How to Play Minesweeper

Minesweeper is a logic puzzle game. Your goal is to reveal every safe cell on the board without detonating a hidden mine. Every number tells you exactly how many mines are in the 8 surrounding cells - use that information to deduce what is safe.

Controls

Left-click - Reveal a cell. If the cell is empty (no adjacent mines), an open area auto-expands.
Right-click - Place or remove a flag. Flags mark cells you believe contain mines.
CHORD
Chord - Click a revealed number when the exact number of adjacent flags are placed. Auto-reveals all remaining neighbors in one click.
Mobile - Tap to reveal · Long-press to flag · Swipe to scroll the board.

Difficulty Levels

Beginner
9 × 9  ·  10 mines
Best for learning patterns and building speed
Intermediate
16 × 16  ·  40 mines
Standard competitive starting point
Expert
30 × 16  ·  99 mines
The global ranked standard for records
Custom
Any  ·  Any
Set your own grid size and mine count

Core Rules

First click is always safe. The board generates after your first click, guaranteeing you never start on a mine.

Timer starts on first click. Your finish time is measured from first click to last cell revealed - every millisecond counts in ranked play.

Winning auto-flags remaining mines. When you clear the last safe cell, all unrevealed cells are automatically flagged and the timer stops.

Ranked requires minimum 3BV. Boards with very few mines are excluded: Beginner ≥ 5 · Intermediate ≥ 30 · Expert ≥ 100.

No-Guessing Mode

In No-Guessing (NG) mode, every board is guaranteed solvable using pure logic. The server generates and validates the board before sending it - you will never be forced into a 50/50 guess. NG mode has its own separate ranked leaderboard and trophy records.

Key Points

  • Numbers are everything. Each digit tells you the exact mine count in the 8 surrounding cells. Two overlapping numbers together can pinpoint mine positions exactly.
  • Chording is the most important advanced skill. One chord can reveal 5–7 cells in a single click - it's how top players achieve 130%+ efficiency.
  • The No-Guessing mode trains pure logic - playing NG regularly improves your pattern recognition for standard mode too.
  • Click on the corner first. Corners and edges have fewer adjacent cells, making them easier to deduce and more likely to open large empty areas on your first click.
  • In ranked mode, your time and efficiency are recorded every game - improvement is continuous even when you don't set a personal best.

How to Improve

1
Master chording on Beginner. Before moving to Expert, make sure you can chord fluently on Beginner boards. Every "1" with a flag set is a free chord opportunity.
2
Learn the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2-1 patterns. These two patterns solve the majority of edge-case situations in Expert play. See the Patterns guide for a full reference.
3
Reduce flags, rely on logic. Every flag you place takes time. Advanced players flag only when necessary for a chord - clearing through pure deduction is faster and more efficient.
4
Play ranked from the start. Ranked mode records your results and submits them for trophies. Practice mode is fine for warmup, but ranked reps are what actually improves your records.
Pro Tips
  • Open empty space aggressively. When you find a safe cell in an open area, click it immediately - large empty expansions speed up the game enormously.
  • Trust your reads. Hesitating on a safe cell you've already logically deduced is where most time is lost. Commit and move on.
  • Play No-Guessing mode to build pure pattern intuition. It eliminates luck entirely, so every game is a logic puzzle you can fully solve - excellent training for Expert standard mode.