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Getting Started with Vinesweeper Digging for Data - Holes, Numbers and Spaces

Winkin’s Farm is a separate region of RuneScape, not connected to any other land areas, so it is only accessible via teleport by the leprechauns. The farm is roughly rectangular in shape, but with its corners cut off. The area inside the fence is 56 game squares in width by 55 game squares in height (again, not including the cut off corners).

The outer perimeter of the farm is a two-square-wide strip of empty space; the only thing you will find here is a set of eight burrows—two along each edge of the farm—which are where the pesky rabbits spawn. This perimeter surrounds the large crop field that makes up the playing area for Vinesweeper; it is 52 game squares wide and 51 squares in height. Figure 289 shows a map of the farm.

The middle of the playing field is occupied by a special area that contains the Winkins’ farmhouse. This is the space where you teleport in to play Vinesweeper, and where you’ll find Mrs. Winkin, Farmer Blinkin, and the portal out of the minigame. It measures 21x16 game squares (width by height), or a total of 336 squares. Excluding this area, the actual playing field has a total of 2,316 squares—plenty of room for lots of people. As mentioned elsewhere, you climb over one of four stiles to move between the farmhouse and the crop field.

Most of the squares of the playing field have what the game calls “holes”, even though they really look like small mounds. You may also see that some squares have large rotating numbers on them, or are empty. These are holes that were previously dug up by other players before you arrived; the meaning of the empty spaces and numbers will be explored in the next topic.

There are three possible actions you can take on each hole of the playing field:

• Dig: Dig up the hole to see what’s under it. If it contains a seed, you are penalized; if not, you will learn something about what the holes surrounding that square contain.
  
  
• Flag: Plant a flag to tell a farmer you think a seed is in that location.
  
  
• Inspect: Take a closer look at the hole, which gives you a chance of possibly figuring out if it has a seed in it or not.

Note that you cannot dig any of the holes on the outer edge of the playing field if you are standing in the blank perimeter that surrounds the field. (This may be a bug, since I don’t see why it should be a problem.)

Getting Started with Vinesweeper Digging for Data - Holes, Numbers and Spaces