This is a rules and strategy guide, not an embedded game on this English page. To play, open the site’s Minesweeper board and change its Idioma / Language selector to English if needed. The game page has both Spanish and English interface text.
The controls and board sizes below are based on the actual game implementation accompanying the Spanish article, inspected on October 7, 2026. They are not assumed to apply to every Minesweeper app, and this guide does not claim device testing or a speedrun result.
Start a game
- Open the board in a browser with JavaScript enabled.
- Set the language to English and choose Beginner while learning.
- Left-click a covered square to reveal it. The timer begins with the first reveal.
- Right-click a covered square to mark a suspected mine; right-click again to remove that flag.
- Use the face button to start a new board. Changing difficulty also starts a new game rather than preserving the current board.
The source implements mouse clicks and right-click flags. It does not provide a dedicated touch flag mode or keyboard navigation, so a mouse or another device that reliably produces a context-menu/right-click action is the clearest supported way to use flags. Do not assume a long press has a separately implemented game function.
Difficulty settings on this board
| Setting | Board | Mines |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9 × 9 | 10 |
| Intermediate | 16 × 16 | 40 |
| Expert | 16 × 30 | 99 |
Start with Beginner to practice deductions on fewer squares. Expert is wider and denser; increasing difficulty is not just a change to the timer.
What the numbers mean
A revealed number counts mines in the up to eight squares touching it, including diagonals. A corner has at most three neighbors; an edge has at most five. The number does not tell you which particular neighbor is a mine.
A revealed zero has no mines touching it. This implementation automatically opens its neighboring area until numbered boundaries are reached. A mine ends the game. You win by revealing every non-mine square—placing a flag on every mine is not required.
Flags are your notes, not a test of correctness. The displayed mine counter subtracts the number of flags you placed; an incorrect flag still reduces the counter. A zero counter therefore does not prove that the board is solved.
Two deductions to learn first
When all remaining neighbors must be mines
Suppose a revealed 1 touches just one covered, unflagged square, and there are no flagged mines around it. That covered square must contain the one missing mine. Flag it, then use that confirmed location when checking nearby numbers.
More generally, subtract confirmed neighboring mines from the number. If the remaining number equals the number of covered, unflagged neighbors, all of those neighbors must be mines. This only works if your existing flags are logically justified.
When all remaining neighbors are safe
Suppose a revealed 2 touches two confirmed mines and three other covered squares. The number is already satisfied, so those three other squares are safe to reveal.
The rule is the opposite of the first deduction: once the confirmed neighboring mines equal the number, the remaining neighbors are safe. This board does not implement a special chord shortcut for opening them together; click the individual safe squares.
Use overlapping clues instead of memorizing a shape
Imagine clue A needs one mine among covered squares X and Y. Clue B needs one mine among X, Y, and Z. Because A already accounts for B’s one required mine within X and Y, Z is safe.
If B instead needs two mines among X, Y, and Z while A still needs one in X and Y, Z must be a mine. These statements assume other neighboring mines have already been accounted for. The important skill is comparing sets of neighbors, not blindly applying a “1–2” pattern to any two adjacent numbers.
What the first click does—and does not—guarantee
This implementation places mines only after your first reveal, excluding the square you clicked. The first clicked square is safe, but its neighbors are not all guaranteed safe, and it need not be a zero.
The board is randomly generated without a no-guess solver. Some positions may require a guess even after applying the deductions above. If you cannot find a forced move, do not mislabel a hunch as logic. Recheck the entire numbered boundary and the confidence of your flags before choosing a risk.
A useful beginner routine
- Reveal one square and inspect the numbered boundary of any opened area.
- Look for clues with only one remaining unknown neighbor.
- Flag only forced mines, then inspect nearby clues whose required mines are now accounted for.
- Compare overlapping groups when the simple rules stop producing moves.
- After a loss, use the revealed mine locations to identify an incorrect assumption rather than blaming every loss on randomness.
For a different, authored logic challenge after Minesweeper, see the Railbound entry in the hidden-gem archive, Part 3.