Minesweeper

How to play

A grid with hidden mines, and numbers that tell you how many of them touch each square. There is no luck involved after the first click: every position on a standard board can be solved by deduction. The game is entirely about reading those numbers correctly.

The board is a grid of covered squares, some of which hide mines. Click a square to reveal it. If it is a mine, the game ends immediately. If it is not, you either get a number or an empty square.

A number tells you how many mines touch that square, counting all eight neighbours. An empty square means no mine touches it, and the game automatically reveals its neighbours too, which is why one click on an empty area can open up a large part of the board.

Flagging is a note to yourself, not an action. Right-click or long-press a square to mark it as a suspected mine. Flags do not protect a square; clicking a flagged square still reveals it. The counter at the top tracks how many flags you have placed against the number of mines on the board.

You win when every non-mine square is revealed. The timer starts on your first click and stops when the board is cleared.

Strategy that actually helps

• Start in a corner. Corners have three neighbours instead of eight, so the numbers there constrain less and the first reveal tends to open more of the board.
• If a revealed number equals the count of flags touching it, every other covered neighbour is safe. This is the single most useful rule in the game.
• If a number equals the count of covered neighbours touching it, all of those are mines. Flag them all at once instead of guessing one at a time.
• Work the edges of revealed areas, not the middle of unknown space. Every deduction comes from a number you can already see.
• On the larger board, accept that some positions are genuine 50/50 guesses. Guessing early on a fresh area is worse than guessing at the very end when everything else is resolved.