Minesweeper in COBOL

A terminal Minesweeper game written in GnuCOBOL. 9×9 grid, 10 mines.

Compiling

Install GnuCOBOL if you don't have it:

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install gnucobol

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install gnucobol

Compile:

cobc -x -o minesweeper minesweeper.cob

Run:

./minesweeper

How to Play

The board starts fully hidden. Each cell is one of:

Symbol	Meaning
#	Hidden cell
.	Revealed — no adjacent mines
1–8	Revealed — number of adjacent mines
F	Flagged by you
*	Mine (shown at game over)

Commands

r <row> <col>   Reveal a cell
f <row> <col>   Flag or unflag a cell
q               Quit

Row and column are numbers 1–9. Examples:

r 5 5    reveal the center cell
f 1 9    flag the top-right cell

Rules

• First move is always safe — mines are placed after your first reveal.
• Revealing an empty cell (.) automatically reveals all connected empty cells and their numbered borders.
• Flagging is just a visual reminder — it does not count toward winning.
• You win by revealing every cell that isn't a mine.
• You lose by revealing a mine.