Full guide: the safe first click, how to read the number clues, place flags and logically deduce mines, difficulty levels and controls on muta.pro.
Minesweeper is a single-player logic puzzle. The board is divided into cells, and under some of them are hidden mines. The task is to reveal all the safe cells, without hitting a single mine. The numbers give the clues: a revealed cell with a number tells how many mines are hiding among its neighbours. Reveal everything empty — you win; click a mine — explosion and defeat.
Choose a level: Easy — a 9×9 board and 10 mines, Medium — 12×12 and 22 mines (default), Hard — 16×16 and 50 mines. Above the board are a counter of remaining mines (🚩) and a timer (⏱), and in the centre a smiley button to restart. The first click is always safe: the mines are placed only after it, so the clicked cell and its neighbours are guaranteed to be clear.
A left click reveals a hidden cell. If it has no neighbouring mines, the board automatically opens the whole connected safe area up to the numbered cells.
The number on a cell is the count of mines among the eight neighbouring cells. An empty one (no number) means there are no mines around at all.
A right click places a flag 🚩 on a cell where you are sure there is a mine. The flag protects it from accidental opening and lowers the mine counter.
If a number already has exactly as many flagged mines as it shows, all its other neighbours are safe and can be revealed.
With enough numbers, a safe cell can almost always be deduced logically. Resort to guessing only as a last resort.
The 🚩 Flag mode button switches the left click to placing flags — handy on a phone, where there is no right click. A long press also places a flag.
Let's go through typical situations the way they look on the board. Revealed cells are sunken, closed ones are raised. A number counts the mines among its eight neighbours, a flag 🚩 marks a mine, and a green check marks a cell that is certainly safe.
Victory comes when all cells without mines are revealed: the remaining mines are flagged automatically, and the game shows your time and a Victory banner. Defeat — if you reveal a cell with a mine: it explodes, the rest of the mines are uncovered, and wrongly placed flags are marked with a cross. The best time is stored separately for each difficulty level — there is something to chase.
A first click near the edge opens a large empty area and immediately gives plenty of numbers to reason from.
The key deductions arise at the border between revealed and hidden. Study the numbers along the edge.
A 1 that has only one hidden neighbour left — that neighbour is a mine. Flag it right away.
Better to spend time calculating than to blow up on a guess. The record goes to a clean run anyway.
Minesweeper is built entirely on two checks that you should run against every number on the border between the open and the closed. Master them and you will stop guessing where the board has long since told you the answer.
If a number already has as many flags around it as it shows, all of its mines are found. Any remaining closed neighbour is safe — open it without risk.
The reverse rule: if the count of closed neighbours is exactly equal to the number itself, then every last one of them is a mine. Place the flags without a second thought.
Both rules live on the border of the open field. An experienced player does not solve cells one by one but quickly runs both checks along the entire line of numbers.
The “3” sees three closed neighbours above and holds three mines — all of them are mines; for the “1” on the right its mine is already found, so the ticked cell is clear.
When straight counting runs out, set subtraction kicks in — the technique that separates the player who clears a hard level without stopping from the one who guesses. If the closed neighbours of one number are wholly contained in the neighbours of another, subtract the smaller from the larger: the difference equals the number of mines in the “extra” cells.
The “2” sees the two upper cells, the “1” only the left pair; the subtraction 2−1 proves a mine in the top-right cell, while the far-left one is safe.
Out of subtraction is born the most common edge pattern — 1-2-1. Three numbers in a row against a wall over four closed cells are solved in only one way: the mines sit under the ones, while under the two and at the ends it is clear.
1-2-1 against a wall: the two collects both of its mines from the outer cells, so the two central cells beneath it are always safe — a free move.
Sooner or later logic hits a dead end where neither counting nor subtraction gives an answer. Then Minesweeper becomes a probability problem — and you must guess with calculation. The chance of a mine in a cell = the number’s mine count ÷ its number of closed neighbours. Open the cell with the smallest fraction, not the first one you see.
A lone “1” with two closed neighbours is a 1/2 risk; with three, it is 1/3. Between two guesses pick the smaller fraction: that is maths, not superstition.
Remaining mines (the 🚩 counter) ÷ the number of “mute” far-off cells = the background risk. If it is lower than the border risk — click into the far corner.
A corner cell has three neighbours, a central one has eight. By geometry a corner is less often a mine and is easier to work out later.
The right “1” sees only two cells (½ risk), the left “1” splits its mine three ways (⅓) — if you must guess, the cell with the smaller fraction is safer.
Most losses happen not through bad luck but through haste and inattention to information already revealed. Minesweeper punishes impatience: almost every move that looks like a guess is in fact derived from the open numbers — if you slow down and count.