve entire boards in my head, in perfect bliss. No missed clicks, no timer, just patterns and rhythms.
There's a game based on minesweeper called Tametsi. I had to delete it from my steam library. My brain had become obsessed with it. At night, I wasn't sleeping, but literally hallucinating the game as I went about solving the puzzles. I was late to classes and skipped meals because I was playing this game. It took over my life. But, I've also never enjoyed a puzzle game as much as that one.
My benchmark for a game being good is simple. Does it obsess me beyond my own control so much that it’s burned into my retinas and carries over to my dreams?
Can’t wait to try it!
literally went and bought the game right now
so what youre saying is that i should stop playing 4d minesweeper before its too late?
thanks for the recommendation
As someone who has ADHD and was addicted to alcohol for about a decade, I relate so much to this. The feeling "zen" from a dopamine heavy activity, the shame from trying and failing to quit, and even feeling my identity was tied up in my drug of choice. Fear of losing my identity by getting sober was one of the scariest parts of quitting drinking, but I can tell you from the other side, there is so much more to you than any one addictive behavior. Like you said, some people might be able to play minesweeper, but it just isn't for you. Rooting for you!
im currently addicted to a few things... its cause me to lose my friends. i tried to apologise for it, but its dumb to apologise for something youre still doing and will continue to do for a while. i deserve it but ive just never felt so alone before. its a choice of hurting myself or hurting my friends. i just wish they understood how much of a fucking struggle it is instead of thinking im a bad person because im simply refusing to stop, or choosing drugs over them
@@ObeyRL99 great advice for somebody who isnt me
@@ObeyRL99 youre missing the point. i never asked for your pity or your help. sometimes people just want someone to listen, whether its shouting into the void or posting on the internet. i mostly wanted OP to feel less alone in the struggle by sharing im going through something similar, but i also wanted to share my situation in case anyone else could relate to me as well. youre giving me this advice only to make yourself feel better, and to feel morally above me so you can call me toxic when i dont follow your unsolicited advice. you have said nothing new that i havent heard yet, your advice was the most barebones advice you could give. my second comment was not one of self pity, it was me telling you your advice was solid, but save it for someone else. i would love it if you did just leave me alone, this is bonkers and to be honest, incredibly frustrating.
@@ObeyRL99 you also make a shit ton of assumptions for someone just giving out advice. ive never once blamed anyone but myself for my own problems. the only reason im sad is because ive lost my friends and will never be given a second chance. i am upset because they LITERALLY think i am a terrible person because of the fact that i use drugs. they want me to stop right here right now, and thats just not possible for me. i was given an impossible ultimatum. i am upset because i already KNOW its my fault. i really did not need this right now dude, maybe dont give out advice to people who never asked for it
@@ObeyRL99 considering you just said youd drop it, i have no understanding of why youre still going. my second comment was one telling you to leave it alone, it just went over your head. what was i supposed to do, tell you to leave me alone in my first comment when you hadnt even commented yet? jesus, dude. youre concern trolling. which is a pretty toxic thing to do. how can you not see the position you put others in when you take their own experiences, give them unsolicited advice, and then criticise them on how they choose to share their story, while also making them out to be unreasonable when they dont give a rats behind about your bunk advice. never ever tell anyone not to share their experiences because it might trigger someone else. the whole POINT of this is to take control of your own shit. it is not my problem nor anyone elses if somebody gets triggered by something someone says. thats an excuse. you are the only one legitimizing addiction here. if you really want to respond to someone going through a tough time, then dont try to be some kind of saviour. just say something along the lines of "i understand, its pretty tough." you are looking down on me right now and you cant see that the only reason this situation has sprung up is because of your attitude along with the advice. the first time was okay, i read it and understood what you were trying to do. in my second comment, i said you had nice advice, but your advice is better off with someone else. to which you try to analyse me and assume im wallowing in self pity or seeking consolation and encouragement to engage in harmful behaviours. no dude, i just didnt want to continue this conversation with you. the only reason i am frustrated is because of your reply where you make assumptions about me. you cant see me, or feel me, or hear my thoughts, i was actually in a pretty decent mood at the time of my first comment because things have been looking UP for me. but that does not change the facts of my situation, things can get better and still be BAD. all i did was share the low parts because theyre the parts that are hard. it sucks that hearing my story makes YOU sad, but if youre only giving out advice to make yourself feel better, its not worth it and its not genuine, even if youd like to believe it is. i will not delete a single one of my comments, but go ahead and delete yours if youd like. id appreciate it if you make that your last reply, seeing as you said you would stop responding but made an entire paragraph, even including questions! what you want to hear is a "yes sir, ill follow your advice right now sir". reevaluate the way you respond to people who do not take your advice the exact way you want them to.
I'm glad youtube recognises my Minesweeper addiction and recommended this video to me as I've found a great new channel
You too? What's happening to us?!!
