Minesweeper: rules, scoring and a few habits
This is Minesweeper with the guessing taken out. The daily field is six squares by six with a handful of mines hidden under the tiles: five early in the week, rising to eight by the weekend. Each number you uncover tells you how many mines touch that square, counting diagonals. Reveal every safe square and you've cleared the field.
Tapping and flagging
Tap a tile to reveal it. Hold a tile, or switch to the Flag tool, to plant a flag where you're sure a mine is hiding. Flags can come and go as often as you like and never cost anything. Every daily field opens with a free patch of empty squares already cleared, and the mine total is shown, so you always have somewhere to begin.
The promise is simple: from that opening, every field can be finished by reasoning alone. You'll never reach a point where the only option is a coin flip. That doesn't mean you can't lose. Reveal a mine and the run ends on the spot, and the mines never move to save a bad tap. Read the numbers before you touch.
Ranking and time
Daily runs are ranked by how quickly you clear the field, with a three-minute limit. If two players post the same time, whoever finished first goes ahead. A run that hits a mine or runs out of time doesn't place. When you share a result, the grid shows only how much of the field you cleared, never where the mines were.
Reading the field
- A 1 touching exactly one hidden tile means that tile is a mine. Flag it and look at its neighbours again.
- When a number already has all of its mines flagged, every other tile around it is safe.
- Compare two numbers side by side. The difference between them often points straight at a single safe square.
- Use the mine total near the end, when only a few tiles are left.
The field changes at midnight Pacific time, and everyone gets the same one. Free Play hands you a fresh, unranked field whenever you want another go. It's free, it runs in the browser, and a careful daily clear usually takes a minute or two.