Minesweeper

The first click is blind: the mines are already there and nobody is helping you. From the second one on, the numbers tell you everything there is to know, and games are almost always lost to a deduction you skipped rather than to bad luck.

The rules

Mines are hidden under the grid. Uncovering a cell does one of three things: there is a mine and the game ends; there is a number, telling you how many mines touch that cell among the eight around it; or there is nothing, meaning no mines are adjacent and the whole empty area opens by itself out to the first numbers.

You win by uncovering every cell that does not hide a mine. Flags are not required to win: they are for you, to mark the mines you have already deduced so you do not click them by mistake.

On Pocket Games

Before you start you pick one of three difficulties; the start screen shows your best time next to each one.

Difficulty	Grid	Mines	Mined cells
Easy	9×9	10	12%
Medium	14×12	25	15%
Hard	18×14	45	18%

The mines are placed at random when the game starts, before your first tap: not even the first cell is guaranteed safe.
Below the grid there are two buttons, Reveal and Flag: pick the tool, then tap the cell. A long press places or removes a flag whichever tool is active.
The counter at the top is the number of mines minus the flags you have placed: put one in the wrong spot and the counter is wrong too.
Tapping a number that is already uncovered does nothing: the cells around it open one at a time, without the automatic neighbour-opening some other versions have.
The timer starts with your first move, not when the grid appears.
When you uncover a mine the game ends and all the others are shown.
The game in progress is saved after every move and every five seconds.
The record is your best time for each difficulty; games won or lost are not counted.

How to read a number

A number counts the mines in the eight cells around it, diagonals included. Two rules follow, and they are the only ones you really need:

If the covered cells around a number equal the number itself, they are all mines. A 3 with exactly three covered neighbours has said all it has to say: flag all three.
If a number’s mines are all flagged already, every other covered cell around it is safe and can be opened.

Ninety per cent of the game is applying those two rules in turn, cell by cell, along the border between the open area and the covered one. You need nothing else until you get stuck.

When you get stuck: look at two numbers together

The step up is to stop looking at one number at a time.

The 1-2-1 pattern. Three numbers side by side along a wall of covered cells, reading 1-2-1: the mines sit under the two 1s, and the cells under the 2 are safe. It feels backwards — the 2 is the biggest number — and that is exactly why people get it wrong.

The 1-2-2-1 pattern. Four numbers in a row: the mines are under the two 2s, and the cells under the 1s are clear.

Subtraction. Two neighbouring numbers sharing some covered cells. If a 2 and a 1 share two cells and the 2 has a third cell of its own, that third cell must be a mine: of the two shared cells only one can be mined (the 1 says so), so the 2 is still missing its second mine, and it can only be where the 1 cannot reach. This is the technique that opens up positions that look hopeless.

Guessing

Now and then there is nothing to deduce and you have to choose. When that happens:

Count the remaining mines. The counter at the top, divided by the covered cells, gives you the base probability. If a closed-off area is worse than average, open somewhere else.
Gamble in corners and on edges. They have fewer neighbours, so the information they produce is cleaner and the deduction chains they open are longer.
Gamble early, not late. A gamble at the start of a game costs little; the same gamble ten minutes in throws away ten minutes.

Common mistakes

Flagging on a hunch. A wrong flag poisons every deduction that follows, because they all treat it as a fact.
Opening at random when a deduction exists. Before clicking blind, walk the border looking for the subtraction between two neighbouring numbers: nine times out of ten it is there.
Rushing past the high numbers. The 3s and 4s carry the most information on the grid, and they are the ones people look at least, because they are scary.

Frequently asked questions

Can the first click hit a mine?

Yes: the mines are already placed when the game starts, so the first cell is as much of a gamble as any other. On easy it goes wrong about one time in eight. For the first click the middle is better, where you are more likely to open an empty area that expands on its own: the preference for corners applies to mid-game gambles, where what you want is not to open a lot but to collect clean information.

How do I place a flag?

With the Flag button below the grid: while it is active, every tap places or removes a flag. Quicker still is to press and hold the cell, which works with Reveal active too. Cells that are already uncovered cannot be flagged.

Does tapping a number open the cells around it?

No. Some versions let you click a number whose mines are all marked to open its neighbours in one go; here an uncovered number does not react, and safe cells are opened one at a time.

Can I leave a game halfway through?

Yes. Leave whenever you like: the start screen offers to continue, showing the difficulty and the time so far, and you find the grid and flags as you left them. The timer picks up where it stopped.

Does my record survive if I change phone?

Yes, if you play with a Google account: the best times for the three difficulties are stored on the account and you find them on the other device, where for each difficulty the lower of the two counts. Without an account they stay only on the device you played on.

More games to try

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