As of this writing (May 2002), I've been playing Minesweeper for I guess at least seven years, and long ago my skill level reached a plateau which could reasonably be considered high - although I'm sure that it could be improved to an even higher level. With that in mind, I have put into writing some of my thoughts - including some tips - about this game.
There is not much help available from the game itself, but here it is:
The object of Minesweeper
The object of Minesweeper is for you to determine where all the mines are as quickly as possible without uncovering any of them.
To play Minesweeper
!Notes
Strategies and tips
Clicking the face button at the top center of the window, above the minefield and between the tally of marked mines and the clock, also begins a new game. (As if you probably haven't already figured that one out on your own.)
And contrary to what the help indicates, if you click a numbered square with both mouse buttons and there are still unmarked mines touching that square, the touching squares which blink are not uncovered.
There are three states of "markedness" through which you can cycle by right-clicking the mouse:
There are four skill modes, having these specifications:
| Mode | Height | Width | Mines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Intermediate | 16 | 16 | 40 |
| Expert | 16 | 30 | 99 |
| Custom | 8-24 | 8-30 | 10-667 |
I find it odd that Expert mode contains only 99 mines, and not 100.
To specify which mode you wish to play, select that one from the "Game" pull-down menu. For Custom mode you also will be prompted to specify the height and width of the minefield and the number of mines to be uncovered. See the above table for the allowed ranges of those parameters.
Additionally, it appears that in Custom mode the maximum number of mines to be uncovered seems to be dependent upon the minefield height and width which are specified. For example, if you specify a height of 16 and a width of 30 you can have up to 435 mines, not 480. If you specify more than 435 mines, that number will be decreased to 435. From what I have determined,
I have occasionally found that left-clicking the mouse has no effect. That is, the square which is clicked just blinks, but it is not revealed to be a game-ending mine or a number from 1 to 8. (This seems to occur when I am surfing the Internet, and browsing some page causes this situation to suddenly and unexpectedly be manifested.) In that case, right-clicking the mouse three times - to cycle through the three states of "markedness" - allows the game to proceed normally (albeit with several ticks of the clock passed).
Sometimes even this does not clear up the problem. When that happens, I exit the game or close its window. Then in a few minutes I start the game again and check to see if the problem persists. Eventually, after several iterations of exiting and starting the game, normal play is allowed.
I have also found that if, after you mark a square as a mine by right-clicking on it, you keep the right mouse button depressed - that is, you don't unclick it - you can slide the cursor to some other square and click the left mouse button to uncover all empty squares around that square. So you can effectively perform a click of both mouse buttons in this manner. And if you want to follow this immediately with another two-button click, just slide the cursor to some other square, unclick the left mouse button, and click the left mouse button again. By the way, it doesn't matter in which order you perform the cursor slide and the left mouse button unclick, as long as you don't unclick the right mouse button. They can even be done simultaneously. When those actions immediately precede a left mouse button click, a two-button click is effectively performed. If, however, you want to perform just a click of either the left mouse button or the right mouse button alone, you must unclick the right mouse button. (Obviously, you must unclick the right mouse button before you can click it again. And if you don't unclick the right mouse button before you click the left mouse button, you perform a two-button click as described above.) It sounds confusing, I admit. But after you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature.
One more thing: The above technique does not work with the left mouse button. That is, if you attempt to uncover a square by clicking on it, but do not unclick the left mouse button before sliding the cursor and clicking the right mouse button, nothing happens. If, however, you click the left mouse button, slide the cursor, then unclick the left mouse button, the square on which the unclick occurred is uncovered. Beware about that one.
For the purposes of this discussion, there are two states of an active Minesweeper game, seek and mark.
Definition of seek state: Either there are no numbered squares, or for each numbered square each definite adjacent mine has been marked.
Definition of mark state: For at least one numbered square some definite adjacent mines have not been marked.
Tip: In the seek state, use rapid, remote picks. If nothing else, the speed will allow you to keep the elapsed time to a minimum, in case you are shooting for a record; by selecting squares which are distant from each other you minimize the possibility of choosing a square which is adjacent to one which has already been revealed to have mines next to it. In my opinion, you're better off selecting a square in the middle of an area of unmarked squares than one which is adjacent to a square which is known to have mines next to it.
Tip: Use smooth movements of the cursor across the board. Also, try not to jump around across the minefield. [To be perfectly honest, I break this rule all the time.]
Tip: Once you are in the mark state, concentrate first on patterns which are "obvious," especially those like 1s in an internal corner of a mineless area. Large numbers such as 5 and 6 - not to mention 7 and 8 - often are very helpful because of the constraints which they place on the positions of hidden mines. For example, if a square containing a "5" is already surrounded by three non-mine squares, then the remaining adjacent squares must all contain mines.
Tip: Always mark all mines which are evident, if possible, no matter how trivial it might seem. Try to move the game from the mark state to the seek state. It's not the end of the world if you don't mark all mines which can be definitely determined because you don't immediately realize their existence and you would rather proceed seeking rather than eating up precious time just to make sure that you have marked all of them. But if you can tell that a square definitely contains a mine, you're better off marking it than picking a random square and finding out too late that it is a mine because, unfortunately, there is no undo available.
Tip: You can temporarily "freeze" a game of Minesweeper by minimizing its window. This will allow you to bring another window into the foreground and keep the clock from advancing. Just placing the Minesweeper window into the background does not stop its clock.
I have noticed that if a new game is not started but is minimized, then when it is brought to the foreground it is automatically started - that is, the clock starts running even though no squares are clicked.
Here's the result of a game that I played - and won. You don't see 7s very often, see 8s much less frequently, and successfully complete one with an 8 virtually never. Some skill is, of course, necessary, but in this case a large helping of luck was involved, too. (On the other hand, if an 8 ever appears you can confidently mark all eight squares around it as mines.)
Yes, I have enough knowledge of Microsoft Paint to have constructed the image, but I have neither the time nor the drive to put such effort into concocting such a fake. It's real.
Wacharin Wichiramala : Minesweeper : World record and some stuffs [sic]
Websweeper - A Java-less MineSweeper Game!