Goal
Reveal every non-bomb square on the board. You do not need to flag any bombs to win. The game ends the moment the last safe square is revealed.
Board sizes
- Small (Beginner): 9 columns by 9 rows, 10 bombs. Density about 12.3 percent.
- Medium (Intermediate): 16 by 16, 40 bombs. Density about 15.6 percent.
- Large (Expert): 30 by 16, 99 bombs. Density about 20.6 percent.
Starting position
On MineRace, every puzzle ships with a small region of pre-revealed squares so your first move is meaningful. The first revealed cell and its eight neighbors are guaranteed to be free of bombs. This matches the modern Windows Vista and later behavior. The timer starts the moment the puzzle loads.
Numbers
When you reveal a non-bomb square, it shows a digit from 1 to 8. That digit is the count of bombs in the eight squares surrounding it, including diagonals. A square with no bombs in any neighbor is revealed blank.
Cascade reveal
Revealing a blank square automatically reveals all of its neighbors. If any of those neighbors is also blank, the reveal continues outward, all the way until a numbered border has been revealed all around the connected zero region. This is the cascade or flood reveal. It is why a single click can open up a large section of the board.
Flags and question marks
You can place a flag on any hidden square to mark it as a bomb. Flagged squares cannot be revealed by a normal click. They have to be unflagged first.
On classic Minesweeper, right click cycles through hidden, flag, question mark, hidden. On MineRace we use a simpler model: right click toggles between hidden and flagged. On mobile we use a tap and choose popover instead. We dropped the question mark because modern competitive play does not use it.
The mine counter at the top of the board shows the total number of bombs minus the number of flags placed. It can go negative if you over-flag.
Chord click
On any revealed numbered square, if you have flagged exactly that number of its neighbors as bombs, you can chord click to reveal every remaining unflagged neighbor. On desktop this is a left click on the number itself. On mobile it is a tap.
Chord clicks do not check whether your flags are correct. If you flagged a safe square and you chord on a neighbor, you will reveal a bomb and lose. Use chord clicks only when you trust your flags.
Win condition
You win the moment the last non-bomb square is revealed. The game stops the timer and automatically flags any remaining unflagged bombs as a courtesy. Your time is locked in.
Loss condition
You lose the moment a bomb is revealed. The game freezes, reveals every remaining bomb, and shows you the one you stepped on highlighted. Any flags you placed on non-bomb squares are shown as incorrect. On MineRace, a loss does not end your day. You can retry the same puzzle. Your retry count is tracked and affects your leaderboard rank.
Timer
The timer starts when the puzzle loads. It counts continuously until you win or lose, then locks. Our leaderboard tracks time to tenths of a second. Classic Windows Minesweeper ticked in whole seconds and capped at 999. We do not cap.
Retries
MineRace lets you retry today's puzzle as many times as you want. The leaderboard ordering for today is by retries first, then time. So a player who finishes in 50 seconds on the first try is ranked above a player who finishes in 40 seconds on the third try.
The all-time leaderboard for each size only accepts wins with zero retries. Perfect runs only. Time is the only tiebreaker.
Daily puzzle
Every day, every size gets exactly one puzzle. The puzzle is deterministic based on the date and the size, which means everyone on Earth is playing the same board today. A new set of puzzles drops at midnight in your local time.
Once you win a size for the day, that size is locked until tomorrow. The other sizes are still available. You can play all three sizes per day independently.
Practice mode
Any puzzle in the past can be replayed by visiting its url at minerace.io/p/PUZZLE_ID. Past puzzles play in practice mode. They do not affect any leaderboard. Use them to study patterns or to replay a board your friend shared.
No-guess guarantee
Every puzzle MineRace ships is generated through a no-guess solver. Every puzzle is solvable through pure logic without ever flipping a coin on a 50/50. If you blew up, the information you needed was on the board. Read about the solver on the no-guess page.
How MineRace differs from classic Windows Minesweeper
- First click: classic Windows 3.1 just avoided putting a bomb on your first cell. We follow the Vista convention of guaranteeing the first cell and its eight neighbors are all safe, so the first click always opens up a region.
- Question marks: classic supported a question mark intermediate state. We dropped it.
- One-click bug: classic Windows had a bug where a board solved in a single cascade did not stop the timer correctly. Modern reimplementations including ours fix this.
- Timer precision: classic counted whole seconds. We count tenths.
- No-guess: classic random boards could be unsolvable without guessing. Ours never are.
- Mobile: classic was mouse only. We support touch with a tap-and-choose popover for reveal versus flag.
For more
For a friendlier walkthrough, see how to play. For deeper play, see strategies. For the math behind no-guess, see the no-guess page.