Minesweeper Game and Solver: Play Minesweeper Online, Free
Play minesweeper online, free: easy, medium or hard, a new field at every game, made so that you never have to guess. The first click is always safe, and Hint shows the next sure cell. Stuck in another game? Copy its field into the minesweeper solver to see every safe cell.
How to play minesweeper
- Open a cell. The first is never a mine, and opens a space.
- A number shows how many of the 8 cells around it are mines.
- Flag the cells that must be mines: a long press, a right click, or Flag then a tap.
- Open every cell that is not a mine to win. Opening a mine ends the game.
Easy, medium and hard minesweeper
Three fields that stand upright and fit a phone, cells big enough to tap. Every one can be cleared by logic from the first click, without a guess:
- Easy9 × 9, 10 mines
- Medium10 × 14, 22 mines
- Hard11 × 18, 40 mines: one cell in five
Minesweeper patterns
The same shapes of numbers come back in every game. Learn these and most of a field reads itself:
1-2-1
Along a straight edge of open cells, a 1-2-1 has its mines above the two 1s, and the cell above the 2 is safe.
1-2-2-1
Along a straight edge of open cells, a 1-2-2-1 has its mines above the two 2s; the cells above the 1s are safe.
1-1 from the edge
A 1 against the field's edge and a 1 beside it share their mine in the first two cells: the cell above the third is safe.
1-2 from the edge
A 1 at the edge and a 2 beside it: the 1's mine is in cells the 2 also touches, so the 2's other mine is in the cell the 1 cannot reach.
How to win minesweeper: four habits
Start where the numbers are small
A 1 with a single closed cell beside it has found its mine. A number whose mines are all flagged has every other neighbour safe.
Count what each number still needs
Take the number, subtract the flags around it: that many mines are left among its closed neighbours. If that is all of them, they are all mines.
Read two numbers together
When the closed cells of one number all lie around the next, the second number's extra cells hold the difference. That is how the patterns work.
Open a number to clear around it
Tap a number that has all its mines flagged and its other neighbours open at once. It saves taps, and a wrong flag shows up fast.
How the minesweeper solver works
It reads your numbers and flags the way a person does: a number with all its mines found makes its other neighbours safe, a number with just enough closed cells makes them mines, and two numbers side by side settle the cells one touches and the other does not. It marks one step at a time and says why. When nothing more is certain, it counts every way the mines can lie along the numbers and gives each closed cell its chance, the safest one marked. Your flags are taken as mines: check them first.
Where minesweeper comes from
Games of hidden mines came before it, such as Mined-Out on the ZX Spectrum in 1983. The minesweeper most people know was written at Microsoft by Robert Donner and Curt Johnson, came in a Windows Entertainment Pack in 1990 and with Windows 3.1 in 1992, with three sizes, 9 × 9, 16 × 16 and 30 × 16, made for a mouse on a wide screen.
Questions
How do you play minesweeper?
Open every cell that is not a mine. A number shows how many of the eight cells around it are mines; use the numbers to find which closed cells are safe, flag the mines, and open the rest. Opening a mine ends the game.
What do the numbers in minesweeper mean?
How many mines touch that cell, counting the eight around it: side by side and corner to corner. A cell with no number has none around it, which is why opening it opens its neighbours too.
Can you always win minesweeper without guessing?
Here, yes: every field is made at your first click so that the numbers alone lead to the end. In a classic game, no: some fields come down to a guess, and in 2000 Richard Kaye showed that telling whether a minesweeper position can be right at all is NP-complete: no quick method is known for it.
Is the first click always safe?
Yes, here: the mines are placed after your first click, never on it or around it, so it opens a space to start from.
How do you get better at minesweeper?
Learn the patterns (1-2-1, 1-2-2-1), count what each number still needs, and flag only what you are sure of. Press Hint on the game when stuck: it shows the next certain cell and why.
How do I solve a minesweeper game I am stuck in?
Pick the size of the field in the solver above, then copy it: pick a cell and press its number, ⚑ for a flag, ▢ for a closed cell. Press Solve: it marks every cell the numbers make safe or a mine, step by step, and gives the odds where nothing is certain.
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