Minesweeper
Every number counts the mines touching it. Read them well and you never have to guess.
Tap any square to start.
Right-click or long-press to flag. Tap a number whose mines are all flagged to open the rest around it.
How to play Minesweeper
The field is a grid of covered squares, and some of them hide mines. Your goal is to uncover every square that is safe. Open a square that hides a mine and the round is over.
Each safe square you open shows a number from 1 to 8: how many mines are hidden in the eight squares that touch it, diagonals included. A blank square has no mines around it, so its neighbours open automatically. Use the numbers to work out where the mines must be, flag them with a right-click or a long-press (or the Flag tool on a phone), and open everything else. Your first tap is always safe and always opens a clear patch to work from.
No-guess boards
In most versions of Minesweeper you sometimes reach a spot where two squares are equally likely to be the mine, and the only way forward is a coin flip. That is never the case here. Each board is laid out after your first tap and then tested by a solver that reasons the way a careful player does, using single numbers, pairs of neighbouring numbers and the mine count. A board is only used if that solver can clear it, so there is always a logical next move. If you get stuck, look again: the answer is on the board.
Patterns worth knowing
- The simple count. If a 2 touches exactly two covered squares, both are mines. If a number already has that many flags around it, every other covered neighbour is safe.
- 1-1 along a wall. Two 1s side by side against an edge or an opened area often share their mine, which proves the square beyond the second 1 is safe.
- 1-2-1. Along a straight edge, a 1-2-1 means the mines sit under the two 1s and the square under the 2 is safe.
- 1-2-2-1. Here the mines sit under the two 2s, and the squares under the 1s are safe.
- Chording. Once a number has all its mines flagged, tap the number itself to open all its other neighbours at once. It is how fast players clear big areas.
The three classic levels
Beginner is a 9×9 field with 10 mines, quick enough for a short break. Intermediate is 16×16 with 40 mines. Expert is the famous 30×16 field with 99 mines; on a narrow phone screen it turns on its side to 16×30 so the squares stay big enough to tap. Your best time is saved on your device.
A little history
The game most people know comes from Microsoft. Programmers Robert Donner and Curt Johnson wrote Minesweeper for the Microsoft Entertainment Pack in 1990, and it shipped with Windows 3.1 in 1992, which put it on millions of office computers. The idea was older: grid games about deducing hidden mines from number clues had appeared on home computers in the early 1980s.
Minesweeper is also a small piece of serious mathematics. In 2000 the mathematician Richard Kaye showed that deciding whether a partly opened Minesweeper board is consistent is NP-complete, putting it in the same family as some of the hardest problems in computer science. That is part of why good boards feel like real reasoning rather than luck.
Frequently asked questions
Is this Minesweeper free to play?
Yes. It is completely free with no sign-up and no download, and it works in any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone.
How do I flag a mine on a phone?
Long-press a square to flag it, or switch the tool to Flag and tap. On a computer, right-click a square to flag it.
What does no-guess mean?
It means every board can be cleared using the numbers alone. You will never reach a position where the only option is to pick between two equally likely squares.
What is chording?
Chording means tapping an opened number whose mines are all flagged. The game then opens every remaining covered square around it in one go. If a flag is wrong, chording can set off a mine, so flag carefully.
What are the board sizes?
Beginner is 9×9 with 10 mines, Intermediate is 16×16 with 40 mines, and Expert is 30×16 with 99 mines, the same sizes as the classic Windows version.