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Minesweeper Rules
Minesweeper: Rules and Basics
At first glance, Minesweeper is a simple game of thought and logic. The goal: The player has to uncover the empty fields and avoid those fields behind which mines are hidden.
The field
With Minesweeper you can choose between three standard playing fields with different levels of difficulty.
- Beginners: 81 fields, 10 mines or 35 mines
- Advanced: 256 fields, 40 mines or 99 mines
- Professionals: 480 fields, 99 mines or 170 mines
You can also create a custom playing field with a custom number of mines.
Playstyle
The Minesweeper rules are simple:
- The game is normally finished when a mine is uncovered. In contrast to the Windows Minesweeper, you can continue playing by taking back a turn. The uncovered mines are displayed in a counting field.
- The game continues when you uncover an empty square.
- If a number is displayed when a square is uncovered, this number represents the number of mines hidden in the adjacent 8 squares. This information can be used to determine under which of the adjacent fields there are mines and which fields can be clicked safely.
Minesweeper Summary
Minesweeper is a simple computer game which comes with the operating system Microsoft Windows up to and including version Windows 7. It is a combination of logical thinking and (sometimes) random guessing which fields contain mines. The goal is to uncover all fields behind which no mines are hidden. An additional challenge is a stopwatch, so the game is mostly played for time.
Minesweeper History
Minesweeper was originally developed by Microsoft for Windows 3.1 and was then included with every successor version for the PC; since Windows 8 it has to be installed as an app from the Windows Store. The game is missing with Windows Mobile up to the version Windows Mobile 2003 SE. In many countries a free Xbox Live Minesweeper app is offered for Windows Phone via the integrated Windows Phone Store. With Windows Vista it was completely reworked and has for example the possibility to replace the mines with flowers. Minesweeper was also integrated into the 1999 Siemens S25 mobile phone. Records, which were achieved on Windows enclosed program versions, are not accepted for international and national best lists, because the current version gives the player the possibility to play on a playing field with the same mine positions several times in a row (restart) and previous versions are not safe against cheats and hacks. For competitions and rankings only the programs “Minesweeper Arbiter”, “Minesweeper X” and “Viennasweeper” are used. Based on Minesweeper, the paper-based game lighting was developed.
Minesweeper Overview
- Beginner: playing field of 8 times 8 (64) fields and 10 mines (16%).
- Advanced: Field of 16 x 16 (256) fields and 40 mines (16%).
- Professionals: Field of 30 x 16 (480) squares and 99 mines (21%).
- User defined: Maximum size 30 times 24 (720) fields and 667 mines (93%).
Minesweeper Gameplay
At the beginning one of three difficulty levels is chosen, which determines the size of the playing field (number of fields) and the number of mines. Before the start of the game all fields are covered. The aim of the game is to uncover all fields behind which there is no mine. With the left mouse button the player uncovers a field; if there is a mine under this field, the game is lost. In the Windows versions and the versions accepted for rankings, however, the first click in normal game mode is never a mine. With the right mouse button he marks a field as a mine. A red flag then appears there. In order to undo this marking, one or two further right mouse clicks on the same field are sufficient (depending on the selected setting). To win, it is not necessary to mark mines with the right mouse button. It is sufficient to uncover all fields that do not contain mines with the left mouse button. Optionally, you can activate so-called markers if you are not sure whether there is a mine under a field. These appear in the form of a question mark on the fields and are also set with the right mouse button. Fields uncovered with the left mouse button that do not contain a mine reveal the number of mines located in the adjacent eight fields. An uncovered field surrounded by mines on all sides will show an 8. By the numbers of the uncovered fields it is usually possible to find out the whereabouts of the mines. If you double-click with the left mouse button on a uncovered field, in whose neighborhood all mines are already marked or click on it with the left and right mouse button at the same time, the remaining fields are uncovered all at once. A special role is played by fields that have no mines in their neighborhood: On the one hand, these do not show a 0, but are displayed in a different color. On the other hand, all still hidden fields in your neighborhood are automatically uncovered. If such a newly uncovered field is also a zero field, this process is continued recursively. At the start of the game and especially at the higher levels there are situations in which you can only guess under which field a mine is.
Destribution and variants
Minesweeper Flags In MSN / Windows Live Messenger there is the possibility to play against a contact in the list. In this version of the game there are 51 mines distributed on the field, the first thing to do is to uncover 26 mines. One field is uncovered alternately; whoever finds a mine may uncover one more. In addition, each player has the option to detonate a bomb once in each game, which will reveal a 5×5 field of his choice completely at once (if the player is behind). Do not mark mines (non-flagging – NF) In this version of the game the player does not mark any mines. So you are not allowed to use the right mouse button during the game. You have won automatically, if you have cleared all fields, except the mined ones, with the help of the left mouse button. The difficulty of this game variant lies in the fact that you have to remember the identified mine positions. In order to achieve best times on the beginner and advanced level, many professionals use this variant partially even on the whole playing field. Since the best times of the world’s best players in the variant non-flagging are only slightly lower than their best times in the normal game and non-flagging is played less often, it can be assumed that non-flagging, although more difficult for the beginner, is not slower than flagging. Since 2009, in addition to the official world ranking, which includes both flagging and non-flagging games, there is also an official ranking, which is exclusively reserved for non-flagging best times. Increase mine density Another difficulty is the increase of the mine density in the custom/user defined variant. The starting point is usually the largest playing field, which is occupied by 99 mines in the standard variant. Such a field can still be solved with some practice; however, times under 150 seconds require good practice. However, clearing a square of this size becomes more difficult the more densely the square is occupied. Fields with 130 to 140 mines (28%) already have a very high degree of difficulty. Having even more mines laid already results in many failed attempts to get only a first approach to mine clearance.