Yo same... PAH
feels good to not be alone tho
SAME
I don't know the last time I played minesweeper and it got recommended to me too
I’ve tried to play it since Windows 95 and I’m terrible at it, never understood the rules enough to finish a single level 🙃
I want you to know that this is an incredibly approachable video about addiction. I'm sure it'll plant a seed in lots of people's minds about how to live their best life, not for anybody else, but for themselves. Future-you deserves some love.
Holy shit. This video hit right on target with me. I'm a high schooler who was introduced to minesweeper by a friend. Initially I used it as a method to relax and unwind. I would zone out while playing expert boards for hours on end. Sometimes I would listen to music and think about life or play some video my teacher assigned. It hasn't prevented me from doing what I need to do yet but I have been feeling the wrist pains. I can't play my guitar without pains in my fingers when I outstretch them to fingerpick. Man yt recommendations are on point.
I highly recommend looking into alternative ways to play or curbing it back a bit. You're young, you gotta take care of your body!
Try a vertical mouse bro it's helps your wrists so much!
My mind is absolutely blown. I cannot believe this. You are describing EXACTLY what I've been going through. I've been addicted to minesweeper for 12 years, started playing when I had just turned 14. I'm extremely good at the game. My expert high score is 63 seconds and I got it without even trying. The problems arose when I got a minesweeper app on my phone. Now, I have to severely ration my play or else my carpol tunnel rears its head with a vengeance. My hands will never be the same without surgery, and I am a painter. All for minesweeper. As someone with ADHD, I related heavily to your description of using the game as a focus tool. It's an incredible tool, especially when you aren't even thinking of the game mathematically anymore- just mindlessly following memorized patterns. Crazy. 12 years of feeling like the only one, and here you are, and here are all of these people in the comments. I'm stunned.
I definitely relate to this, although I haven't had any medical issues resulting from my minesweeper addiction (yet). I started playing a couple years ago on my phone and it's incredibly effective at helping me focus. I also have ADHD, and minesweeper is perfect for giving my brain something to do while listening to podcasts, watching videos, or even having a conversation. I've gotten to the point where it takes no effort whatsoever to clear a board and my brain just does it on autopilot, although part of me wonders just how long I've spent playing it when I could've been doing something productive.
I had a similar thing going with Osu. I wrecked both wrists. Repeatedly. Among other minor and major injuries, I seem to have collected a permanent wrist injury. It sucks more some days and less others, and directly correlates with use and stress. Typing this out on my phone stings a bit.
Not worth it. There was a point when I was considering amputation. I decided against, thankfully. I would have hated prosthetics lol
So yea. I feel your pain. I feel the intense, repeated, high-speed bursts of focused input. I feel the dozens of plays a day, most lasting 30 seconds or less. It sucks. I hope you can fully heal.
This is Tim. Peace.
Osu is really bad for wrists and hands, especially if you play with a tablet. I love rhythm games but I stopped playing Osu because how uncomfortable it feels
almost destroyed my wrist on osu a few years ago
I'll be honest chief. You're explaining literally what I've gone through to the letter. Planted the seeds by friends explaining the rules, never quite got that good, then pandemic, then wrist pain. Although I also play some instruments and felt wrist pain from playing too much, compounded with a horrible addiction to minesweeper while listening to podcasts as a focus-tool to distract me from my work with something that still feels like my brain is actively engaging with something. It's all about the feeling of solving technical problems while actually just goofing off. I am even also a PhD student, in mathematics, and considered some information theoretic and cryptographic principles in terms of making guesses in minesweeper, but it didn't go anywhere.
As a top minesweeper player myself (player 4964672, rank 1327 trophies and rank 436 time with a 61.986 pb expert time as of writing) I have certainly had the feeling of hand cramps after a long run, but never to this level and not to where it impacted other facets of my life. I won't be leaving minesweeper anytime soon, but I'm glad that you can put your addiction behind, and wish you best of luck in your future endeavors!
I started playing minesweeper ironically, to spite my friends who call me an ‘old man’ but I’ve somehow managed to fall in love with Minesweeper 😅
I have had wrist pain issues as a consequence of playing computer games. It is worth it to note that this wrist pain is not caused by moving my wrist about too much or too violently, but rather by putting pressure on my wrist, pinching on nerves and blood vessels.
One thing that helped for me was playing games with a controller instead, relieving my wrists of any pressure, but that's definitely not possible for all games, so I needed to find a solution that allowed me to still play with a mouse.
What finally worked for me was to change my chair's armrests, and adjust them to a position where I can rest my elbow on the armrests, and comfortably play with a fingertip grip style, with my wrist hovering above the desk.
It hasn't completely stopped me from resting my wrist on the desk, and I occasionally still have small ammounts of pain. Whenever this happens however, I just consciously think about how I am holding the mouse, and change my grip back to where my wrist is hovering.
