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Digging for Data - Holes, Numbers and Spaces Dealing with Rabbits

Using the information that you get from digging up holes, and what you’ll learn about deducing seed locations and recognizing patterns in this minigame guide, it won’t take long until you are successful in identifying some holes that contain seeds. When you do, the next step is to plant a flag on those spots, to get the Vinesweeper points that you’re after! In this topic I’ll discuss how to flag seeds efficiently, and also how to deal with what happens afterwards.

To flag a hole where you suspect a seed is hiding, just right-click it and select the “Flag” option; your character will walk over and plant a flag in the hole (Figure 293). That’s trivially simple, of course—the complexity comes in deciding when and how to plant the flags.

The first issue is whether you want to take the “bird in hand” and plant a flag as soon as you’ve spotted a seed, or keep digging around it to open up more of the field. Knowing where a seed location is can be very helpful, because that information can be combined with the numbers you dig up to identify further seed locations. There are pros and cons to both approaches.

A second issue is that as soon as you plant a flag, it will attract the attention of both the gnomish farmers walking the field and the rabbits who want to eat the seeds you’ve marked. You want to avoid planting flags when there are rabbits around but the farmers are far away.

Finally, every time you flag a hole that contains a seed, when either a farmer or a rabbit eventually finds it, an around that hole will be reseeded. Since this removes all empty spaces and indicator numbers over a large area (7x7 squares), planting flags indiscriminately can actually slow you down by removing indications of where other seeds are or where it’s safe to dig. In my discussion of play strategies, I talk about how reseedings can be used to your advantage.

Note that you cannot change your mind about this: once a flag is in the ground, it’s there to stay.

Once a flag is planted, “the race is on”, as the old saying goes. Farmers and rabbits in the surrounding area will be attracted to the flag, and there are three possible outcomes:

• Farmer Finds a Seed: If one of the farmers gets to the flag first, he will dig it up and look in the hole. If he finds a seed, then you’ve been successful—he will dance a little jig and reward you with some Vinesweeper points. He will also keep your flag, but you can reclaim it from Mrs. Winkin or Farmer Blinkin. After you are awarded your points, he will reseed the surrounding area (Figure 294).
  
  
• Farmer Does Not Find a Seed: Sometimes you will make a mistake and plant a flag in the wrong hole. If this happens, the farmer will say he didn’t find a seed, and will confiscate your flag. This time you don’t get it back—that’s the penalty for messing up. Note that if you flag a hole without a seed the area around it will not be reseeded.
  
  
• Rabbit Gets to Your Flag: If a rabbit gets to your flag before a farmer, it will go “Munch, munch” as it eats the seed in the hole; you will lose your flag, and the area around it will be reseeded. Note that if you incorrectly flag a hole without a seed, the rabbit will come over to investigate, but won’t do anything to the flag.
  

  Figure 294: Reseeded Area After Clearing a Flag

  This screenshot shows the area of Figure 293 after a farmer has cleared the flag I planted.

  
  

Occasionally, a farmer and rabbit will get to a seed hole at about the same time. If so, you may get lucky and have the farmer award you points before the rabbit eats the seed; other times, the rabbit wins, and the farmer digs, finds no seed and keeps your flag.

The number of points you are awarded for each successfully flagged hole appears to be completely random, with the maximum possible award a function of your Farming level. The maximum I can get from a hole appears to be around 220 points, while I am told that level 99 farmers can get as much as 400. Players around you will also get points when you properly flag a hole, and likewise, you can get some points from the flaggings of other players. This means there can be some advantage to playing in a group, though there are some definite drawbacks as well.

Note that while you must be physically near someone else’s flag to get points from it, this is not the case with your own flag—you get the points if you are anywhere on the field when the farmer checks it. We’ll see how this will come in handy when retrieving flags.

Be sure not to log out when you have flags placed that have not yet been found by the farmers. If you do, you’ll get no XP for them and you’ll lose the flag!

Some players like to find several seeds and flag them all at once to get a bunch of points; I discuss the pros and cons of this in the strategy section. There’s a perception among many Vinesweepers that to do this with a large number of holes, you must have several people synchronize their activities and plant them all at once after a “ready, set, go” type setup. This is in fact unnecessary.

The basic rule of flagging seeds in Vinesweeper is simple: existing seeds stay put. If you find a location where you are sure a seed is present, you can flag it even after other flags in the area have been checked and the region reseeded, as shown in Figure 297.

If you do decide to plant multiple flags at once, be sure you don’t start unless you have all the flags you need. If, for example, you’ve identified three seed locations but only have two flags, you’ll only be able to plant those two, and finding the third spot after you get back from the farmhouse might be difficult. On the other hand, some people prefer to just plant the flags they have and then dig up more later when they return.

Digging for Data - Holes, Numbers and Spaces Dealing with Rabbits