Minesweeper has been around for decades and it’s probably overdue for some modern flourishes. Now there’s a Triple-A Minesweeper parody that offers a hilarious look at what a Minesweeper update might look like.
The Triple-A Minesweeper was created by writer and programmer Mike Lacher, and it’s fully playable as a browser game on his site. Aside from the intentionally pretentious title cards touting the involvement of Unreal Engine, Nvidia, Bink Video, and Wwise, Triple A Minesweeper looks and plays almost exactly like the regular Minesweeper.
However, the best way to enjoy this parody is by simply not doing anything at all. The main character, “Sweeper,” will sit around and repeat things like, “I gotta sweep these mines,” while receiving calls from newly created characters in the game. Lacher seems to have taken his inspiration from Grand Theft Auto 5, Metal Gear Solid, and even Cyberpunk 2077.
Among the callers are Nora, a potential love interest for Sweeper. Additionally, an underworld figure called The Don repeatedly calls for Sweeper to head down to his club while hinting at the latter’s sinister past in Singapore. Meanwhile, the chipper DJ Dan celebrates Sweeper’s efforts on behalf of New Dawn City.
In another amusing touch, Sweeper never acknowledges any of the other characters and keeps repeating the same lines over and over. It is possible to complete the game, which triggers a twist ending that probably wasn’t that difficult to predict.
Although Lacher leaves the parody on that note, it would have been even funnier if the game’s coda mentioned that Triple-A Minesweeper flopped and cost Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars.
Microsoft hasn’t done too much with Minesweeper in the past few years, although it was added to Microsoft Teams as a playable game. The company has also previously created a Minesweeper-themed ugly Christmas sweater.
