Nothing to do with Volvos - I do have another life

FOR MY POGO FRIENDS WHO ARE WEEPING AND WAILING AND GNASHING THEIR TEETH OVER STELLAR SWEEP.

This is a method which I have been using, starting with a big tip from Jday1938 about the right/left click. I was never a fan of minesweeper but this technique apparently is well known to minesweeper players, and even in the how to play section, Pogo mentions it. This from Pogo:

Dual Click (Option-Click on Mac): Advanced players may want to use the dual click technique. If you Right and Left-Click on a revealed number space, and you marked all the crystals that account for that number, the game will clear all of the unrevealed adjacent spaces that have already been determined to not contain crystals.

They also warn elsewhere that this could lead to inadvertent explosions so use with caution, but in hundreds of games, I only had it happen twice, and they did give us a new game option.

Getting the first crystal is up to you. Pogo says that the first click is always safe in every game. However, it is not always productive. I like to start at an outer corner and if luck is on your side, several, perhaps many tiles will clear, revealing numbers. Now it is true that if you left click on a number, the number of tiles associated with that number will be outlined and if that outline includes matching crystals and number, the other boxes could possibly be clicked. So if you have a crystal exposed and left click on the number 1 and the crystal and one other tile are highlighted, it should be safe to click on that tile. But there are overlaps and this requires too much calculation and thinking so I stick with my method which is slower, but dumber and easier.

Once you have done that first click and revealed some numbers, you might see some tiles that are singletons, completely surrounded by numbers. Right click on those tiles because they are crystals. Then you might see tiles that are ‘corners’ with three numbers around them. These are also probably crystals so right click on those tiles. Once a corner crystal is revealed, do the magic right/left simultaneous click. [Or if you have trouble coordinating, hold down the right button and then click with the left one, or hold down the shift key and use the left click. I do not do this. Will explain later.]

Be certain that your cursor is on one of the numbers surrounding the crystal and start with the one’s because they are safer, but try them all, and do the R/L click. This will eliminate tiles, revealing more numbers. If you click on all the numbers around the crystal and nothing happens, try right clicking the tile next to the crystal. It might be another crystal. Sometimes when you click on a number you get a very gratifying huge clearing of the board. Continue in this fashion, keeping an eye out for more ‘corner’ tiles to right click, until you are done.

Now, the left click. The only time I use it is on the first move or two because using this method, the only times I have not had a perfect game is when I mistakenly left clicked on something and it exploded, or when the first click of the game does not clear tiles and I have to try another corner [new game if going for badge]. So even when I have revealed all the crystals in a particular area and the remaining tiles are probably safe to left click, I don’t. I clear them by using the RL click. So that’s why I do not use the Shift + Left method.

Also, note that this does not clear tiles that you have right clicked and placed a marker on. I never leave marked tiles marked.

Also, although scan is fun, I save my power to use hints at the very end if I get stuck. Scan uses all your power and you can get three hints for the price of one scan.

So try it. You might like it. And now you see why I prefer not to tie up the Chat with this lengthy explanation.