How do you play Minesweeper?

Left-click any cell to reveal it. If it shows a number, that number tells you how many mines are hidden in the eight surrounding cells. If it is blank, the board automatically clears the surrounding safe area. Right-click to place a flag on a cell you believe contains a mine. Your first click is always safe. Win by revealing every cell that is not a mine - you do not need to flag anything to win. If you click a mine, the game ends.

How to play Minesweeper step by step

The whole game is a short loop you repeat until the board is clear:

Click an opening. Start near a corner or edge so the cascade leaves a clean border of numbers.
Read the frontier. Look only at the revealed numbers that still touch hidden cells - that border is where every decision is made.
Deduce, then reveal. Find a number whose mine count is forced (see below), mark or avoid those cells, and reveal everything the number proves safe.
Repeat. Each safe reveal exposes new numbers, which unlock the next deduction.

A worked example: a 1 that touches exactly one unrevealed cell means that single cell is the mine. Every *other* neighbour of that 1 is therefore guaranteed safe and can be revealed immediately. Chaining these forced reads clears most boards with no guessing at all.

What are the basic Minesweeper rules

The rules are short. Numbers count adjacent mines (including the four diagonals), numbers never lie, and the board is fully determined by them. You lose only by revealing a mine; flags are optional markers that never affect whether a hidden cell is a mine. The mine counter at the top shows total mines minus flags placed, so it tracks how many mines remain - not whether your flags are correct. The clock starts on your first click and stops the instant the last safe cell is revealed, which is why every wasted action costs real time.

A walkthrough of your first game

Imagine a fresh Beginner board. You click the centre, a large blank area cascades open, and you are left with a ring of numbers. You spot a 1 in the corner of that ring touching just one hidden cell - that cell is a mine, so you avoid it and reveal the 1's other neighbours. One of them is a 2 sitting next to your known mine and one more hidden cell, so that second cell is also a mine. Now a nearby 1 already touches a known mine and is satisfied, so all of its remaining cells are safe to open. This read-deduce-reveal chain, repeated, is the entire game.

The three classic boards

Beginner - 9x9 grid, 10 mines (about 12% density). Best place to learn the basics.
Intermediate - 16x16 grid, 40 mines (about 15.6%). The training ground for faster play.
Expert - 30x16 grid, 99 mines (about 20.6%). The competitive standard for records and ranked play.

If you want the full ladder of board sizes and densities, see the difficulty levels explained.

Tips that save the most time early

Do not flag every mine you find - flags exist mainly to enable chording (clicking a satisfied number to clear all its remaining neighbours at once). Read numbers in pairs and triples rather than one at a time: combinations like 1-2-1 along a wall pin down mines that no single number can. Work the edges before the interior, since wall cells have fewer hidden neighbours and resolve faster. And when you are ready for boards with zero forced guesses, try No-Guessing Minesweeper, where every board is solvable by logic alone, or test your speed against the global rankings.

For diagrams and a deeper walkthrough, see the full gameplay guide and the pattern recognition guide.