Minesweeper
Clear the field without touching a mine. Numbers tell you how many mines are hiding next door. Your first click is always safe.
Tap or click to open a square. Right-click, long-press, or turn on Flag mode to mark a mine.
How to play
The board hides a number of mines. Click a square to open it. If it is safe, it shows a number: how many of its eight neighbors contain a mine. A blank square has no mines around it, so its neighbors open automatically.
- Open a square: click or tap it.
- Flag a mine: right-click, long-press, or switch on Flag mode.
- Chord: click an opened number when all its mines are flagged to open the rest of its neighbors at once.
- Win by opening every square that is not a mine.
Smart strategies
Start in the middle. Your first click is always safe and often opens a large area.
Read the 1s first. A 1 touching only one unopened square means that square is a mine. Flag it, and its other neighbors become safe.
Watch for the 1-2 pattern. Along a straight edge, a 1 next to a 2 often tells you exactly where the second mine sits.
Count before you click. If a number already has all its mines flagged, every other neighbor is safe. If it has as many unopened neighbors as its number, they are all mines.
Guess as little as possible. Sometimes a board does force a guess. When it does, pick the square that touches the fewest numbers.
A short history
Puzzles about finding hidden mines appeared on home computers in the early 1980s. The version most people remember came with Microsoft Windows in the early 1990s and turned the game into an office-break classic around the world. The rules have stayed the same ever since: logic, a little courage and one careful click at a time.
Levels
- Easy: 9×9 board, 10 mines.
- Medium: 16×16 board, 40 mines.
- Hard: 16×30 board, 99 mines.