Do you hate farming but need farming experience? Are you easily amused, even by the games that come standard with Windows? Then you are sure to enjoy Vinesweeper.

Vinesweeper is an amusing mini game within Runescape that is basically a Runeized version of the classic puzzle game, Minesweeper. I have never been a big fan of Minesweeper, but I know people who swear it is the greatest puzzle game of all time. I have even heard that JK Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter series of books, when needing a break from writing, would turn to Minesweeper. Being a simple game and yet having such a large following made it a logical choice for a Jagex twist. Vinesweeper provides a pleasant distraction and a nice way to earn some otherwise tedious farming experience.

To get to the Vinesweeper game is very simple. Just ask any farming tool leprechaun to transport you. This makes Vinesweeper one of the most easily accessible mini games in the world of Runescape. But before you go finding a leprechaun, get a spade and a bunch of money out of your bank account. I prefer to bring 20k with me, but this is often overkill. The better a player is at this game, the less gp you will need to spend. Once you’re ready, find a tool leprechaun and have him teleport you to Farmer Blinkin’s farm. I like to use the leprechaun by the farming patch in the court yard of Varrock Castle, but any farming patch will do.

Once you are at Farmer Blinkin’s farm, read the instructions (the four signs to the east) and then find the farmer and his wife and talk to each of them. You will basically be told that you are about to par-take in a game of frigging Minesweeper, except instead of mines to avoid, you will be looking out for seeds. I am not going to go over all the different strategies to playing this game. There are thousands of Minesweeper guides on the Internet that will effectively apply to Vinesweeper.

You will initially be given 10 flags, which you are supposed to place over areas where you suspect seeds are hidden. A farmhand will come by a short while latter and dig up the spot and if seeds are there you will receive points. The amount of points is random and based partially on your farming level. If anyone is near you when you get points, they too will get some points. I don’t exactly understand why. But on the other hand I have never played a multiplayer game of Minesweeper before. But watch out, it may take a little while for a farmhand to get to you, and the moment you plant a flag, the bunnies throughout the farm will start twitching their noises and sense nearby food. If they get to your flag before a farmer does they will eat the seeds and steal the flag. You can get rid of nearby bunnies temporarily by feeding them Ogleroot, which is available for sale from Farmer Blinkin, or occasionally found while digging up his farm fields. This will also earn you 30 hunting experience.

If you plant a flag over a spot that does not contain seeds the farmhand will develop an attitude and take away the flag and not give it back. The farmhand will also take away your flag when you do find seeds, but those flags he’ll give back later.  When you’ve run out of flags return to Farmer Blinkin and ask him to sell you some. He will return any flags that were collected when seeds were found. He will then be willing to sell you more flags for 500gp each. You can have a total of ten flags in your inventory at any given time. I don’t understand the point of this flag restriction.

Once you’ve tired of the game and want to return to the greater world of Runescape, just stop by Mrs. Blinkin and exchange your points for seeds, compost potions, flags and most importantly, farming experience. Players with a farming level of 40 or more will receive the same amount of experience as the points they earned (a 1:1 ratio).  Lower level farmers will receive a lesser ratio of points to xp. You can then exit the farm via the portal in the northeast and return to the farming plot you left from. If you have flags on you when you leave, they will be returned to the farm (but will be available on your return). If you had any Ogleroot, it will be traded in at 10gp a root.

Somethings to remember: Every time you dig safely and numbers appear around your dig site, you will get the same amount of points as the numbers that appeared. If you accidentally dig up a seed you will lose points. If you are not certain that a mound contains a seed you can right click and investigate it. This takes extra time and doesn’t always return a definitive answer, but it can be helpful. If you dig and a large area opens up, every mound around the perimeter of the opening is safe to click.

If you’re not interested in getting farming experience, try to earn 1000 points. That is enough points to buy one Kwuarm seed, which retails on the Grand Exchange at 6200gp. Another good investment is Ranarr seed at 4000 points, which sells for around 21k. Kwuarm and Ranarr seeds have the best value to point ratios in the game. If you don’t want to spend the time earning all those points, try buying Limpwurt seed for 70 points. It sells on the GE for 290gp.  Poison Ivy seed is also a good investment with only a 30 point requirement and a 130gp resale.

I am introducing a new topic category to my blog. I am calling it diversions and the topics of this type will deal with aspects of Runescape that focus on the mini games as opposed to the typical monster killing and questing. My first diversion is Jungle Clean Up.

Jungle Clean Up isn’t the most fun of Runescape mini games. It isn’t the most interesting either. But it is something to do that isn’t the same-old same-old and it provides some decent opportunities for earning money.

In a nutshell, the object of Jungle Clean Up is to kiss the collective asses of the people of Tai Bwo Wannai Village. And there are a lot of asses to kiss. Once you start your career as a sycophant, the villagers will repay your efforts with trading sticks, which are only valuable in the village itself. Your efforts, of course, involve doing things for the community like killing threatening spiders, snakes, mosquitoes and other nastys. You can also gain brown nosing points by hacking the nearby jungle with a machete (I recommend red topaz), which sounds to me like cutting down the rain forest, but lets not get into a political correctness debate here. The thatches of wood you receive from hacking the jungle can be used to repair the village fence, and thus earn even more boot licking points.

While destroying the rain forest for future generations, an occasional village enemy will pop out of the brush and attack you. Money-wise, these creatures have some wonderful drops. Mosquitoes drop between one and five Proboscis (stackable), which can easily be sold on the grand exchange for 3500 gp each. Snakes drop their hides, which value around 2k. Spider carcass’s sell for around 800gp. Broodoo Victims tend to be a pain in the butt, but they drop Broodoo masks which can be crafted into Broodoo shields and sold for between 3.5k and 5k depending on the type of mask used. Tribesmen don’t drop much, maybe some bones or a few trading sticks.

There are some things to remember about these threatening creatures. Broodoo victims do not just simply disappear after a while if you run away from them. They will hang around and attack other players, so unless you are a complete noob, try to kill these guys off. Tribesmen and Spiders may poison you, so make sure you have some antipoison with you. Antipoison and food can be purchased (with gp) in the shop just northwest of the village.

While purging the jungle of its life, you may come across an occasional gem bearing rock. If you happen to have a pickaxe in your inventory then you can mine up to three gems from these rocks. These gems can be anything that can be obtained from the Shilo Village gem rocks. Also, occasionally you may stumble upon a Goutweed tuber. Using a spade you can dig it up. The tuber is best utilized by selling it for 38k on the Grand Exchange. However, it can also be planted, sold in the village for a piddly amount of trading sticks, or used as partial payment on an overpriced Softa Doc machete.

Your apple polishing points are shown as the Tai Bwo Favour percentage. At any point you can collect trading sticks from villagers, but once you hit 100% your Favour will cease to rise, so it is in your best interests to start collecting sticks at this point to lower your percentage and avoid doing any unnecessary work. You can collect trading sticks from most of the villagers (they will be holding trading sticks in their hands), but each one will only contribute a portion of the total sticks you are able to obtain (wearing village clothing allows you to collect more sticks from each villager).  So you will have to hit up several villagers as you will not be able to get sticks from the same villager twice in a row.

For the most part the trading sticks aren’t all that useful. You can use them to buy clothing from the village shop or buy machetes from Softa Doc, but their real value comes in two flavors. First, you can use trading sticks to send items to the bank. This is helpful as there is no nearby bank to Tai Bwo Wanni. You can also get into a special wood cutting area northeast of the village for 100 trading sticks. In this area you can chop down Mahogany and Teak logs.

To start this mini game talk to Murcaily in the northeast area of the village.