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Minesweeper has been a popular game more or less as long as home computers have been popular, and today it is easier than ever to play Minesweeper online. Knowing how to play the game can be a little daunting at first.
Let’s cover the basic rules to play Minesweeper online. It’s not a complex game and yet at the same time it’s vital you attempt to understand the rules before you start playing:
Left clicking squares
The basic gist to play Minesweeper online is left clicking squares on the game board to reveal what’s underneath. This is done with the left click. You want to avoid the tiles with mines underneath them.
Plant a flag
We will cover this in more detail, but to plant a flag when you play Minesweeper online is really important as they help you remember where mines are. This is done by right clicking.
Use question marks
You can also use question marks when you play Minesweeper online if you’re not sure if there is a mine in a particular spot.
Numbers on the board
When you reveal tiles on the board, you will see a number next to the square that has not been revealed. These numbers on the board tell you how many of the squares adjacent have mines.
Winning the game
Winning the game is simple. You don’t have to flag all the mines to win when you play Minesweeper online—just reveal the tiles without mines.
Flags are a really important aspect of the game and vital when you play Minesweeper online. If you don’t use them, you will quickly become confused. Depending on the difficulty level, the board will have a different number of mines.
To place a flag, you simply right click the covered field that you want to mark, and the flag will appear. This indicates that the squares marked contain a mine. Depending on the number of mines, you will have more flags available to use, as some versions of the game will keep track of the flags you use and this becomes an aspect of your score.
As with most online games, when you play Minesweeper online, you can choose a difficulty level out of three options: beginner, intermediate, and expert. These difficulty levels affect a few things when you play Minesweeper online, but naturally overall they make the game harder.
The first level of difficulty is beginner difficulty. This is the best place to start playing the game and gives you the fewest number of squares and the fewest number of bombs.
The main difference you’ll notice between beginner and the other difficulty levels is the number of squares. There will be a much greater number of mines and mines per field when you play Minesweeper online at higher difficulty levels. You’ll have to be a lot more careful with larger and more difficult games as there will be more fields that contain mines.
The higher the difficulty, generally the more uses of the flags you will get, too. As mentioned, many versions of the game when you play Minesweeper online will track the number of flags you use as part of your score.
There are two main ways you can play Minesweeper online today: through your desktop computer or a mobile device such as a cell phone or tablet. We will quickly break down some important differences between how the two different versions play.
To reveal an empty square on desktop, you must left click the square. On mobile, you tap the empty square with your finger to reveal it.
To flag squares on desktop when you play Minesweeper online, you right click the square to flag. On mobile, you must long press the empty square to flag it.
You can reveal the adjacent squares by using the middle click in desktop, or you can do it with the left and right click at the same time. Different mouse buttons do different things. On mobile, you must tap a number to reveal the adjacent squares.
Starting a new game works differently whether you play Minesweeper online on desktop or mobile. For desktop, you can press the F2 key or click the smiley face. For mobile, you can only click the smiley face.
Minesweeper can be a difficult game to get the hang of at first, so let’s look at all of our most important tips for playing the game.
Firstly, let’s cover all the basics of how to play Minesweeper online. Like any classic, popular game, even something like corn hole, Minesweeper is easy to pick up but can be difficult to master. The basics are as follows:
The game is won by finding the empty squares and the squares that contain mines. You must click the empty squares and flag the squares that have mines in them to play Minesweeper online.
When you successfully clear one covered field or more, this will reveal numbers next to the still covered tiles. These numbers tell you how many mines are in the adjacent field.
Once you’ve found all the squares that do not have mines in them, the game is won. All the mines do not have to be marked to win, you just have to click, with the left mouse button, every field without a mine.
To play Minesweeper online you may come across the tactic known as chording. This is a method of clicking both mouse buttons at the same time, or just the left mouse button, on a revealed square with a number. If the adjacent tiles have precisely the correct number of flags on them, then all unmarked squares will be uncovered.
This allows you to clear tiles using flags, and you can do this by either clicking both mouse buttons or by clicking the left mouse button.
Minesweeper is a logic puzzle, at its core, and what you’ll notice as you play Minesweeper online more and more is that there are certain patterns which come up repeatedly in the game. Learning these patterns in the game will save you a lot of time, as these patterns have only one solution and thus you will not need to think about the solution for yourself.
For instance, if you have the numbers 1-2-1 in a row, you can apply the pattern from the left or the right to find the same solution every time. Noticing these patterns is a really vital part of Minesweeper, and you will learn them as you go along but it is also very helpful to learn them outside of actually playing.
Another kind of pattern when you play Minesweeper online that you’ll notice is what’s called the 1 1 rule. This essentially just means that when a number is adjacent to the same number of fields, that particular field will definitely be a mine.
If you have a one on the corner which touches only one square, that square that it is touching has to be a mine. Ones are in some ways the most telling numbers in the game.
One very common question when you play Minesweeper online is whether the first click is safe. There is, fortunately, a simple answer to this question: the first click in Minesweeper is always safe. Many versions of the game also guarantee that any adjacent tiles are also safe. Your first click is always safe.
You cannot hit a bomb on the first click on Minesweeper. As mentioned above, when you play Minesweeper online, the first click is always guaranteed to be safe, meaning that you will never hit a bomb on your first click. Since your first click is essentially random, this is an important rule since it means games don’t arbitrarily end at the first move.
There are multiple strategies for starting the game, but one common strategy involves random clicking at first. You keep randomly clicking for a few fields until you get a big opening with a very large range of numbers shown. Then, you can start flagging all the mines that are adjacent to a number, as we talked about earlier. You can then chord on the number which will reveal the remaining squares.
To know where the bombs are when you play Minesweeper online, you must look at the numbers. When you reveal squares, numbers will show up adjacent to unrevealed squares. These numbers tell you how many bombs are in the adjacent squares.
It is not possible to solve traditional games of Minesweeper without guessing, when you play Minesweeper online. You will ultimately find yourself in the position where you do not have enough information to make an informed decision and you must simply take a guess. It’s part of the game!
Generally speaking, you should click in the middle for the board for your first click when you play Minesweeper online. While, as mentioned, your first clicks are always safe and you won’t hit a bomb, you should click in the middle to give yourself the biggest opening.
When you play Minesweeper online, using the middle click on your mouse does what is called chording. If the correct number of flags are around the tile you middle click, then all the tiles without bombs will be revealed.
While in theory Minesweeper is mathematically solvable 100% of the time, the reality is that the game is not designed to be completely solvable in every case. For experienced, expert players, perfect play will get you a win as much as 99% of the time, according to those players. No matter how good you are, then, there is always going to be a blind spot, however small.
When you play Minesweeper online, especially at first, you should be aware that you won’t win every game.
It is certainly possible to beat Minesweeper in one click, though naturally this would be a question of pure luck and chance. It is also far more likely to occur in lower difficulty mode when you play Minesweeper online, since there are fewer fields to be cleared.
Ultimately, the odds are astronomically low—around 1 in 800,000, so it’s not something you should count on when playing the game.
Minesweeper, then, is a simple logic puzzle game but which is incredibly enthralling and stimulating to play. The game has been popular for decades, and it is easy to see why. Its simple premise yet engaging rules make it perfect for a quick game, whether you’re interested in honing your skills and becoming an expert, or just playing casually. If you want to play Minesweeper online, now is a great time to get started and keep your mind active!