World of Mines is a Puzzle Game for smartphones by Cogoo released in 2018 as part of a landmine clearing initiative. It's a Minesweeper clone where you have to uncover every tile, but the game takes place in 177 real countries with three unlockable maps for cities in three countries.
A sequel called World of Virus was released in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, with mines replaced with viruses, flags being replaced with pills, and the objective is curing the world.
This game provides examples of:
- Instant-Win Condition: A level is beaten when you uncover all safe tiles. This gets odd in World of Virus, where you're supposed to cure the virus and the flags are replaced with pills, suggesting that those virus=covered places don't get cured.
- Level-Map Display: A mini map of the level is placed in the top left corner.
- Luck-Based Mission: Happens sometimes when it's impossible to tell where to tap and where the mines are. It's actually more common thanks to the existence of countries with islands, as you are practically forced to guess where mines are on them.
- Marathon Level: Some of the larger or more complex levels. Russia is the longest, with its complex design, 297 mines, and 2,435 tiles.
- Microtransactions: You can pay to earn stars in the original, which can be spent on palettes and level packs.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: World of Virus is pretty similar to the first game, just with a different theme.
- Non-Indicative Difficulty: The difficulties given to levels are rather inconsistent in World of Mines as they only take sizes into account. Canada is considered "Extreme" despite its odd design full of islands leads to frequent guessing, while Canada is considered "Crazy" (a step above "Extreme") despite its design being much more straightforward, with only one island, simply because it's giant.
- No Plot? No Problem!: World of Mines doesn't actually have a plot.
- Not Drawn to Scale: Level sizes tend to be inadequate or bizarre, presumably for balancing purposes. Germany has 767 tiles while Russia has 2,435 tiles, but on the world map, it's clear one is much bigger than the other.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Setting off one mine causes the player to lose, unless they're willing to watch an ad and continue.
- The Plague: World of Mines has you deal with a red virus that spread all over the world by clearing safe tiles and putting pills on virus tiles. Due to the game's release window, it's clear the virus is meant to be COVID-19.
- Prolonged Video Game Sequel: Downplayed. World of Virus has more levels than World of Mines as there are three difficulties to play them. World of Mines however has three smaller unlockable level sets for cities in three countries.
- Shown Their Work: The world map in World of Virus is accurate to the COVID-19 outbreak rates in May 2020, seemingly when it was being developed.
- Tilesweeper: World of Mines takes Minesweeper to a global scale by making its boards shaped like real countries and cities. The general formula is the same as the original as you still have to uncover all safe tiles and avoid/flag mines based on numbers on them, but some maps can be even larger than the Expert map (just check out Russia's 2000+ tiles) or have islands that lead to potential guessing. World of Virus replaces mines with viruses and flags with pills, but it's otherwise the same shebang.
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: World of Virus has three difficulties: Easy, Normal, and Hard, with each of them unlocked as you beat the previous one.
