How to play
The board hides a number of mines. Open a square: if it's a mine, the game is over; otherwise it shows how many mines touch that square (diagonals included). Use those numbers to work out where the mines are, flag them, and open every safe square to clear the field. Boards are randomly generated every game, and your first click is always safe — it never lands on a mine.
Controls
- Click / tap — open a square
- Right-click, or press and hold on a touch screen — place or remove a flag
- F or the Flag button — flag mode: taps place flags instead of opening (handy on touch screens)
- Click an open number that already has the right amount of flags around it — opens all its remaining neighbors at once (chording)
- R — new game
Board sizes
| Difficulty | Board | Mines |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9 × 9 | 10 |
| Intermediate | 16 × 16 | 40 |
| Expert | 30 × 16 | 99 |
Tips
- Start from the open areas. Big empty regions reveal themselves in one click; the numbers along their border are where the real deductions begin.
- Learn the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2-1 patterns. Along a straight wall, 1-2-1 means the mines sit under the 1s' outer neighbors, and 1-2-2-1 puts them under the 2s. Spotting these saves a lot of second-guessing.
- A satisfied number is information. When a number already touches the right amount of flags, every other neighbor is safe — chord it and move on.
- Flag sparingly. On easy boards it's often faster to only flag where it helps a chord; every extra flag is a chance for a wrong one.
About Minesweeper
Minesweeper became a household puzzle when it shipped with Windows 3.1 in 1992, but its logic-of-adjacent-counts idea goes back to 1960s mainframe games. It has been studied seriously since: deciding whether a Minesweeper position is consistent is NP-complete, which is why some endgames genuinely come down to a guess. This version uses the classic three board sizes and a guaranteed-safe first click.