This really has helped significantly, and I am glad to say that I can still play games whenever I want now, although I still choose more frequently to play on controller just in case.
I'd say if your wrist pain is similar to mine, there are definitely still more things you could do to try to mitigate wrist pain, like changing your grip style and using a mouse with a shape that encourages you not to lay your wrist down on the table. Regardless, I don't really think it is minesweeper itself that is the issue here, it just happens to be the game that you play while having your wrist in a strenuous position.
Of course, I don't really know anything about yor wrist pain specifically, and I can't give you medical advice, so if you truly think the best solution is letting go of minesweeper, then go ahead.
I definitely think my chair/desk situation is not ideal and contributing to the pain. To what extent it's difficult to tell. Thanks for the comment!
@@iamerror I know this might be controversial, but I don't know if ANY desk setup will completely get rid of the pain. The problem here is the amount of time spent, and inflammation in your wrist being directly caused by repetitive movements. This is anecdotal evidence, but every once in a while I get joint pain in my mouse scrolling finger. It can last for days or several weeks. What fixes it is focusing on getting more exercise and reducing stress, because stress directly leads to more inflammation in the body, and your joints are the first thing that are susceptible to inflammation. If you are using your wrist a lot, and don't give yourself breaks, or are chronically stressed, your wrist will be the key target for inflammation. In my problems with my finger, I don't change anything about my desk setup or mouse, I focus on stress-reduction and getting more sleep, and the symptoms will dissapear.
Ever tried vertical mice?
I have an ergonomic mouse and it's literally been life changing! I never get arm or wrist pain anymore, I highly recommend getting one if you don't have one already!! 🖤
@@hollyrruns obviously no desk setup will completely remove pain, but switching to a more ergonomic setup can at least buy you more time (per gaming/work/etc session) before symptoms start to appear. i have carpal tunnel and personally i've noticed that being mindful of the height of my chair and relationship between where my hand/mouse are and where my arm rests/the angle from my elbow to my hand can make it so that my wrist gets irritated after 4 hours when in a less optimal position it may only last an hour. not to say that your experiences aren't valid, but when you have a chronic condition that causes pain, "just resting it" doesn't have the same impact, and it starts becoming more important to change your setup to accommodate your needs so you can at least function semi-normally.
Struggling with a legit addiction to THC, this video was way more relatable than I expected it to be
Hope you're doing okay! Hope you can overcome your addiction soon, you deserve to 💕
@@meganlouise9007 thank you :) that's very kind of you. Sending you well wishes!
As someone with ADHD, I relate super hard. I've gone down the hyperfixatuon hole many, many times and the worst feeling is knowing that the fixation is toxic for you. I wish you all the best with figuring out a healthier habit.
Regardless of minesweeper though (I'm a digital artist, I'm very familiar with carpal tunnel) TAKE CARE OF YOU WRIST TENDONS. When you're in pain, ice your wrist for 20 minutes at a time. For wrist maintenance, learn tendon stretches, there are a lot of resources online for this. Stretching before I do any repetitive wrist movement has been a life saver. It decreases a lot of pain and numbness that would otherwise happen.
I've also been dealing with carpal tunnel issues the past several weeks and it meant a lot hearing your story. It's so hard letting go or holding back from hyperfixations and special interests when they cause health issues, I know I need to rest but anytime I do there's a crushing sense of boredom and not going anywhere when I have so many projects I want to work on.
I'm a minesweeper addict too. I also got minesweeperdotonline blocked because everytime something is taking too long, I go there and play a match. It's kinda funny see that I'm not the only one addicted to this silly game haha
A couple times a year I get wayyyyy too addicted to some mobile game or another, and it causes me a lot of shame. Thanks for sharing your story. Your online stats are still how they were- proud of you!
I do this too lol.
But I've learned to embrace it because I often drop whatever it is very suddenly. Either by burning out or some whack update or something else takes over.
For me, it's nicer having something to occupy me than doing nothing at all and I know I'm going to hit that burnout point sooner or later.
It seems like a waste of time, but I learn stuff as a result of trying to optimize or just do better at whatever game I'm playing.
Time to get on the Picross train, here we goooo!
this
I kinda love this. Not just for the inspiring determinatrion and vow to let go of something, but as an entertaining and relatable story in it of itself.
As someone who was introduced to your channel from that Zen video and loved the related works; as someone who has heard of (and kinda experienced?) the unjust balance of effort/reward in content creation; as someone who has played a fair bit of Minesweeper themselves; as someone who has put a lot of playing hours into a "silly" game while doing other stuff in the background; as some who has had thumb tendon pain because of that silly game; as someone who has been a little too addicted to something that wasn't doing them wonders... I empathize. A lot.
