About Minesweeper

This is a free version of Minesweeper that runs entirely in your web browser: no download, no account, just the puzzle.

Who makes it

Minesweeper is made by The Seasoned Programmer. For more, visit the YouTube channel The Seasoned Programmer (@theseasonedprogrammer).

Where the game comes from

The idea of crossing a field while a number warns you of nearby mines goes back to the early days of home computers. Games such as Mined-Out, released for the ZX Spectrum in 1983, had players pick their way through a minefield guided by a count of the mines around them. Through the 1980s the idea turned into the grid puzzle known today, and in the early 1990s a version bundled with Microsoft Windows made Minesweeper one of the most played computer games in the world.

It has also interested mathematicians. In 2000, Richard Kaye showed that deciding whether a Minesweeper position is consistent is NP-complete, which puts the humble puzzle in the same family as some of the hardest problems in computer science.

How this version works

Everything happens in your browser. The minefield, the rules and the hints are written in TypeScript and run on your own device, and nothing about your games is sent to a server. The game in progress and your record are saved in your browser's local storage, so you can close the tab and come back later.

The mines are laid only after your first click, at random among the cells other than the one you clicked and its neighbours. That keeps the first click safe and guarantees it opens an area to start from.

The hints come from a small solver that reads the board the way a careful player does: it applies the two basic rules to each number, then compares numbers that share covered cells, repeating until nothing new can be found. It only reports what is certain, so a hint is never a guess. The diagrams on the patterns page are checked by the site's automated tests against every possible arrangement of mines, so they can't teach anything that isn't true.

Not affiliated

This site is independent. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Microsoft. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Get in touch

Found a bug or have an idea for the game? Contact us. Or go back and play a game.