How to play Minesweeper

Minesweeper is the classic logic puzzle game of deduction. Ten mines are hidden in this 9x9 beginner board, and your job is to reveal every safe square without detonating a single mine. Click or tap a square to reveal it — your first click is always safe. Each revealed number tells you how many mines touch that square, counting all eight neighbors including diagonals. Squares with zero neighboring mines open up their whole region automatically. When you deduce where a mine must be, right-click on desktop or long-press on mobile to plant a flag so you don't click it by accident. You win the moment every non-mine square is revealed; you don't need to flag anything to win.

Strategy tips: start from the numbers on the edge of an opened region. If a "1" touches exactly one unrevealed square, that square is a mine — flag it. If a number already touches its full count of flagged mines, every other unrevealed neighbor is safe to click. Classic patterns are worth memorizing: a 1-2-1 line along a wall means the mines sit under the two 1s, and 1-2-2-1 puts them under the middle pair. Work the guaranteed deductions first and save any true guesses for last. A faster clear means a better best time, so practice reading numbers at a glance.