Minesweeper - Rules, History & Strategy Guide

The mine-clearing puzzle rose to fame in the early nineties, when a version bundled with office computers quietly became one of the most-played games in the world. Millions of people learned its one iron rule between spreadsheets: every number tells you exactly how many mines touch that square.

Arcadia’s Minesweeper is an original implementation of that classic formula with the modern comforts: a guaranteed safe first reveal, keyboard navigation, a touch flag mode and per-difficulty best times.

The goal is to reveal every safe cell without ever revealing a mine. Numbers count the mines in the eight surrounding cells.

1. Pick a difficulty: 9×9 with 10 mines, 12×12 with 24, or 16×16 with 40.
2. Reveal any cell to start — the first reveal and its neighbours are always safe.
3. Use the numbers to deduce which covered cells hide mines, and flag them.
4. Click a number whose flags are complete to reveal its remaining neighbours at once.
5. Reveal every safe cell to clear the field; your time is the score.

Minesweeper is deduction first, probability second. Almost every board is solved by simple counting — the skill is seeing which counts matter.

• Start from ones on an open edge: a 1 touching a single covered cell is a certain mine.
• Compare neighbouring numbers; the difference between a 1 and a 2 often pins a mine exactly.
• Flag only when it helps you chord — excess flags slow you down and invite mistakes.
• When a guess is truly forced, prefer the cell touching the fewest numbers.

Classic variants change the geometry more than the rules: hexagonal grids, no-guess boards built so deduction always suffices, and timed race formats. Arcadia plays the classic rectangular game with a safe first click and chording.