Minesweeper | Play Free Minesweeper Online | Arcadia

1. Choose a board: 9×9 with 10 mines, 12×12 with 24, or 16×16 with 40.
2. Reveal any cell to start — your first reveal and its surrounding cells are always safe.
3. Read the numbers: each one counts the mines in its eight neighbouring cells.
4. Flag the cells you know are mines with a right-click, the F key, or flag mode on touch.
5. Chord by clicking a satisfied number to reveal its remaining neighbours in one go.
6. Clear every safe cell to win the field; your fastest time per difficulty is saved.

The field. The board is a grid of covered cells hiding a fixed number of mines. The counter shows how many mines remain unflagged; the clock counts your seconds from the first reveal.

Safe start. The mines are placed only after your first reveal, so that cell and all eight of its neighbours are guaranteed clear. There is no losing on click one.

Numbers. A revealed cell shows how many mines sit in the eight cells around it. A blank cell touches no mines at all, and revealing one automatically opens its whole connected safe region — the satisfying flood-fill of the original.

Flags. A flag marks a cell as a suspected mine and protects it from being revealed by a click. Flags can be placed and removed freely; the game never tells you whether a flag is right until the field ends. You cannot place more flags than there are mines.

Chording. Clicking a revealed number that already has exactly that many flags around it reveals all its other neighbours at once. If one of your flags was wrong, the chord reveals a mine and the game ends — chording is speed and risk in one move.

Winning and losing. You win the moment every safe cell is revealed; flags are optional and unflagged mines do not count against you. You lose the moment a mine is revealed, and the full minefield is shown with your incorrect flags marked.

Pause and records. The clock pauses when you leave the tab or press pause; the grid is hidden while paused. Your best time is stored per difficulty in your own browser.

• Open with space. Your first click is free, so use it where it can open the most board — the middle usually beats a corner for information.
• Trust the ones. A 1 touching exactly one covered cell is a certain mine; a satisfied 1 makes every other neighbour certainly safe. Most fields fall to this rule applied patiently.
• Compare neighbours. Two adjacent numbers share cells; the difference between them often pins a mine exactly. The classic 1-2-1 row along a wall puts mines under both 1s, and 1-2-2-1 puts them under the middle pair.
• Flag with purpose. Flags exist to enable chording, not decoration. Excess flags cost time and a wrong one turns a chord into a loss.
• Count the endgame. Late in the field, compare the mine counter with the covered cells; sometimes the count alone proves which cells are safe.
• Guess late and small. When a 50/50 truly cannot be resolved, leave it for last — solving the rest of the board can turn the coin flip into a certainty.