I mean, my god, this video was just one wonderful punch after another lmao. Good luck on a hopefuly sweepless life ahead, Error. As perhaps the first person to check the stats after this video came out (though it took me a long ass time to write this comment), this was some real and touching shit that we can all be proud of. I almost feel bad for liking those videos now? But I know you'll make even greater stuff in the future.
Also, Tetris is better. Don't @ me.
I'm going to relapse on Tetris lmao I can't wait until I can't stop seeing tetrominos falling every time I close my eyes, I wanna feel that dread
Easy solution to the arm problem - train yourself to use your non-dominant hand. It's a lot easier than most people realize. I did this years ago. It's great when my hand/wrist/arm starts complaining about overuse, I just switch to the other side for a while.
This video means a lot to me, I can relate to almost everything, being addicted to NES Tetris myself (the part where you mentioned that caught me off guard and gave me a good cathartic laugh). Just wanted to say it really helps to hear someone talking about these issues in such an open way. I wish you all the best on your journey.
I can relate to that.
The feeling that you have an addiction, but you don't want to do that, yet something magically pulls you back to keep playing and playing...
I think I've found a solution for this, that's how I overcome my addiction:
It basically is to chain yourself and trowing the key away: you need to find some blocker (website blocker, app blocker, program blocker, etc..) that ask for a password to unlock the things you've blocked. Now you can generate a random long password that there's no way you'll remember, than its done!
Now you can do the thing even if you want!
Just be aware that you might have to use recursion here, that is, a blocker that blocks another blocker.
I used to play minesweeper a lot on my phone. I became pretty fast too, I didn't need to think of it, I was just clicking away.
Then I changed to android and I haven't found an app that works as intuitively and easily as the app I had on my iphone. That was the end of my time with minesweeper
i didn't know there were other people like me who have this type of relationship with minesweeper, it makes me feel a lot better.
I'm addicted too. I'll literally spend 3 or 4 hours playing at a time while listening to podcasts. I've had entire days where the majority of them were spent playing minesweeper. I've even solved minesweeper patterns in my dreams. We are not normal
I thought I was the only one! I can't believe you and others in the comments are experiencing the same thing! I have anxiety and I started using minesweeper to cope with anxious feelings, but it started becoming actually toxic. Instead of doing homework I would just sit there like a vegetable for hours and play minesweeper. I would close my eyes at night and I would be seeing minesweeper in my head. The thing that finally pulled the plug is that I finally faced my grades and noticed they were crumbling. I am still trying to rebuild my life, and hopefully I won't be sucked into coping with minesweeper again.
As someone who use to smoke, quitting is a you thing, only you can quit, no one can help you quit.
I’ve been playing minesweeper so much lately that I have a hard time falling asleep. I see the squares and the numbers when I close my eyes. It’s gotten so bad.
There is nothing more Zen than letting go of an attachment
I had a similar situation with Factorio, it's weird how something can be so good that it hurts
I experienced something similar with Osu!, for some reason when I picked up the game again last year, I would routinely experience wrist and finger pain.
Thankfully for me, not playing for a while causes skill loss which by itself was discouraging enough for me to not play substantially.
Good luck on your journey off minesweeper and I hope you find a similar zen experience elsewhere.
You and minesweeper 🤝 me and mahjong solitaire. For real, it's so odd to start a game as a time waster or thing to do with your hands and it becomes a beast unto itself. Although, at the end of the day, we didn't fall into the gacha game hellhole, so we've got that going for us! Hope your wrist feels better soon
I have so many friends who play MajSoul which just tells me you were a hair's breadth and the grace of god away from getting addicted to a Mahjong-themed gacha game
Solitaire 🤧 I was addicted
Listened to this while playing minesweeper.
But anyway. I play on my phone. That solves the mouse arm problem.
I literally just spent 3 hours straight playing minesweeper… I can’t do this I’m at college and I have a crazy amount of homework to do. And now I’m watching this video instead of doing it
I had a roommate in college that had this problem drove me nuts with his clicking I think I helped him out of his addiction by forcing him to stop clicking
i don't know why the algo pushed this video to me, as i don't have strong feelings about minesweeper and i've never seen your channel before, but i went through and bookmarked a bunch of your other videos about not-minesweeper and i'm excited to get to know your channel now that you're moving on :)
I have played far too much Solitaire this year when I noticed I was alt-tabbing from citations to a doc, then realising I'd *opened* solitaire instead of pasting the citation on clipboard.
And then I mean, it's open,
Hey I've seen some of your vids, they're good, thanks for the work you do!
@@iamerror aw, thanks
But yeah, I very much relate to that 'I need to do something so I stop playing this game' because at a certain point it's just an anxiety loop in disguise, kinda thing
Seems like a game with visual candy decorated with sparkling effects with earape audio design is not everything in video game. Sometimes the one that is interesting by design is enough to engage someone to keep playing.
