How to Play

The basics

Left-click a cell to reveal it.
Right-click (or enable Flag Mode on mobile) to plant or remove a 🚩 flag on a suspected mine.
Numbers show how many of the 8 surrounding cells contain mines.
Your first click is always safe — mines are placed after it.
Uncover a mine and the game ends. Reveal every non-mine cell to win.

Advanced tip

Chord click: left-click a revealed number once the correct number of flags surround it — all remaining neighbours are revealed automatically.
The mine counter shows mines remaining (flags subtracted). It can go negative if you over-flag.

History

The Minesweeper concept traces back to mainframe games of the 1960–70s, most notably Cube (1973) and Relentless Logic (1985), text-based games where players navigated mine-filled grids.

Robert Donner and Curt Johnson wrote the version bundled with Windows 3.1 in 1992. Its original purpose was to teach users mouse skills — especially right-clicking — which was unfamiliar to most PC owners at the time.

Microsoft included Minesweeper with every Windows release from 3.1 through Vista and 7, making it one of the most-played computer games in history, with an estimated 500 million plays per day at its 1990s peak.

Windows 8 (2012) replaced the classic game with a modern app adding touch support, Xbox Live leaderboards, and daily challenge puzzles. Today Minesweeper is available on every platform as a free browser game.

Tips & Fun Facts

Solving strategies

Start in a corner or edge — fewer neighbours means faster deductions.
If a number equals the count of unrevealed cells around it, all of them are mines — flag them immediately.
The 1-2-1 pattern along a wall has a definitive solution: the two outer cells are safe, the inner cell hides a mine.
On Expert, some positions require a guess — pick cells that minimize the probability of hitting a mine.

Did you know?

The Expert world record is 31.133 seconds (Kamil Murański, 2010).
Minesweeper was proven NP-complete by Richard Kaye in 2000 — deciding whether a board has a consistent solution is computationally hard.
The game was named after the naval ships used to clear harbours of underwater mines.
Windows XP's version added a custom board size mode, allowing up to 30×24 grids with up to 668 mines.

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