Puzzle Golf: take away instead of solving

Puzzle Golf turns a logic puzzle around. It builds on Minesweeper deduction, except that here everything is already revealed: every cell without a mine carries its number. Your job is not to solve the puzzle but to build it, by taking away whatever nobody needs.

One hole every day, the same for everyone, free in the browser and playable without an account.

The rules

Tap a number to take it away. The board stops showing it.
The puzzle has to stay solvable without guessing. That is the only limit — and it is checked after every move, by the same solver that decides about a task anywhere else.
An attempt that breaks the limit costs a stroke. The number stays where it is.
Score = givens left + failed attempts. Less is better, as in golf.

Par is the smallest number the server found for this hole — three hundred random removal orders, and the minimum of those. That is the best known result, not the provably best one: par can be beaten, and that is what this mode exists for.

Strategy: three things that matter

The first moves are free. While the board is full, every single number is spare; about two thirds of the moves succeed whichever one you pick. Your attention belongs at the end.
Order decides. A number you take away early can make another one indispensable — and can free one that was indispensable before. Two players who remove the same numbers end up with different scores if they do it in a different order.
The same failed attempt costs only once. Taking away removes information, it never adds any — what was once indispensable stays that way. A cell you have tested is knowledge you keep.

An example, step by step

A real hole, built from the same parts as today's: the same taking away, the same solver as the limit. Here it is reduced strictly row by row — easy to follow, and not optimal, which is exactly the point.

Move 1The free moves — On the full board with 31 givens every single one is spare — the early moves cannot fail. Taken away row by row, 22 numbers go without any thought at all. Only then does the game start: from here on, one number hangs on another.

Move 2One number fewer — Of 9 givens, 3 can still be removed — the rest are holding the board together. The one that goes here is the 2 in row 6, column 1: it says nothing the remaining numbers do not also say, so without it the board stays solvable without guessing.

Move 3One number fewer — Of 8 givens, 2 can still be removed — the rest are holding the board together. The one that goes here is the 2 in row 6, column 3: it says nothing the remaining numbers do not also say, so without it the board stays solvable without guessing.

Move 4One number fewer — Of 7 givens, a single one can still be removed — the rest are holding the board together. The one that goes here is the 0 in row 6, column 4: it says nothing the remaining numbers do not also say, so without it the board stays solvable without guessing.

Move 5Failed attempt — Now not one of the 6 remaining numbers can go — not a single one. Take the 0 in row 2, column 4, say, and the board is no longer solvable without guessing: there would be cells that no remaining number can settle. In the game this attempt costs a stroke — the number stays, and what you learned about it is yours to keep.

Play it yourself

Puzzle Golf has a new hole every day, the same one for everybody. If you want to read up on the Minesweeper rules behind it, they are on the page about Minesweeper deduction.