Minesweeper Without the Coin Flips 💣

The rules

A grid with mines hidden in it. Reveal a cell and it shows how many mines touch it, counting all eight neighbours. Reveal every safe cell to win; reveal a mine and it's over. Flag cells you've deduced are mines so you don't misclick them.

Counting, and the two patterns

Two rules do almost all the work:

• If a number equals the count of unrevealed cells around it, all of them are mines. Flag them.
• If a number equals the count of flags already around it, every other neighbour is safe. Open them.

Alternating these two clears most of a board. When they run out, two patterns are worth recognising on sight:

The 1-2-1. Three cells reading 1, 2, 1 along a revealed edge, with three unknowns below them. The mines are under the two 1s, and the cell under the 2 is safe. Every time.

The 1-1 reduction. Two adjacent 1s along an edge. The left 1 sees cells A and B; the right 1 sees B and C. The left 1's mine is in {A,B}. Since the right 1 also covers B, if the mine were at C the left 1 would be unsatisfied — so C is safe. This "subtract the shared cells" argument generalises to any two overlapping numbers and is the technique that separates people who finish Expert boards from people who don't.

What "no-guess" actually means

It doesn't mean the board is easy. It means that at every point in a correct playthrough, there exists at least one cell you can prove is safe. You may have to look hard for it — the proof might need three overlapping numbers — but it's there.

We do this by running a solver against each candidate board as it's generated. If the solver reaches a point where no cell can be proven safe, the board is rejected and regenerated. So a loss here is genuinely a mistake, which is the whole point: the frustration should come from your reasoning, not from the dice.

About our version

Multiple board sizes, flag mode for touchscreens, a first-click that is always safe, and a timer if you want one. Long-press to flag, or toggle the mode button if you prefer tapping.

It runs in your browser, works offline once loaded, needs no account, and costs nothing.

Questions people actually ask

Is Minesweeper solvable without guessing?
The classic random version is not — it can produce genuine 50/50 situations. Ours rejects those boards at generation time, so every level here can be cleared by logic alone.

Is the first click always safe?
Yes. The board is arranged so your opening click never hits a mine.

What is the 1-2-1 pattern?
Three numbers reading 1, 2, 1 along a revealed edge with three unknown cells beneath. The mines sit under the two 1s and the middle cell is safe — one of the few patterns you can act on instantly.

Keep reading

• Crowns: The One-Per-Region Puzzle You'll Finish in Five Minutes 👑 — One rule you can learn in ten seconds, and deduction chains that run five steps deep. The best entry point into logic puzzles we have.
• Nonogram: How to Solve Picross Puzzles 🖼️ — Number clues along the edges, a picture hiding in the middle. Learn the overlap technique and you can start any board with confidence.
• Logic Puzzle Games: A Guide to the 12 in Go Brain 🧠 — Sudoku, Kakuro, Nonogram, Crowns and eight more. What separates a real deduction puzzle from a guessing game, and which to start with.