Minesweeper

What is Minesweeper?

Minesweeper is one of the most enduring logic puzzles ever made: a grid of identical tiles, a handful of hidden mines, and a single question repeated over and over — is this tile safe? Our version puts 24 mines on a 12×12 field and turns every round into a race against the clock. Each revealed tile shows a number telling you exactly how many mines touch it, and from those numbers alone you can deduce where every mine must be. There is no luck after the first click — your opening reveal is always safe, so a fast win is pure deduction under pressure. Reveal all 120 safe tiles and your time becomes your score: the faster the sweep, the higher you climb on the leaderboard.

How to play

On desktop: left-click a tile to reveal it. Right-click a tile to plant or remove a flag on a suspected mine. You can also move around the board with the arrow keys, press Enter or Space to reveal, and press F to flag the focused tile.

On mobile: tap a tile to reveal it, and long-press (hold for a third of a second) to flag it. If you prefer, toggle the Flag mode button below the board — while it's on, every tap plants a flag instead of revealing.

Two rules do most of the work. First, revealing a tile with no adjacent mines automatically opens the whole surrounding pocket, so one good click can clear a large area. Second, chording: when a revealed number already has exactly that many flags around it, clicking the number opens all of its remaining neighbors at once. Chording is the single biggest speed technique in the game — but a wrong flag turns it into an instant detonation.

The flag counter counts down from 24, matching the number of mines in the field. Hit a mine and the round ends immediately; clear every safe tile and you win.

Strategy tips

1. Open in the middle. A first click near the center gives the flood reveal the most room to expand and usually hands you a big starting pocket with lots of numbers to work with.
2. Learn the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2-1 patterns. Along a straight wall of numbers, a 1-2-1 means the mines sit under the tiles beside the 2, and a 1-2-2-1 means they sit under the middle two. Recognizing these on sight saves whole seconds of reasoning.
3. Chord aggressively, flag sparingly. Flags exist to enable chording, not to decorate the board. Flag only the mines adjacent to numbers you intend to chord, and let obvious mines sit unflagged.
4. Count from the corners. Corner and edge tiles touch fewer neighbors, so their numbers constrain far more. A 1 in a corner points at exactly three possible tiles — often solvable instantly.
5. When you're stuck, look for overlapping numbers. Two adjacent numbers share neighbors; subtracting what one already explains from the other frequently pins a mine that neither reveals alone.

FAQ

Can I lose on the first click?

No. Mines are placed only after your first reveal, and the game guarantees your first tile and everything directly around it are clear. Every board is winnable by logic from that opening pocket.

How is my score calculated?

Your score is the elapsed time from your first move to the moment the last safe tile is revealed, measured in milliseconds — lower is better. Hitting a mine ends the run, and lost games don't appear on the leaderboard.

Do flags affect my score?

Not directly — flagging costs nothing but the time it takes. Flags matter because they enable chording, which is how fast players clear boards in well under a minute.

Is the daily challenge the same for everyone?

Yes. In daily mode every player gets a board generated from the same seed, so the daily leaderboard is a fair head-to-head comparison on the exact same minefield.

What's a good time?

Finishing at all is a win — this is a dense field. Under two minutes is solid, under one minute is genuinely fast, and under 25 seconds puts you in rare, legendary company.