Minesweeper

How to play Minesweeper

Minesweeper is a classic logic puzzle. Hidden under the grid are a fixed number of mines. Your goal is to reveal every cell that does not contain a mine — without clicking on any mine — as fast as you can.

Controls

• Left-click / tap — reveal a cell.
• Right-click (desktop) or long-press (mobile, hold for ~0.4s) — place or remove a flag on a suspected mine.
• Smiley face button — start a fresh game on the current difficulty.
• Level dropdown — switch difficulty. Changing difficulty starts a new game.

Reading the board

• A revealed cell with a number tells you how many mines are hidden in the 8 cells around it.
• A revealed cell with no number has no mines next to it. When you click such a cell the game automatically opens its empty neighbours and reveals a connected area at once.
• A flagged cell (⚑) cannot be opened by accident. Flag cells you’re sure are mines so you don’t click them later.
• The 💣 counter shows mines remaining (total mines minus flags placed). It does not tell you whether your flags are correct.
• The ⏱ timer starts on your first click and stops when you win or lose. Your time is your score — lower is better.

Difficulty levels

• Easy — 9 × 9 board, 10 mines. About 12% of the cells are mines. Good for warming up and learning the patterns.
• Medium — 16 × 16 board, 40 mines (~16% mine density). The classic Minesweeper challenge.
• Hard — 16 × 30 board, 99 mines (~21% mine density). For experts. Expect to need to guess in tight spots.

Strategy tips

• Your first click is always safe. The mines are placed only after you click, and never inside the 3×3 area around your first click. So start anywhere — the middle is usually best because it tends to open a larger area.
• Look for forced numbers. If a “1” touches only one unrevealed cell, that cell must be the mine. Flag it.
• Use satisfied numbers. If a “2” already has 2 flags around it, every other neighbour is safe — click them.
• Work the borders. Numbers on the edges and corners of revealed regions are easiest to reason about because they have fewer hidden neighbours.
• Don’t guess until you have to. Always look for forced moves first. When you do have to guess, prefer cells next to a low number rather than a high one.

Winning and losing

You win when every cell that is not a mine has been revealed. You don’t need to flag every mine — flags are just a memory aid.

You lose if you click on any mine. The board reveals all mines so you can see what happened. Click the smiley face to try again.

Offline play

Once this page has loaded, the whole game runs in your browser. You can keep playing even if you lose your internet connection. Your scores are stored on your device and uploaded to the leaderboard automatically the next time you reconnect (only if you’re logged in — guests play for fun and their scores stay local).