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Minesweeper

Open every square with no mine on boards that logic can always clear, with a daily board and an owl that names the next safe square.

Play Minesweeper

Minesweeper is a logic puzzle on a grid of squares. Some squares hide mines. You open every square that does not, and you never open a mine. Each open square shows how many mines touch it, counting the squares on all eight sides, so a number is a clue about its neighbours. Every board is made so that it can be cleared by reasoning from the first tap, with no guess at any point. The game opens on a contents page: pick a board and play.

The boards

On a wide screen Hard lies on its side, as 30 by 16. Today is the daily board: it is the same board for everyone on the same date, and it changes at your own midnight. The Climb is a run of twenty steps, five board sizes with four steps on each, where every clear makes the next board harder, from 15% to 21% of the squares mined. A clear after taking a mine back plays the same step again, and a new board after a mine moves one step down.

Controls

• Your first tap is always safe. The mines are laid after it, away from it, and the first tap opens an area.
• Tap a square to open it. A zero opens the squares round it, and so on, until numbers stop it.
• Mark a square you know holds a mine with a flag. A long press flags, or turn on Flag in the bar at the bottom and every tap flags. A right click flags with a mouse.
• The count at the top shows the mines left: the mines on the board less the flags you have placed.
• When a number has as many flags round it as its value, a tap on the number opens every other square round it. You can turn this off in Settings.
• The board is cleared when every square without a mine is open.

The owl

Press Hint and the owl looks at what you can see and names the simplest move that is certain: one or more safe squares to open or mines to flag. It says which pattern it used, in words, and marks the squares on the board. If a flag is wrong, it tells you to take it off. Every board has such a move at every point, so the owl is never stuck. When a board is cleared, the owl's note sums up the patterns the board needed.

When you open a mine

The board shows where the mines were. Press Take it back and the last move is undone, so you can carry on from where you were; or start a new board. Menu in the bar at the bottom also offers Start this board again, a new board and the contents page.

Settings

• A long press flags: Short, Normal or Off. With Off, only the Flag button and a right click flag.
• A tap on a number opens round it: On or Off.

Your board in progress, the boards you have cleared, your Climb step and these settings are kept on your device. A board left half played is on the contents page as Continue.

Play Minesweeper

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