How to play
A grid of covered cells hides a set number of mines. Uncover every cell that isn’t a mine and you win; uncover a mine and the game is over. Everything you need to find them is written in the numbers that appear as you dig.
Opening cells. Tap or click a covered cell to open it. Your first click is always safe: the mines are only placed after it, and never on that cell or any of its eight neighbours. That guarantees an opening area to start from.
Reading numbers. An opened cell shows how many mines touch it, counting all eight surrounding cells including diagonals. A cell with no neighbouring mines is blank, and the game opens everything around it automatically, which is how big areas spill open at once.
Flagging. Mark a cell you’re sure is a mine with a long press on a touch screen, a right-click with a mouse, or by turning on Flag mode so every tap places or removes a flag. A flagged cell can’t be opened by accident. The Mines counter at the top shows the total minus your flags.
Chording. Tap an opened number that already has exactly that many flags around it, and all its remaining covered neighbours open in one go. It’s fast, but if one of those flags is wrong, chording will set off a mine.
Time runs from your first click until the board is cleared.
The three levels
| Level | Board | Mines | Mine density |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9 × 9 | 10 | 12% of cells |
| Intermediate | 16 × 16 | 40 | 16% |
| Expert | 30 × 16 | 99 | 21% |
Density is what makes Expert hard, not just size: with one cell in five a mine, the numbers are higher, safe openings are smaller and forced guesses come more often. On a phone held upright, the Expert board turns sideways so the cells stay large enough to tap.
Patterns worth knowing
Most of Minesweeper comes down to a handful of local deductions you’ll start to see at a glance.
All mines found. A 2 that already touches two flags has no more mines around it: every other covered neighbour is safe. Chord it.
All covered cells are mines. A 3 with exactly three covered neighbours: all three are mines.
The 1-1 at a wall. Two 1s side by side along an edge, sharing the same two covered cells: the cell beyond the second 1 is safe, because the first 1’s mine must be among the shared pair.
The 1-2-1. Along a flat edge of covered cells, a 1, 2, 1 in a row means mines under both 1s and a safe cell under the 2.
The 1-2-2-1. Along a flat edge, the mines sit under the two 2s and the cells under the 1s are safe.
Subtraction. When one number’s covered neighbours are a subset of another’s, subtract. A 1 whose neighbours all touch a 2 means the 2’s extra cells contain exactly one mine.
Strategy
Work the border. Information lives where open and covered cells meet. Scan that edge for one of the patterns above before doing anything else.
Flag only what you need. Flags are useful for chording and for keeping count, but you don’t have to flag every mine to win. Opening safe cells is what finishes the board.
Use the mine counter late. Near the end, the number of mines left can settle a region that the local numbers can’t, for instance when exactly one mine remains for two possible spots.
Guess well when you must. Sometimes the board truly doesn’t decide. A corner or a cell far from any number tends to have better odds than a 50/50 next to the edge, and a safe result there often opens new ground.
Hint for a clean nudge. Hint opens a cell that the numbers already prove safe, after an optional short ad. If no cell is certain, it tells you that you’ll have to guess.
If you enjoy pure deduction with no guessing at all, try Sudoku. For a guessing game that’s all about clues, see Color Code.
If you enjoy Minesweeper, try Nonogram or Number Target next.
