Okay, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this game. It's not random, it's not just "walk through the grid and hope you don't hit a skull." If you know how to play, you will never trigger a skull and everything will be fine. Here's how.
Skull Finder is exactly like the game Minesweeper which ships with Microsoft Windows. Hidden in the grid are a number of skulls. If you step on one, you'll trigger the Cogs. If you step on a square that
doesn't have a skull, it'll reveal the number of grid squares next to it that have skulls. "Next" to means both orthogonally and diagonally, so there are 8 possible squares next to each grid square.
The first row of grid squares will
never have a skull in it, so the first thing to do when you reach the grid is run across the bottom row to clear it out. If you hit a square that has zero skulls next to it, the game will automatically clear out all the squares touching it. (The square will display as blank, instead of "0").
Once you've done that, look at the revealed squares and see if you can figure out which squares must be skulls and which squares must not have skulls. Here are a few examples.
Code:
| : wall
? : unknown square
X : unknown square
. : any square that's not a skull
| ? ? X
| 1 1 X
--------
Look at the 1 in the corner. One of the two squares marked ? must be a skull. Now look at the second 1, the one not in the corner. Since only one skull is next to it, and one of the two squares marked ? must be a skull, you can tell that
the two squares marked X are not skulls. It's safe to step on them.
Code:
| ? ? X Y
| 1 2 1 Y
--------
Similar to the last one, but instead of a 1 in the second position, there's a 2. Again, one of the squares marked ? must be a skull. But now, since there's a 2 in the second position, you can deduce that
the square marked X is a skull. Don't step on it. And since the square marked X is a skull, and the third square on the bottom is a 1, you know that
the two squares marked Y are not skulls. Step on them.
Code:
X X X
Y 1 Y
Y 1 Y
-----
Look at the bottom 1. You know that one of the squares marked Y must be a skull for it to be a 1. (You can't tell from this
which of them is the skull, so don't step on them.) But since one of the squares marked Y is a skull, now look at the 1 in the middle. You can tell that
none of the squares marked X is a skull.
In general, when you see a "corner", it contains a skull:
Code:
. 1 X X
. 1 X X
. 1 X X
. 1 1 1
. . . .
The lower-left X is definitely a skull. Since one square up and to the left of it is a 1, that means the two squares marked X directly above the skull are safe. So is the X directly to the right of the skull, thanks to the 1 below it.
If you learn to recognize these patterns and others like them, you'll be waltzing through Skull Finder in no time. Good luck.