Finished 5:18 P.M. (Mountain Time) on February 26, 2008.

Vinesweeper is the newest addition to Jagex’s arsenal of members-only minigames. It is basically a Runescape version of Minesweeper, with a few changes.

To begin Vinesweeper, head to your nearest Tool Leprechaun, located near farming patches. Bring a spade and a few thousand gp. If you forget a spade you can buy one for 5gp from Mrs. Winkin. Right click the leprechaun and select Teleport.

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Once you teleport, you will arrive on a farm. You’ll see some signposts in front of you that explain the rules. Summed up, they basically tell you to…

Step 1: Dig with your spade in a hole to have numbers pop up. These numbers describe how many seeds there are in the holes around them. You may come across an Ogleroot, which you can use to scare away the rabbits that occasionally eat your seeds. Your inventory should look somewhat like this (from left to right, some gold coins, flags, a spade, and Ogleroots):

Step 2: Plant your flags in the spaces you believe there are seeds. If you don’t want to just guess, you can select the “inspect” option and see if a seed is in the hole. It doesn’t always tell you if there is a seed or not, but it is a good way to get a better guess.

Step 3: Wait for a gnome farmer to come by. If a bunny reaches your flag first, it will eat the seeds and steal your flag. You can deter them by using one of your Ogleroots (which are also available for 5gp each from Farmer Blinkin) on the rabbit. I suggest clicking “use” on the ogleroots and watching for rabbits when you plant a flag. If a farmer comes and digs up a flag that covers a seed, everyone near the flag gets points. The farmer keeps the flag, but you can get it back.
Step 4: Collect points in this way. When you run out of flags, head back to Farmer Blinkin and select “Buy-flags” from the right click menu. If you succeeded in finding seeds, the flags the farmers held on to are returned. You can use the gp you brought with you to purchase more flags if you lost some. They cost 500 gold each.
At first, Vinesweeper was a harder minigame that gave hardly any rewards. After an update from Jagex, this is now a good way to gain Farming exp. Personally, I’ve decided to use it when my normal plants are growing. You can also get seeds from Mrs. Winkin to fuel your farming in normal patches.

I hope you decide to enjoy this new way to gain experience.

Happy Farming!