💣 Minesweeper

How to play Minesweeper

How to play

Minesweeper is the timeless logic puzzle that rewards patience and deduction. A grid of covered cells hides a scattering of mines. Your mission is to reveal every safe cell without ever clicking a mine. Each revealed cell shows a number telling you exactly how many mines touch it — including diagonals. Use those numbers like clues: a "1" next to a single covered neighbor means that neighbor is definitely a mine, so flag it. Work across the board this way and the field gradually opens up. When a cell has zero neighboring mines, the game automatically floods open the whole safe region around it, which is where the satisfying cascade moments come from. Clear every non-mine cell and you win.

Controls

On a mouse, left-click a cell to reveal it and right-click to plant or remove a flag on it. On a touchscreen, tap to reveal and press-and-hold for about half a second to toggle a flag. Keyboard players can steer the highlight cursor with the arrow keys, press Space or Enter to reveal the highlighted cell, and press F to flag it. Your very first click of a round is always safe — mines are placed only after it — so open boldly anywhere to start.

Tips

Start in a corner or edge to maximize the odds of an early cascade. Learn the two workhorse patterns: "1-2-1" along an edge and "1-2" corners almost always point to specific mine spots. When a revealed number's mine count is fully flagged around it, the remaining adjacent covered cells are safe to open. Don't flag randomly when stuck — count carefully instead, because every wrong flag is a future trap. On Medium, keep an eye on the flag counter in the score bar: you only have as many flags as there are mines, so use them deliberately.

Scoring

Your score is simple and speed-hungry: each safe cell you reveal earns 10 points, and every second on the clock costs 1 point, never dropping below zero. A flawless run rewards both thoroughness and pace — fast, accurate play on Medium pays far more than a cautious Easy crawl. The score bar tracks your live score, elapsed time, remaining flags, and difficulty, so you always know how a run is shaping up.