Minesweeper
Clear the board by logic, mind the mines
How to play
This is Minesweeper, the free online logic puzzle: open the squares, steer clear of the mines and mark them with flags. It runs in any browser on phone or desktop and inside Telegram via @MatsuriGamesBot, with no download. Every board can be cleared by logic alone, the daily board is the same for everyone, and you can send a friend your exact board as a challenge.
Tap a square to open it; the number tells how many mines touch it. Long-press or right-click to flag a mine, and tap a number whose flags are all placed to open the rest around it. Clear every safe square in as few clicks as you can: the score is your efficiency against the board's 3BV, so the daily board ranks everyone on the same mines. Every board can be cleared by logic alone: no 50/50 guesses.
- Click a square to open it (or arrow keys and Space); its number tells how many mines touch it.
- Right-click, F or a long press (or the flag toggle) puts a flag on a mine; click a number with all its flags placed to open the rest.
- Start on the glowing square and clear the board in as few clicks as you can (⛳ is the fewest). No guessing needed: logic solves every board.
How to play Minesweeper
The board has 9 columns and 12 rows with 18 mines hidden under the squares. The first click must be the glowing start square: its neighbours are always mine-free, so it opens a patch of at least twelve cells. Each number tells how many mines touch that cell, diagonals included, and a zero opens its neighbours by itself.
Mark a mine with a flag (long press, right-click or F). Clicking a number whose flags are all placed opens every other cell around it; this is called chording. Open every safe square to win; open a mine and the run ends.
Time is not scored, clicks are. The board's 3BV, shown as its par, is the fewest clicks that clear it without chording. A cleared board scores 300 plus up to 700 for efficiency, 3BV divided by the clicks you used, and chording past 100% earns more at half rate, up to 1350. A flag on a real mine is free; one on a safe square, or one taken back, counts as a wasted click. A lost board scores 3 points per square opened, so any clear beats any loss.
Minesweeper strategy and tips
- Read the edges of the first opening before clicking anything else. A 1 that touches a single closed cell marks a mine, and that usually lets you open several cells around it.
- Learn the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2-1 patterns along a straight edge: in 1-2-1 the mines sit opposite the two 1s, in 1-2-2-1 opposite the two 2s. They come up on almost every board.
- Since flags on real mines cost nothing, flag a mine whenever it lets you chord. A single chord can open several numbers at once, which is how efficiency climbs above 100%.
- Prefer the click that opens an empty area. A zero floods outward and uncovers a whole patch for one click, while clicking the numbers on its rim one by one wastes clicks.
- Never guess. Every board is checked so that plain logic clears it from the start square, so if you feel stuck, look again at two neighbouring numbers and compare what each one still needs.
- Near the end, count mines. When the flags placed plus the cells still closed tell you exactly where the last mines are, the remaining squares are safe.
Modes and difficulty
The daily board is the same for everyone, starting from the same glowing square, and changes at 00:00 UTC; only your first try counts on the daily leaderboard. Practice deals unlimited fresh boards of the same size, all solvable without guessing. After any run you can send a friend a challenge with exactly your board and your score as the target. There is one board size and no difficulty setting, so every score on a board is comparable.
Playing Minesweeper on Matsuri
Classic Minesweeper is ranked by time, which a web game cannot check honestly. Here the server replays your clicks and scores efficiency instead, so a careful player on a slow phone can beat a fast one on a desktop. The no-guess boards mean a daily is never lost to a coin flip. Add @MatsuriGamesBot to a Telegram group and the group gets its own Minesweeper leaderboard.
A little history
Minesweeper reached most people through Microsoft Windows, which included it from Windows 3.1 in 1992, though similar mine-hunting games existed earlier. Competitive players later adopted 3BV, short for Bechtel's Board Benchmark Value, to measure how hard a board is and how efficiently it was solved, the same measure this game scores.
In the same series: Logic puzzles
Update log
- · Before your first tap the board no longer redraws itself, easier on your battery.
- · A classic look: raised grey squares and numbers in their traditional colours, the default in most languages.
- · No-guess boards: every board can be solved by logic alone.
- · Minesweeper arrives: 9x12, 18 mines, scored by efficiency.
Questions
- Can I play Minesweeper free online on my phone?
- Yes. It is free with no ads, no download and no signup, and it runs in any browser on phone or desktop and inside Telegram via @MatsuriGamesBot. On a phone, long-press to place a flag.
- Is there a daily Minesweeper board?
- Yes. Every day there is one board that is the same for everyone, starting from the same glowing square, with a leaderboard. Scores are checked on the server by replaying your clicks.
- Will I ever have to guess?
- No. Every board is checked so that it can be cleared by logic alone from the start square, so there are no 50/50 guesses.
- Does speed matter, and what happens if I hit a mine?
- Time is not scored; you are ranked on efficiency, the board's 3BV against the clicks you used. Opening a mine ends the run, and it scores only for the squares you had opened, always less than any cleared board.