Daily Minesweeper

How to play here

1. Open the cell with the ring. It is the start cell: it holds no mine and neither do the cells around it, so a whole area opens.
2. Read the numbers. A number counts the mines in the up to eight cells around it.
3. Choose the Flag tool and mark the cells that must be mines. Choose the Open tool and open the cells that must be safe.
4. The board is solved when every cell without a mine is open. Flags are notes for yourself and are not required.

Until the start cell is open, no other cell can be opened. This is what makes the first move safe on a board that is the same for everyone.

With the Open tool, pressing an open number opens all closed cells around it at once, provided that the flags around it match the number. If one of these flags is on the wrong cell, this opens a mine.

When the board is cleared, Share result passes one line to the share menu of your device, or copies it: the game, the day or practice number and your time, never the mines, with a link to the same board.

Keyboard and mouse

Small screens and large text

The board is 9 cells wide so that it fits a phone held upright. With Large cells every cell is at least as big as a comfortable touch target and on a narrow screen the board scrolls sideways inside its frame.

Move buttons adds four arrow buttons and a Use tool on cell button below the board. They move the selection and use the chosen tool.

Why no guess is needed

A generator places 20 mines at random, away from the start cell and its neighbours. A solver then plays the board from the start cell with three rules only: counting the mines around one number, comparing two numbers that share closed cells, and counting the mines that are left on the whole board.

A board is published only if these rules open every safe cell. Layouts on which the solver gets stuck are thrown away. The three rules are explained with examples on the techniques page.

• Minesweeper rules
• Minesweeper solving techniques

Example: the first moves

After the start area has opened, look along its edge for a 1 that touches a single closed cell. That cell is a mine: flag it.

Now look at the other numbers that touch this flag. A 1 next to it has found its mine, so every other closed cell around that 1 is safe and can be opened. The newly opened numbers give the next step.

If you open a mine

The game ends and the board shows all mines, the one you opened and any flag that was on a safe cell. Restart gives you the same board again, closed, and resets the time. A lost board does not count as solved until you restart and finish it.

There is no undo in this game, because an opened cell shows information that cannot be taken back.

Common mistakes

• Guessing when stuck. On this board a certain move always exists; look at pairs of neighbouring numbers, then count the mines that are left.
• Forgetting the diagonal neighbours. A number counts all cells around it, including the four at its corners.
• Opening around a number with a wrong flag. Check the flags before you use that shortcut.
• Tapping with the wrong tool. The pressed tool button has a filled mark and a thicker frame.