How to play Minesweeper
Everything you need before your first board in Minesweeper Pattern Academy: what the numbers mean, how revealing and flagging work, why the first click is safe, and when you can be certain a cell is safe or a mine.
What the numbers mean
Every revealed cell shows a count of the mines hiding in the eight cells that touch it — side to side and diagonally. A 1 means exactly one neighbor is a mine; a 3 means three of them are. Empty-looking cells have zero mine neighbors and reveal their whole safe neighborhood at once.
Reveal
Click or press Enter on a covered cell to reveal it. If the cell touches no mines, the reveal spreads automatically through the connected safe area. Revealing a mine ends the run — in the Academy, the board then shows where every mine was and which clues you had already solved.
Flag
When clues force a cell to be a mine, mark it with a flag so you stop counting it as unknown. A flag is just your own note: it blocks nothing, and you can remove it the same way you placed it. Flags make the remaining arithmetic visible — a clue whose flags match its number has nothing left to say about its other neighbors, which are therefore safe.
Your first click is safe
The board is generated after your first reveal, and never with a mine on that cell. You cannot lose on the opening move, so there is no reason to hesitate — click anywhere and start reading.
When you can be certain
Two situations settle a cell with no guessing:
When neither situation appears anywhere on the board, look for patterns that combine two clues. The patterns guide covers the four that matter most: 1-1, 1-2-1, 1-2-2, and overlap difference. Academy practice boards are verified so these rules always suffice — you are never forced to guess.
- Certainly safe: a clue already has as many flagged neighbors as its number. Every other covered neighbor must be safe — reveal them all.
- Certainly a mine: a clue has exactly as many covered neighbors left as mines it still needs. Each of those neighbors must be a mine — flag them.
Controls in the Academy
The Academy opens with five short lessons — one per idea on this page — before the 9×9 practice field. Pause, restart, and undo are always available, and every explanation names the clues it came from.
- Touch: tap a cell to reveal, press and hold (about half a second) to flag.
- Mouse: click to reveal, right-click to flag.
- Keyboard: arrow keys move between cells, Space or Enter reveals, F flags, H asks for a proven hint, and Z undoes the last move.