Until their wrist break...
got this recommended almost 2 years later - just want to say that I actually checked the minesweeper online profile and the numbers are still the same. (Only the custom number disapeared, maybe there was some change about how custom works and they reset all tehe stats for it).
Of course, I have no way of knowing if you just created a new profile with a different name, but going to give the benefit of the doubt here.
Also given the peak in video stats around 13:15 it seems I was not the only one to check - maybe it helps to know people actually do check.
I haven't played since this video! I miss it, but its pretty easy not to do since I'm out of the habit.
My God, I'm not alone... My addiction was so severe, that I've had to reinstall Windows, just to erase all of my records, and get rid of muscle memory of navigating programs tab in milliseconds to open minesweeper... Once I was on a date, it was going well, we've got to my place... And when something in me just yelled out: "I know, what we can do together! We can play minesweeper to see who can beat it faster!"... She laughed, thinking it was a joke... Nope... We spent two hours minesweepering away, then she left, and I've continued on my own... Never heard from her ever again...
Minesweeper addiction is no joke...
i checked my friend, you're doing great at avoiding it
It's so tough when our bodies can't always do the things we love. RSI sucks!
Wishing you the best of luck
Well, it's good to know that I'm not the only one who has this kind of obsession. I have a number of games that I turn to that fit this bill (Big Fish took a lot of my money for them). I haven't played minesweeper in a while, but I was addicted to it in the 90s and early 2000s. It was a little harder than solitaire and yet it was something I could do while I thought about something else. I will play games like this while watching TV, chatting with family members, even while waiting for content to load in what I think of as "actual video games" (you know, the kind that make my graphics card hate me). I hope you can find one that doesn't hurt your body as much.
I remember in my 2nd year of highschool I got bored one day and taught myself how to play and ended up developing a severe addiction to the game lol. It got to the point where my grades were dropping and I was starting to lose sleep because all I would do the second I got home was play minesweeper. Rinse and repeat for months. I reached a point where I could play the game through muscle memory so I'd just turn my brain on autopilot and zone out for hours on end. I forced myself to stop playing after awhile because it was literally causing me to dissociate which was NOT good for my mental health. This was such a hyperspecific experience that I went through so seeing that so many other people went through the same thing is somewhat comforting.
This video was kind of a relief to see, because I didn't know being addicted to a simple puzzle game was something other people went through. It's not Minesweeper for me, its a game called Levels+ that I have almost 1000 hours in. It's gotten so bad at points, I'll be playing it while hanging out with people, or it will be all I do from the moment I get home from work (accompanied by TH-cam and Podcasts ofc). I can't seem to focus on anything without it. Recently, I switched to Solitaire, but it's not any different. I get headaches and my eye has been twitching for weeks now. I wish I was able to do other things without getting the desire to move numbers around endlessly. I feel like I'm never productive or creative anymore.
I believe in you and your ability to let it go (if that's what you want)
I'm using a split ergo keyboard with a tenting kit (Iris Rev 4) and a vertical mouse (MX Vertical), occasionally switching to a trackball.
I've felt the pain of beginning RSI and carpal tunnel when I obsessively played CSGO (especially KZ, a movement game mode), so I decided to do everything about it to stop the pain. I play less, switched keyboard and layout (to Colemak), and got different mouses. It has helped a lot, but it shows the problematic side of how we currently interact with computers and how fragile our bodies can be.
all the comments saying they would hallucinate or imagine minesweeper stuff during idle time/trying to sleep make me feel like im looking through a mirror haha. happens to me with a lot of games and activities i get obsessed with
Same
we lost another soldier o7
I find it pretty funny that I found this video, since I’m a Tetris addict that turned to minesweeper for a bit to try to help. I guess it’s nice to know I’m not the only one!
I laughed at the video title but I then realized I’m addicted to pinball. Welp
there is an easy solution to this:
eye tracking and blink detection as your mouse.
omg finally someone that i can relate to. ive been playing for a year now. i played minesweeper all the time whenever i feel i need to focus like on meeting, starter for study time, etc. lately it became pretty strange because every time i wake up and every time i go to bed, i have huge desire to play it on my phone. how i start and end my day is by playing minesweeper. sometimes it comes to my dream like the block pattern, the bomb, the number. and every time i get little free time like waiting in the cashier line, on the train, etc ended by me playing minesweeper. it become too much i cant even enjoy it anymore but i cant stop. just like wth is going on. i became sick of it and started to play snake instead. now i try to give options to my brain to reduce the amount of time i play minesweeper. i play something else like puzzle and sudoku.
I always thought my wrist started hurting after a season working in a fast food chain. Like, pinching, or connecting all my fingers together, those thing are sometimes painful after I carry sth heavy.
