Left-click a cell to reveal it. Right-click (or long-press on touch) to flag a suspected mine. Numbers show how many mines touch that cell, including diagonals. Reveal every safe cell to win — touch a mine and the field explodes.
The first click is always safe and opens an empty area. When the count of flags around a revealed number equals that number, you can chord-click (left+right or middle-click) to auto-reveal its remaining neighbors. Look for forced moves: a "1" with only one unrevealed neighbor means that neighbor is the mine.
Minesweeper is a single-player logic puzzle: uncover every safe cell on a grid without detonating any of the hidden mines. Numbers on revealed cells tell you exactly how many mines lie among the 8 surrounding cells. Originated as a 1980s mainframe game, popularized worldwide when Microsoft bundled it with Windows 3.1 in 1992.
Left-click to reveal a cell; right-click to flag a suspected mine. The first click is always safe — if it would otherwise hit a mine, the mine is moved. Revealing a 0-cell auto-cascades, opening all neighbors recursively (this is what produces the satisfying flood-open). Numbers 1–8 indicate exactly how many of the 8 neighboring cells contain mines.
| Number | Color | Adjacent mines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue | 1 |
| 2 | Green | 2 |
| 3 | Red | 3 |
| 4 | Dark blue | 4 |
| 5 | Maroon | 5 |
| 6 | Cyan | 6 |
| 7 | Black | 7 |
| 8 | Gray | 8 (rare) |
| Difficulty | Grid | Mines | Density |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9×9 | 10 | 12.3% |
| Intermediate | 16×16 | 40 | 15.6% |
| Expert | 30×16 | 99 | 20.6% |
The number on a revealed cell is exactly how many of its 8 surrounding cells contain a mine. A 1 means exactly one neighbor is a mine; a 0 (blank) means none.
Beginner 9×9 / 10 mines, Intermediate 16×16 / 40 mines, Expert 30×16 / 99 mines.
Left+right click together (or middle-click) on a numbered cell auto-opens all unflagged neighbors — but only if the flag count around it equals the number on the cell. Big speedup once you've flagged the obvious mines.
No. The classic version allows positions where the only safe cell can't be deduced from the visible numbers — a forced 50/50 guess. Some variants ("no-guess" Minesweeper) only generate solvable boards.
Open corners and edges first (fewer neighbors → higher-information numbers). Flag mines as you identify them so chord-click works. Save guesses for when no logic remains, and prefer cells far from numbered constraints.
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