Section 4: Gameplay & Modes
Reading the Numbers
- A revealed number is the count of mines in the eight surrounding cells.
- A cell with no adjacent mines shows blank and cascades, auto-revealing its neighbours until numbers are reached.
- If a number already touches that many flags, its remaining neighbours are provably safe.
- If a number's unrevealed neighbours equal its value, all of them are mines.
Chording
Clicking a satisfied number — one with the correct count of flags around it — uncovers all its remaining neighbours at once. This is where most of the speed in expert play comes from, and misplacing a flag beforehand makes it instantly fatal.
The First Click
In the standard implementation the first click is always safe; the board is generated or adjusted around it. Older versions did not guarantee this, which is why very old Minesweeper could end on move one.
Guessing
Not every board is fully solvable by logic. Some positions reduce to a genuine coin flip, which is why "no-guess" board generation is a common modern option.