Playing Dragonsweeper because of Ars' article. Did I have any way out of this without guessing?

New player monster/object guide
Since there's no explanation in game of how the monsters behave I've put this together with the hopes it'll make the initial experience a bit less frustrating for new players. Feel free to chime in if I get anything wrong or miss something and I'll edit it in:
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO PREFER TO DISCOVER THINGS ON YOUR OWN. SCROLL NO FURTHER
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
X-Walls - always spawns in orthogonally (vertically or horizontally) adjacent pairs. Can be destroyed if hit 3 times at a cost of 1 health per hit. Drops a coin worth 1 xp when destroyed.
0-Starting Orb - reveals all tiles in two orthogonal (vertical/horizontal) tile radius when used. You should usually start by clicking this.
0-Healing Scroll - fully restores life. Also drops from Romeo and Juliet (9 power monsters)
0-Clairvoyance Scroll - randomly reveals any random tile on the board and all 8 tiles around it.
0-Gnome - ?? seems to teleport around randomly until you corner him eventually. Worth 9 xp
0-Dragon Egg - spawns in one of the 8 spaces around the dragon (power 13 monster). Leave it in tact for an achievement. Worth 3 xp
1-Rat - all of them can be revealed by defeating the rat king (power 5 monster) and using the scroll that drops from him. Will face left or right towards the rat king or stand up if the rat king is in the same column. Avoid killing for achievement.
1-Slime King - always spawns on the board edge surrounded by five Purple Slimes. Drops a scroll that reveals all Purple and Green Slimes.
2-Bat - nothing special
3-Skeleton - nothing special
4-Gargoyle - always spawns facing each other in orthogonally (vertically or horizontally) adjacent pairs.
5-Green Slime - all of them can be revealed by defeating the slime king (power 1 monster) and using the scroll that drops from him
5-Beholder - hides clues in a two orthogonal (vertical/horizontal) tile radius while alive.
5-Rat King - drops a scroll that reveals all rats on the board
6-Minotaur - spawns facing away from a treasure chest that appears in one of three adjacent spaces in the column behind him. They turn towards the chest when it is opened.
7-Guardian - nothing special
8-Purple Slime - always spawns in a ring around the slime king (power 1 monster) along the edges of the board. All of them are revealed by using the scroll that drops from the slime king.
9-Romeo and Juliet - always face each other equidistant from the center line of the dungeon. Drops a healing scroll on death. Leave them alive for an achievement
10-Mine King - always spawns in one of the 4 corners of the board. Drops a scroll that disarms all mines in the board.
11-Mimic - looks like a regular chest upon being revealed. Won't fight you until you click it again after revealing it.
13-Dragon - always spawns in the same spot on board near the center. A dragon egg (power 0 monster with 3 xp) will always spawn in one of the 8 tiles surrounding it. Defeat it and collect the 13 xp to reveal a crown which you can collect wherever you want to end the game with a win.
100-Mine - the only way to disarm these is by defeating the mine king (power 10 monster) and using the scroll he drops. Disarmed mines are worth 3 xp
- The small rats point towards the rat king
  
  Woah didn't know that one, mind blown thanks!
- Thanks!
  Rat King
  Ah, that's what that blue bull with yellow hair is.
  
  P.S. Syntax for spoiler markdown.
  
  Woah I'm still getting new stuff this is great! The Romeo and Juliet equidistant is particularly cool! Thank you! :o
  I'm using Sync for Lemmy which hasn't updated in forever so its spoiler tag function is all borked for me :<

I do not understand how to play this game at all.

Next to the dragon you have 216 and you know that the two squares above it, one is a mine and the other is a 3. This leaves one remaining square around the dragon that you know what it has to be by process of elimination because you haven't seen it yet.
!the egg is enough to level and then away you go!<

You sort of need to keep track of creature count but I feel like the game should do that for me, and not in a menu.
- Having learned more about the patterns, I can see that I should have
  
  So with the board state as it was I couldn't necessarily have done better, but better strategy could have let me survive on the same initial board.
  Still nowhere near the times some people are posting though.

What's new as compared to MamonoSweeper from years ago?
https://warpdoor.com/2015/02/27/mamonosweeper-minesweeperrpg-hojamaka-games/

A friend linked it in a Discord server recently and I've been enamored since. This recent update last week really made it harder. But like Minesweeper, sometimes you just gotta guess. I like to guess a few random spaces for my first energy bar, apart from the initial orb, so I crash out early if I do.

I have found that "slitherlink" scratches that "minesweeper without needing to guess" itch.

This looks fun! Also check out Tametsi.
- Fun, even works on Linux (Ubuntu) after turning on Proton for all games. I like the level-based design.

Unlike in minesweeper, it's possible to make a bad move early on which later causes you to enter a situation where you're forced to guess.

Have you ever won?
- It's very possible to defeat the dragon. I can do it pretty regularly after a day of heavy playing. Getting the achievements is tougher. And I still haven't gotten a clean wipe yet (I've been 1 tile away twice though)
  
  I was one heart away from getting 13 hearts, but at that point I was out of options. 😫
- I did it on my eigth or ninth try. I lost several times due to stupid mistakes, clicking on a mine when I forgot that there was a 1xx clue next to it, seeing only that xx was small.
  
  I guess I just haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.

The game is fun but man it was rough figuring out all the monster abilities. I wish they'd improve the monsternomicon to actually tell you what the monsters do. Like I still don't know how the gnome monster works.
- Yeah that one's a mystery to me. Sometimes disappears, sometimes gives you gold. I was wondering if it's related to the blue bull in some way.
  
  From what I could tell the gnome teleports to a random still-covered empty tile and dies when there's nowhere left to run.
  
  I think if you find all the gnomes is when it gives you gold.

That was dope! 363/365 points 😎