Left-click a cell to reveal it. Right-click (or long-press on touch, or switch on Flag Mode) to flag a suspected mine. Numbers show how many mines touch that cell. Reveal every safe cell to win — touch a mine and the field explodes. The first click is always safe and opens an area.
No-Guess boards are generated with a solver in the loop, so logic alone always clears them. The Daily is one seeded no-guess board per day, identical for everyone, with streaks and a spoiler-free share line. Hex cells have six neighbours; Knight numbers count mines a knight's move away, which rewires every pattern you know. Share Board copies a link to the exact board you are on, so a friend can race your time. Hint highlights a provable move (or a wrong flag) for a 10-second penalty, and Guess Alert warns you in classic mode when only a guess remains. 3BV is the minimum-click score used for speed comparisons.
When the flags around a revealed number equal that number, click the number to chord and open its remaining neighbours. A "1" with a single unrevealed neighbour marks that neighbour as a mine. In classic mode about one Expert board in six is solvable without any guess; the other five will eventually put you in a 50/50 — that is what No-Guess mode removes.
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 surrounding cells. It originated as a 1980s mainframe game and went worldwide when Microsoft bundled it with Windows 3.1 in 1992. This version keeps the classic three grids and adds the features the community has asked for ever since: guaranteed no-guess boards, a shared daily challenge, alternative geometries, seed sharing and honest speed metrics.
Classic Minesweeper places mines at random, so many boards end in a coin flip. In No-Guess mode the page runs a constraint solver on every candidate board: single-cell rules first, then the subset rule (if one number's unknown cells are contained in another's, the difference is determined), then exact enumeration of each connected frontier, and finally a global mine-count check in the endgame. Wherever the solver stalls, the mines it could not resolve are reshuffled and the solve is repeated. The generator keeps trying, up to 600 attempts, until the solver can clear the board from the opened start cell, so in practice a stuck position almost always has a deduction available. The mode matters most on Expert, where random boards most often end in a forced guess.
Each UTC day produces one 16×16, 40-mine no-guess board from a fixed seed, so everyone plays the same puzzle. The start cell is pre-opened, the timer starts on your first click, and only your first attempt counts toward the streak; replays are for practice. The share line reports your time, the board's 3BV and your streak without giving away any of the layout.
| Board | Neighbours counted | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Square | 8 surrounding cells | The classic rules and all the familiar 1-2-1 and 1-1 patterns. |
| Hex | 6 adjacent hexagons | Lower maximum number, fewer diagonal ambiguities, different edge patterns. |
| Knight | 8 cells a knight's move away | Numbers describe cells that are not adjacent; openings and cascades jump across the board. |
All three variants share one engine: a variant is nothing more than a neighbourhood function and a layout, and the solver, no-guess generation, hints and 3BV are computed over that neighbourhood. Beginner, Intermediate, Expert and Custom sizes apply to every variant.
| Difficulty | Grid | Mines | Density |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9×9 | 10 | 12.3% |
| Intermediate | 16×16 | 40 | 15.6% |
| Expert | 30×16 | 99 | 20.6% |
| Custom | up to 60×40 | any | up to 45% |
| Number | Color | Adjacent mines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue | 1 |
| 2 | Green | 2 |
| 3 | Red | 3 |
| 4 | Purple | 4 |
| 5 | Orange | 5 |
| 6 | Cyan | 6 |
| 7 | Ivory | 7 |
| 8 | Gray | 8 (rare) |
The number on a revealed cell is exactly how many of its neighbouring cells contain a mine: 8 neighbours on a square grid, 6 on hex, and the 8 knight's-move cells in the Knight variant. A 0 (blank) means none, and the game opens its neighbours for you.
A board generated so that logic alone can clear it from the opened start. This page keeps reshuffling unresolved mines until its solver can finish the board, so you are never forced into a 50/50.
One seeded 16×16 no-guess board per UTC day, the same for everyone. Your first attempt counts toward your streak; replays are practice. Share copies a spoiler-free result line.
Bechtel's Board Benchmark Value: the minimum number of clicks needed to clear the board, counting one per opening and one per numbered cell not touching an opening. 3BV per second compares speed fairly across boards of different difficulty.
Click a revealed number (or left+right together, or middle-click) to open all its unflagged neighbours at once — only when the flags around it equal the number. On touch, tap a number to chord.
After your first click the board is fixed. Share Board copies a link containing the seed, size, variant and start cell; whoever opens it gets the identical board with the same start cell already open.
Not in classic mode — roughly one Expert board in six is fully deducible from the first opening. Switch on No-Guess for a guarantee, or Guess Alert to be told the moment a classic board has no safe deduction left.
On a fresh random board no mines exist until you click. The board is then built around that cell: the cell you clicked and every one of its neighbours (the six hexes in Hex, the eight knight's-move cells in Knight) are kept mine-free, so your first click always opens an area rather than a lone number. On a shared link or the Daily, the board is fixed in advance and its start cell is already open when the page loads.
The generator makes up to 600 attempts per board. Most attempts only reshuffle the mines the solver could not resolve, but every 60th attempt throws the layout away and places all mines fresh. If no attempt is solvable within that limit, the last layout is used.
A hint runs the solver on what you can see and answers in this order: a flag you placed on a cell it can prove is safe, then a provably safe cell to open, then a provable mine you have not flagged. Only a hint that points at a cell adds the 10-second penalty; if there is no logical move it says so for free. A win that used any hint is recorded but never sets your best time. The guess alert uses the same check after every move and is switched off automatically in No-Guess mode and the Daily.
Minesweeper is a pure-logic puzzle: clear every safe cell without detonating a hidden mine. Each revealed number tells you exactly how many of its eight neighbors are mines. On Board Gaming Hub the board offers three classic sizes and right-click flagging (long-press on touch). This guide takes you from random clicking to reading the board like an expert.
Your opening click can never hit a mine — the board places mines only after you click, avoiding your cell and its neighbors. So always open with a click in the middle of a large area to trigger the biggest possible cascade of zeros and hand yourself a wall of numbers to work from.
A number is a promise: a 1 touches exactly one mine among its unrevealed neighbors, a 2 touches two, and so on. Two deductions do most of the work:
Along a straight edge of revealed cells, certain number sequences resolve instantly without any counting:
| Pattern | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1-2-1 | The mines sit under the two 1s; the cell under the 2 is safe. |
| 1-2-2-1 | The mines sit under the two middle 2s; the cells under the outer 1s are safe. |
| 1-1 on an edge | Where a new wall opens, the cell just past the second 1 is usually safe. |
Flag a cell (right-click or long-press) once you have proven it is a mine — flags are your notes, not guesses. Once a number is fully flagged you can chord it: left+right click together (or middle-click) on the number auto-reveals all of its remaining unflagged neighbors at once. Chording is the single biggest speed boost on larger boards, but it only fires when the flag count matches the number, so keep your flags honest.
Enjoy deduction with no luck at all? Sudoku is the natural companion — see the Sudoku tips guide.