Surefoot
prove before you move - on a no-guess board, every safe square can be proven from the numbers, so ask 'which square do the numbers PROVE?' before clicking
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At the edge of the League Field, where the grass slopes up toward the hills, there is a grey rock that looks out over every board in the league. On that rock stands Surefoot, a mountain goat with warm brown-and-cream fur, small curved horns, and a steel-blue scarf that flutters when the wind comes down off the mountain.
Mountain goats climb places that look impossible. Cliffs. Ledges barely wider than a hoof. And they almost never fall. Surefoot will tell you the secret if you ask, and it isn't speed.
"I never step until I'm sure the rock will hold me," she says. "Every single step. I look first. Then I step."
That is exactly how Surefoot plays Minesweeper, and it is exactly what she teaches.
One bright morning, a young beaver named Dabble came running up to the rock, tail slapping the grass. Dabble had just lost three boards in a row. "It's all luck!" Dabble said. "You click, and sometimes it's a mine, and sometimes it isn't. There's nothing you can do!"
Surefoot looked down at Dabble with kind, thoughtful eyes. She didn't argue. She asked a question.
"On your last board," she said, "which square did the numbers prove was safe?"
Dabble blinked. "Prove? I didn't... I just picked one that looked okay."
"Show me," said Surefoot, and she stepped carefully down off the rock.
Together they looked at Dabble's board, the grid of flat open tiles and raised hidden ones. Numbers sat on the open tiles, each one telling how many mines touched it. Surefoot lowered her head beside a tile with a one on it.
"This one says a single mine touches it," she said. "And look, only one hidden square is next to it. So that square must be the mine. The number leaves no other choice. That's not a guess. That's a proof."
Dabble stared. "Oh."
Surefoot moved on to a two nearby. It already touched two mines they had just worked out. "This two has both its mines already. So every other hidden square around it is safe. Proven safe. You could step there with your eyes closed."
Dabble opened the square. Safe. And then, because the new number opened up more clues, another square became provable, and then another. The board unfolded like a map.
"But what about when nothing is provable?" asked Dabble. "When you're stuck?"
Surefoot smiled, and her scarf lifted in the breeze. "Here's the special thing about the League. Every board is built to be no-guess. That means on every board, from the very first opening, there is always at least one square you can prove, all the way to the end. If you ever feel stuck, it doesn't mean you have to guess. It means there's a proof you haven't spotted yet. Keep looking."
Dabble took a deep breath and started a new board. This time, before every click, Dabble asked the question Surefoot had asked: which square do the numbers prove? It was slower. But Dabble finished the whole board without hitting a single mine.
Surefoot feels most like Surefoot in the pause before a step, when she has checked the rock and knows it will hold. It is a steady, grounded, quiet-inside feeling, like standing firmly on a high ledge with the whole valley spread out below and not a flutter of fear.
You have a bit of Surefoot in you whenever you check before you leap. Before your next click, find the proof first, and say it the way she does: "Surefoot steps only where the numbers say she's sure."
Then step, and feel the rock hold.
The Sweep League ensemble
Surefoot is part of Sweep League's distributed-narrative cast. Each character embodies a different curricular primitive; together they teach the full subject.
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Bevvy
A bee who knows the fewest clicks a board could take - its 3BV
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Clicksy
A cricket who counts every wasted click - efficiency is 3BV divided by clicks
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Oddsley
An owl who weighs every arrangement the numbers allow - the exact odds of a mine
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Chordy
A crab who opens a whole ring of squares at once when a number's mines are all flagged
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Floody
A duck who knows a zero opens its whole empty region in one go
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Knowsley
A red panda who knows every board can be solved by knowing, never by guessing
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Rewinda
A squirrel who checks a run by re-playing every move, never by trusting it
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Samesby
A penguin who knows a race code gives both racers exactly the same board
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Sumsy
A hamster who knows the total number of mines shapes the odds of every hidden square
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Tickwell
A hare who knows your speed is shown only AFTER you finish, never while you play