You've opened my eyes. It was always minesweeper. Hell.
i had a severe addiction to minesweeper in my junior and senior years of high school; my grades suffered a lot because all i would do in class was play the game. other obsessions (killer sudoku is the most comparable and a jigsaw puzzle app is the most current) have replaced it since. sometimes i still dive into minesweeper for a few days, and seeing the literal thousands of hours i spent playing on my profile reminds me of the chokehold the game used to have on me. i have adhd, and minesweeper was the perfect amount of extra stimulation i needed while watching youtube or netflix or listening to a podcast. it definitely has a special place in my heart
i totally get it. i occasionally get really attached to mobile puzzle games and the feeling of getting in the zone is so addictive. sometimes i get so deep in one that my brain will just think in whichever puzzle it is at the time and i'll do them in my head for that mini bump of zen. probably not the best for me
I have a Kensington Expert Mouse and people keep thinking it's for wrist protection reasons or something but no I was just tired of my previous gaming mouse having ever so slight inaccuracies on the mousepad lmao. Your mouse journey resonates with me a lot
Having done some damage to my wrist through playing rhythm games, this hits home.
this is how i feel about sodoku, i’ve fallen into a habit of playing it whenever i have a few seconds compulsively and really need to stop
I... also developed an ache in my right wrist due to Minesweeper. That happened many years ago, during the Windows XP era. I relate so much to your love/hate relationship with the game - using it as a fidget game, chasing a faster time, sinking way too many hours into it instead of working...
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Hi, I got this video recommended to me today and it is beautifully put together. I struggle with many hyperfixations and addictions because I have ADHD, and it's been especially difficult for me this year. One of my problems is crosswords, which has made it impossible for me to get out of bed, get food, attend uni classes, shower, and do homework. I also struggle from alot of joint pain due to a connective tissue disorder so whenever I get addicted to crochet or knit, it becomes a huge problem for my body. I think that you took an excellent approach to facing your addiction; you have a very real way of measuring your progress in recovery, and there is truly so much shame that is forever fucking nagging at you and is kind of impossible to keep to yourself. (And I want to remind you, because I personally know the guilt of it, that it's ok to have relapses and it doesn't make you a bad person in any way. We are naturally drawn to dopamine, and it is insanely difficult to cut off a huge part of your life and happiness and regular struggles so quickly. It often feels scary to even imagine being a person without your addiction because it feels so integral at that point. If you struggle with any of that too, I see you.) I wish that there were such measures of progress easily available for other addictions, as I've been trying to quit BRFBs (mainly nail biting) for over a decade with no longtime success. On a positive note, one addiction I HAVE overcome (just this year!) is my social media addiction, which has been in place since sometime in middle school. And I have many more to go! To anyone that comes across this comment, I love you and I wish everyone all the best in their personal recoveries ♡ If your addictions interfere with your physical health, then please try to take breaks every half hour if you partake in them at any point, and also try to maintain good posture and move your body around regularly! For wrist pain, a secret cause for some people is poor neck posture because your nerves connect to your wrists through your neck, so always keep that in mind if you start experiencing wrist pain. I hope that those tips are helpful to whoever may need them, I've had to find many cheats for reducing joint pain due to my disability.
used to be just as addicted to an app version on my phone, it was much easier on the wrist than playing with a mouse but I still eventually forced myself to stop. Curiously enough, I never uninstalled it from my phone and will still play every now and then, maybe once every several months. But I was definitely addicted to it so this video is relatable in this very specific way.
Weight lifting for your arms, shoulders, and forearms will help with this. I played fps games on pc a lot and exercise of this kind really helps.
Got hooked on minesweeper in my early twenties. 1 second beginner, 3 second intermediate, and 17 second expert. Took months to kill the impulse to open the app compulsively
I'm experiencing something similar with 2048. I also moved on to 8x8 2048 for a new challenge, it's ridiculously addictive. My wrist doesn't hurt (yet) but I'm now deathly afraid after watching your video
theres a neat minesweeper game called 14 minesweeper variations. its really difficult but fair and really cool when you get it
youtube recommended this to me and i had to watch
my wrist hurts too and even when im not playing, im just playing it in my head its so bad
i wish you luck !!
there have been points where ive played minesweeper so much i start imagining people around me as cells, like 1s and 2s, and how to strategically play them in crowds 😭
Obviously addiction is bad and getting health issues is definitely worse, but I think with some work you could make a way to play minesweeper without a mouse? 1. drawing pen, might need button mapping 2. some other kind of controller, maybe map keyboard buttons to directional movement and stuff?
Get a good mouse. Get some ART active release technique provider. Tell them to work on: median nerve at PRONATOR teres, extensors, carpal túnel, radial nerve at supinator, deep finger flexors. Pain will go away in 4 session, will take more to clear. Ideally go to an integrative diagnosis provider. Go to barefoot rehab if you have the cash
dw man i fucked up my wrist playing papa’s cheeseria obsessively so
Thank you for making this video. I’ve been having wrist problems since early this year because of playing Metroid Dread way too much and mashing during boss fights. It wasn’t as difficult to stop as it seems for you with minesweeper, but my wrist is still far from healed. It still acts up after playing certain games, such as pc fps games.
