Minesweeper is a very simple game. The object is to clear the board of all 'safe' squares and reveal the mines. When you've shown where all of the mines are, you've won! Let's get started.
When you click on a square, it reveals a number underneath. This number pertains to the number of mines touching that square. So if you see a '1', there is only one mine touching that sqaure. If you see an '8', that means that every square around it is a mine. (Finding an '8' is rare.) If you see a '2' and there are only 2 squares touching it, you know that these are mines. Right click these squares to set up a flag. If a question mark comes up, I suggest you turn it off by deselecting 'Marks (?)' under Game.
The beginner level is very easy to beat. There are 10 mines in a 9x9 grid. Each click will probably open up a pretty large area without any mines. This difficulty isn't really for beating, but for getting an extremely low time. (i.e. 6 seconds)
As I said, even a begginner can move up to the next level. The intermediate grid is 16x16 with 40 mines. It's not too hard to beat this level if you take it slow enough. Once you've become pretty good, you can try for a good time just like on the beginner setting. (i.e. 40 seconds) This is a good level to practice on. You don't get stuck very often yet you can still mess up when going for a good time.
Expert is the highest difficulty. It is hard to get through this without having to guess a few times on whether a square is safe to click or not. After a while, you will get used to guessing and become pretty good at seeing which squares are most likely to be mines. It can be hard to try for a good time on this one. I suggest that you try to beat it a few times first. My best time currently is still pretty high. (190 seconds)
No matter what your strategy is, it will always start with opening a wide area. You may have to click around for a little while and restart the game a few times, but it only takes a couple of seconds. Once you've done that, you will see a few squares that have to be mines. There are (10) in this picture. See if you can find them.
When you see a '1' on a corner(blue arrow), there will probably only be one square touching it. You know that this is a mine. If you see a '2' on the edge, touching a corner, (red arrow)there will probably be only two squares touching it so you know that they are mines. Now look at the '1' next to the '1' with the arrow. You know that the corner square is a mine and that it is touching it. This means that you can safely click the squares around this '1'. The same idea applies to the '2' next to the '2' with the arrow. There are two known mines touching it so the unknown square next to it can be safely clicked. Look at this next picture to see all of the squares you can click(green), and the ones that are mines(red).
Now you have three more mines and also a bunch of squares to click. Any one of these green squares could open another large area in which you can repeat this. A click may also open a small area but you can still find mines in it. If you have to guess, the mine will probably be near a larger number; so if you have the option to put a mine near a 1 or a 4, put it by the 4 and see what happens. Since this is just a guess, it doesn't always work, but the odds are in your favor.
Something that makes it easier to go quickly is to take out many squares in one click. Left and right click at the same time and the squares around the mouse are indented. If you have a '1' and already have the mine flagged, you can click the '1' with both sides of the mouse and all of the squares around it will be revealed. It is much faster. I lowered each of my scores by quite a few seconds.
If you get to the end and see that the number of mines left is negative (-1), that means that you have one too many squares flagged. You then have to figure out which number has and extra flag next to it. (i.e. if you have a '4' with five flags, one of them is wrong.)
Well, I have taught you all I can. If you are still really bad at Minesweeper and just want to show off a low time, try one of the cheats on the next page. Hopefully, though, you won't have to do that. And if you ever become the World Minesweeper Champion, make sure to mention my name.
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