How to Win at MineSweeper: Rules of the Game

I’m back from vacation. While on vacation, I picked up an old game I used to play:  MineSweeper!  I forgot how fun (and frustrating) MineSweeper is.  I thought that this would be a good blog topic.  I took several snapshots of my last game (see this post).  I will do my best to describe to you my secrets for winning this game consistently. 

Here is what the board looks like when you begin a game on Intermediate Level:

MineSweeper Starting Board

 

Objective

Find all the safe squares that do not contain a mine.  This implies that you must locate all unsafe squares that contain a mine.  For convenience, you are given flags to mark the unsafe squares.  The number of flags you are given indicates the number of mines on the board.

 

How To Play

To reveal a square, you must left-click it.  If it is an unsafe square that contains a mine, you blow up and the game is over.  If it is a safe square that does not contain a mine, you will be given some information:  the square will contain a number.  The number indicates how many mines are located in the 8 squares immediately surrounding the square you selected.  If no number is given in a square, it means there are no mines in the surrounding squares.  (See image and description of the first mine type below).

You are to use this information to determine the location of all the mines and find all the safe squares.  The only way you lose is by left-clicking on a square with a mine.

If you determine a square has a mine, you can mark it with a flag by right-clicking the square.  If you are uncertain about a square, you can also place a question mark on a square by double right-clicking the square.

Also, there is a timer on the game.  When you get good, it is fun to see how quickly you can find all the mines.  As a novice, I would just ignore the timer.  It will stop ticking at 999, but the game continues and you can still win.

In my next posts, I will talk about the logical thinking required to win this game.  But before I end this post, let me give you a couple of general tips on how to play (and win) MineSweeper:

Tip 1

Guess only as a last resort.

Many seem to think that choosing random squares at various points in the game is a good strategy.  I have found that other than the first one or two moves and sometimes the last one or two moves, guessing is rarely required

Tip 2

The rhythm of the game is usually as follows:  Locate safe squares, Locate mines, Locate safe squares, Locate mines….

 

Thanks for reading.

~The Witch Doctor

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Tags: game, microsoft, mine, minesweeper, sweeper, win, windows