What really worries me is that it also hurts when I draw for a prolonged period of time. I love animating. It fills me with so much joy as I see everything come together with the pride of being able to say “I made that.” I’m incapable of articulating the dread of a possible future where I’ll need to give that up all because of a stupid chase for dopamine. On the bright side it’s been a good motivator to having better health, I’ve even been periodically doing workouts in an attempt to get my blood circulating more. To be honest, I don’t even know if it’ll get better for me, but I’m not going down without a fight.
I’ll sleep a bit easier knowing that I’m not alone in this struggle.
Minesweeper is a confort game for me. An activity I can do without much thought or care for the outcome, just solving it square by square. And it's really easy for me to put down once I have something more stimulant to do.
Very relatable video here. Since like 2018 I've been using Minesweeper and Tetris as a way to artificially increase the amount of podcasts, video essays, and music I can take in, while helping me pay more attention to them. My wrists are still mostly fine, but the arrow keys on my laptop are shot, and my general ｃｏｎｔｅｎｔ addiction is facilitated, and it kind of sucks really.
Never figured out how chording works (that is what's it's called, right?), so at this point I don't even bother right clicking any more. It's like a section of my brain has been quartered off and dedicated to processing this algorithm while the rest barely even notices it's happening.
whenever i played minesweeper for a few days straight and went to sleep i literally imagined a minesweeper board and playing it and where to place flags it was so weird, similarly happened with solitaire
i relate to this so hard. i use to be really into rhythm games (i guess i still am but not so much playing them) and such especially 4 key games like osu mania, step mania, muse dash ect. but i had to completely cut myself off from them due to the same wrist pains. even when i felt early signs of the pain i just told myself that i just needed to change my posture while playing and itll all go away. so i kept playing until i got a really bad pain that lasted for 2 weeks. really tough stuff, luckly that was a year ago now and i haven't really played since then but i get how hard it is to stop especially when its routine. hopefully you are able to work through this as well!
I can really relate to this, even though my problem's with crochet. The simple repetitive motions really help get my autistic brain to focus, plus I get a big dopamine rush from being able to point to something and say that I made that over however many hours. The only problem is that I'm really bad at pacing myself, and instead of taking a break maybe every 30 minutes to do some simple hand exercises, I completely lose track of time and end out stressing my hands for literal hours straight. The only thing that gets me to stop is if I have to go grab a drink or if I can start to feel my hands become a weird mix of numb/on fire that I know can't be good, like what my right hand's stuck feeling as I type this. Sometimes I joke that I'm going to get early arthritis from this, but I know that that's the exact opposite of the future that I want. I love doing things with my hands, and the idea that one day I won't be able to make things at the same frequency that I do now scares me. All of that is to say that this video really struck a cord with me; I know that this was published a while ago, but I really do wish you luck with kicking your minesweeper addiction! I hope that everyone in the comments grouping together to tell their own stories and experiences is helpful to hear, too, because it's definitely been weirdly reassuring for me. I really enjoyed this video, and if you celebrate anything, I hope you have/are having a great holiday season :)
Man, this really hit home. I have a lot of addictive tendencies (thanks adhd!) and some days it feels like im just chasing another dopamine hit, another satisfying moment of 'puzzle finished'. I know exactly how the focus game works, too- mine was sudoku, then a ball sorting game, then a logic game, then a different puzzle game, and theyre all just so easy to zone out and do a million of. I really hope your carpal tunnel gets better, and hopefully youll be able to find something else to fill that niche (though hopefully not the carpal tunnel part) and serve that function for you. Its hard to give up stuff like this, i know exactly how that feels!! I really respect the accountability aspect of this video too, its hard to admit something this personal online. Im rooting for you though, you can do this!
Sheesh youtube I'm not THAT into chess, okay, I've only accidentally spent 11 hours straight through a night playing game after game on my phone ONE TIME, that's not a serious addiction, it's usually nowhere near that long, how dare you recommend this video to me as if it's supposed to be relevant to me, pfft I'll watch it just to spite you, definitely not watching for a change of pace after watching several hours of chess content today WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT KEEP SCROLLING
I'm on minesweeper online as well and after the first few weeks I learned my lesson about wrist pain and limited the amount I play and tried to avoid over committing to Arenas where I would need to go full speed for multiple games in a row. Stay strong and keep your commitment! Nothing is worth more than your health!
huge props for using mirror temple B side, best song on the ost and lena raine is an incredible composer
You'll find I might overuse it in my videos haha
checked and so far, so good! Good luck on the path Evelyn!
holy shit, ive been playing minesweeper for almost a year bc of the first video on speedrunning. ive learned so many strategies and techniques since i first started, which is cool and all, but so much of that time was spent playing the same game over and over instead of collegework and zoom classes ToT
i use the same site for minesweeper too- the quests and everything keep me going
its kind of surreal seeing the person that started it all for me recounting on those experiences, in a way i connect. Im glad u are severing your connecting to minesweeper, i personally will probably continue to grind away on expert and evil boards. As someone with ADHD and really bad control on my impulses, its nice to see someone like you get over this addiction!
