Minesweeper

Mines left:

99

10

Time:

19999

0

Minesweeper rules

Game objective

Minesweeper is a single-player logical-puzzle game. There are "mines" hidden all over the playing grid, and the goal is to reveal all other tiles, i.e. those without a mine under them. Each tile without a mine instead has a numerical clue that indicates the total number of adjacent mines.

  • Note that diagonals are included in the adjacency.
  • To reduce the clutter, the tiles with "0" are shown as empty.

In all, there are 10 possible values a tile can take:

  • A mine ( ), or
  • An empty tile, indicating no mine next to it, or
  • A number from 1-8, indicating that many mines are next to it.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

These are some examples of how the mines might be scattered around a tile having a particular clue.

You win the game when you have revealed all tiles that don't have a mine under them. It's not required to mark every mine with a flag - that's only for your own book-keeping.

You lose the game if you reveal a tile with a mine under it.

Instructions

At any point in the game, you have 5 actions to pick from:

  1. Open a tile.
    • Left-click the hidden tile you want to reveal.
  2. Flag a tile as a mine.
    • Right-click the hidden tile and it will show the "flag" ( ) icon.
    • Doing so will disable the left-click on the tile, until the mark is removed.
  3. Mark a tile with a question mark.
    • Right-click a flagged tile again and it will now show the "question mark" ( ) icon.
    • Doing so will still keep the left-click on the tile disabled.
    • This is generally done when you think a tile is likely to have a mine, but aren't completely sure about it.
  4. Erase a tile's marker.
    • Right-click a tile with the question mark again and it will now clear the tile.
    • The order of right-click is: Flag ( ) ➔ Question mark ( ) ➔ Clear.
    • This allows you to left-click the tile again.
  5. Reveal / Highlight adjacent tiles.
    • Left-click an already revealed tile.
    • If you have placed exactly as many "flags" ( ) in adjacent tiles as the clue, then all the unrevealed adjacent tiles will be immediately opened.
      • For example, if a tile shows "2", and you have marked two adjacent tiles as mines, then clicking the "2" will reveal all hidden tiles adjacent to it.
      • Note that if you had incorrectly flagged an adjacent tile as a mine, this will lead to opening of a mine, and as a result, you losing the game.
    • If you have placed fewer flags than the clue or more flags than the clue, then it will only highlight the adjacent tiles instead of opening them.

You can use the middle mouse button to scroll the board horizontally if it doesn't fit in the screen.

Tips & Tricks

  • The first tile you open is guaranteed to not be a mine.
  • Use the "reveal" tactic to guide your next move. Either it will open up some tiles you didn't realize were safe, or highlight the ones that you should investigate next.
  • Occasionally, you might find yourselves at an impasse, where there is no safe next step. In such situations, try estimating the odds that a hidden tile has a mine. Often you can find a tile with better odds than 50:50.

To Learn More

Minesweeper is a classic game, and has been in existence longer than I have! Wikipedia is an excellent source to learn more about it.