Minesweeper
Flag and reveal cells across small, medium, or large boards. First click never hits a mine.
Written by Golam Rabbani, Founder & Lead Engineer
How to use this minesweeper
- Pick a board size: Small (8x8, 10 mines), Medium (12x12, 24 mines), or Large (16x16, 50 mines).
- Click any cell to reveal it — your first click is always safe, even if a mine would have been there.
- Right-click (or long-press on mobile) to flag a cell you suspect hides a mine.
- Use the numbers in revealed cells to deduce where the mines are; clear every non-mine cell to win.
- Press Restart at any time for a new board.
About this minesweeper
Minesweeper is a deduction puzzle: a grid hides a fixed number of mines, and every revealed cell tells you how many of its eight neighbours are mined. A "3" with two flagged neighbours, for example, must touch exactly one more mine — turning the remaining unknown neighbours into hard constraints. Chain enough of those constraints together and the board solves itself.
Mines are placed only after your first click, and the 3x3 box around that click is guaranteed mine-free. That removes the opening-click lottery the original 1990s version was infamous for and means every game is solvable from the first reveal forward. Revealing a zero-adjacent cell cascades outward through its neighbours, which is how a single lucky click can open up half the board.
For example, you reveal a "1" with seven unknown neighbours and one flagged neighbour — that flag accounts for the entire count, so every other unknown is safe and can be revealed. A "2" with three flagged neighbours is a contradiction, which means one of your flags is wrong. Reading those small interlocking puzzles is the heart of the game and is what makes it endlessly replayable.
FAQ
- Can my first click ever hit a mine?
- No. Mines are placed after your first click, and the 3x3 region around it stays empty, so the opening reveal always cascades into a useful chunk of the board.
- How do I flag a cell on mobile?
- Long-press the cell. The flag toggles on a press-and-hold, so you can mark suspect mines without revealing them.
- What do the coloured numbers mean?
- Each number tells you how many mines touch that cell (counting all eight neighbours). The colour is purely a readability cue — 1 is blue, 2 is green, 3 is red, 4 is purple, etc.
- Is there a way to win without guessing?
- Most games can be solved by pure deduction after the first reveal, but a small fraction of board states force a 50/50 guess somewhere. Skill is mostly about avoiding those traps by working from the edges of revealed regions.
- How is "win" decided?
- You win the instant every non-mine cell has been revealed — flagging the mines is optional. You lose the instant you reveal a mine.
- Is the game free?
- Yes. Free, no signup, runs entirely in your browser.