How to play Minesweeper
The board is a meadow with mines hidden under some of the grass tiles. Open every tile that isn’t a mine and you win; open a mine and the game is over. Each open tile shows how many of its eight neighbours hide a mine, and a blank tile has none, so the game opens its neighbours for you and a whole area spreads out.
- Click or tap any tile to start. Mines are placed after that first click and never on or around it, so it always opens an area. The clock starts now.
- Read the numbers. A 1 with only one hidden neighbour means that neighbour is a mine. A number that already has all its mines found means its other neighbours are safe.
- Flag the mines you’re sure of: right-click on a computer, long-press on a phone, or turn on Flag mode so taps plant flags. The counter at the top left shows the mines left, minus your flags.
- Chord to go faster. Click or tap a number that has as many flags as its value, and all its other neighbours open at once. A wrong flag makes a chord open a mine, so be sure first.
On a keyboard, click the board (or Tab to it), then use the arrow keys to move, Space to open, F to flag and Enter to chord. N starts a new game. The daisy above the board does the same.
Basic patterns
Most of a game is a handful of patterns you learn to see at a glance. Read them along a straight edge of open tiles, with hidden tiles on one side.
- 1-1 from a wall: a 1 next to the edge of the board (or next to open tiles) followed by another 1. The first 1 sees two hidden tiles, the second sees those two plus one more. The mine of the first 1 is somewhere in the shared pair, so the second 1 is already satisfied: its third tile is safe.
- 1-2-1: the mines sit under both 1s, and the tile under the 2 is safe. Only that arrangement gives the 2 exactly two mines without giving either 1 a second one.
- 1-2-2-1: the mines sit under the two 2s, and the tiles under the 1s are safe.
- 1-2 against three tiles: a 2 sees three hidden tiles and the 1 next to it sees only two of them. The 1 allows at most one mine in that pair, so the 2’s third tile must be a mine.
When no pattern fits, count: the mine counter can settle the last few tiles, and a region where every arrangement puts a mine on the same tile tells you it’s a mine even if no single number says so.
No-guess mode
Classic Minesweeper sometimes leaves you with a true 50/50, two tiles where the numbers can’t tell which one holds the mine. With No-guess switched on, every board is played through by a solver from your first click before you see it, using only logic: single numbers, pairs of overlapping numbers, every arrangement of a small region, and the mine counter. If the solver would have to guess anywhere, the board is thrown away and the next one is tried, in the background, so the page never freezes. Simon Tatham’s Mines works the same way by default, and its manual puts the promise well: “you will always be able to deduce it somehow”. When you seem stuck on a no-guess board, look for a pattern across two numbers, or count the mines left.
Difficulties, stats and sharing
Beginner (9 × 9, 10 mines), Intermediate (16 × 16, 40 mines) and Expert (30 × 16, 99 mines) are the sizes of the classic Windows game. Custom boards go from 5 × 5 to 40 × 30. Your games played, wins, best time and win streaks are kept per difficulty in this browser, with no-guess games counted on their own, and a game in progress comes back after a reload. On a phone, Expert is wider than the screen: drag to pan, pinch or use the magnifier buttons to zoom, or go full screen.
After a game you’ll see your time and the board’s 3BV, which the Authoritative Minesweeper site defines as “the minimum number of left clicks required to win the game”, and 3BV/s, the 3BV divided by your time. Share result gives you a link: whoever opens it sees your time and can play the very same board, starting from your first click. Replayed and shared boards don’t count towards the stats.
Tips
- Start with openings, not edges: a blank area gives you many numbers to work with.
- Only flag what chording needs. Flags cost time, so fast players flag the mines next to numbers they want to chord and ignore the rest.
- A 50/50 in classic mode? Guess it early rather than late: losing after ten seconds costs less than losing after two minutes.
- Right-click doing nothing, or a double click where you pressed once? Check your mouse buttons with the mouse test. Clicks feel slow? Measure yourself with the reaction time test.