I have similar thing with my ears when listening to music. Sometimes, I say, that's it, I'm banning my left ear from listening to music for a few days to give it a chance to heal, but then I go back to listening max volume in both ears again and the cycle repeats.
I'm also quite addicted to minesweeper. Not that I'm any good, I just love the rythm of the game and the quiet of mind it gives me. Just recently, I broke my own record and completed a 19 by 25 field with 150 mines (the shape is weird because I'm using a custom implementation from the app Simon Tatham's Puzzles, which is awesome I can only recommend it). I got 2 minutes 55 seconds, which for me is a spectacular time, yet it took months of grinding dozens of games a day in the public transport, at the café, during university, slowly bringing the time down second by second.
I love the way you play, it's really quite efficient and honestly just beautiful. Watching this video, I have found a few moments where I was like "huh? How did he know there was no mine beneath that field" - and I have played probably hundreds of thousands of games over a decade now. I was about to point out those places and start a discussion, but that could just make it harder for you.
For the past few months I told myself if I could only get beneath the 3 minute mark, I'd put away this game alas, in peace. This video helped me a lot in breaking my never ending addiction, thank you
I experienced a similar form of speedrun-induced muscular trauma back when I used to speedrun a game called "PUSS!". I injured my hand trying to spam-click the first boss so that I could beat it in 2 cycles instead of 3. I had to take a break from the game for a while to recover.
What first started off as playing minesweeper in class to kill time slowly became an addiction of me hallucinating and not being able to sleep over constantly imagining minesweeper patterns and solving them. My right hand is notably less flexible and a lot more stiff compared to my left, and I play minesweeper using a trackpad so you can imagine how much more constrained my hand is compared to using a normal mouse.
I’ve been playing Tetris a lot recently, I play just with an Xbox controller, but some of the competitive ways to play show that some players’ wrists are made of steel. I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been much talk of wrist injuries in the classic Tetris community.
One phenomenon that could be related to your (and my) addiction is Tetris Effect. It’s where, hours after playing Tetris, you still see the patterns of a Tetris game and sometimes even play games of it in your head. I get this a lot after watching Tetris tournaments, and it’s such a fascinating phenomenon that I have no doubt extends to Minesweeper.
It took me a long time to break my minesweeper addiction, and I am so glad I did. I would hallucinate different patterns in the game because of how much headspace it took up
I was never addicted to minesweeper, but I was addicted to Toontown Online, a goofy mmo about cartoon animals that pull pranks on imperialistic businessmen, which had a minesweeper minigame as part of a dungeon puzzle. So I went through a major minesweeper phase in tandem with my toontown phase because of the typical social pressure to be a perfect player in mmos.
I think I have found my people
I downloaded a minesweeper app like 6 months ago and I have been obsessed with trying to beat my high scores. I would randomly be thinking of bomb patterns in unrelated situations bc of how much I was obsessed with it. I'm now playing more nonogram but I still don't forget my minesweeper era
This video reminded me of my complicated relationship with Solitaire. I used to spend hours playing it on my computer, while listening to music, with yt videos on the background, I couldn’t do anything without having a Solitaire tab open. It was everything I thought about.
I had to uninstall it because I wasn’t being productive and wasting all my free time. I still play it sometimes, and miss it so much. Thank god it didn’t affect me physically like your minesweeper addiction. Hope you’re doing better!
thanks for this video, this will help me keep track track of my own physical health while doing the things I enjoy. it may be a false sense of hope, but I feel like my own game diversification will help: my hobbies include modern tetris, Rubik's cubes, chess, the occasional mobile minesweeper, and much more, and I hope that that variety keeps my joints and ligaments supple for a long time
alongside the addiction, my forearm is constantly sore from all the minute movements needed to play fast
As a men with over200 hours on minesweeper online I can totally see how you got addicted to it
I once did one perfect click and the entire minesweeper map solved itself, it was so amazing, I've been chasing that high ever since.
we need minesweeper vim controls
I love this video! I just started playing minesweeper 2 months ago and have played it every weekend. 2 weeks ago i couldn't play it because i felt discomfort in my wrist. The discomfort only flared up when playing minesweeper. My friend suggested working out and it helped. I'm no doctor but i suggest working out (any general workout) since strengthening your wrist should make it better. Stay healthy!