The goal
Mines are hidden under the tiles. Your job is to uncover every tile that isn't a mine. You never have to uncover the mines themselves, and you never should — touching one ends the game.
Uncover the last safe tile and you win, however many flags you did or didn't place along the way. Flags are a notepad, not a scoring system.
Reading the numbers
When you uncover a tile, one of two things happens. Either it's blank, in which case none of its neighbours are mines and the board opens outward automatically, or it shows a number. That number is the only piece of information in the game:
It counts how many of that tile's neighbours are mines. Nothing else. Every deduction you will ever make comes from combining those counts.
One hidden neighbour
The 1 says exactly one neighbour is a mine. Only one neighbour is still hidden, so that tile is the mine. Flag it.
Count already satisfied
The 1 is already accounted for by that flag. Every other neighbour is therefore safe — you can open all seven without thinking.
Chording
Rather than opening those six one at a time, act on the 2 itself. Its flags match its number, so one action clears the rest. This is where speed comes from.
Controls
Play with touch, a mouse, a keyboard or an Xbox controller on Windows. Jump to keyboard controls or Xbox controller controls.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap | Uncover a tile. On a tile that's already revealed, chords it. |
| Press and hold | Mark a hidden tile without switching modes. With question marks enabled, repeated presses cycle flag, question mark, clear. |
| Flag button | Flips what a tap does, so you can plant a run of flags without holding each one. The button shows Flag On or Flag Off so you always know which mode you're in. When question marks are enabled, marking cycles through flag, question mark and clear. |
| Hold a number | Highlights precisely which tiles a chord would open, so you can check before you commit. When your flags match the number, release without dragging to open the remaining neighbours. Incorrect flags can still uncover a mine. |
| Pinch / drag | Pinch to zoom. Drag to pan a flat board, or turn a 3D board to play on another side. |
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Left-click | Reveal a tile. Clicking a revealed number chords it when the flags match. |
| Right-click | Mark a tile. With question marks enabled, clicks cycle flag, question mark, clear. |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom around the pointer. Drag to pan a flat board, or rotate a 3D board. |
With a keyboard
You can play the whole game and use its menus from the keyboard, on PC or with a hardware keyboard on Android. Like the other new features in this guide, keyboard support is included in the next Android update; Steam for PC will follow later.
Start with an arrow key. The first board keypress shows the tile cursor without making a move. Then use the arrows to choose a tile, Space or Enter to reveal it, and F to mark it. The view follows the cursor, panning a flat board or turning a 3D board to keep nearby tiles in sight.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Move the cursor to a neighbouring tile in that direction. Hold two arrows together to move diagonally. |
| Shift + arrow | Cycle through neighbours in that direction. Repeat to choose another neighbour of the tile you started from, especially on tilings where several tiles lie the same way. Adding Shift just after an arrow move lets you revise that choice. |
| Space / Enter | Act on the cursor's tile, just like a tap: reveal it, chord a revealed number when its flags match, or mark a hidden tile while flag mode is on. |
| F | Mark the cursor's tile. With question marks enabled, repeated presses cycle flag, question mark, clear. |
| Shift+F | Turn flag mode on or off during a game. |
Rest the cursor on a revealed number to preview the hidden, unflagged neighbours a chord would open. Press Space or Enter to chord when the flags match. The highlight helps you check the neighbours; incorrectly placed flags can still uncover a mine.
Space, Enter and F act on tiles while the board has focus. If you've used Tab to select a button, press an arrow key to return to the board. Clicking or touching the board hides the keyboard cursor; a board key brings it back.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| W / A / S / D | Hold to look up, left, down or right: pan a flat board or turn a 3D board. |
| Numpad 1–9, except 5 | Look around in the key's direction, including diagonals. Use Num Lock on for these view controls. |
| + / − | Zoom in or out around the middle of the board. The = key also zooms in. |
| Numpad 5 | Fit the board back into view and return a 3D board to its starting orientation. |
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tab / Shift+Tab | Move forward or backward through buttons and controls. Space or Enter activates the focused button or toggles a switch. |
| Up / Down | Move between tiles in a picker or rows in the high-score overview. Space or Enter opens the selected item. |
| Page Up / Page Down Home / End | Move further through a picker or score overview, or jump to its first or last item. On other scrolling screens, these keys scroll the page; Up and Down scroll too when a button, checkbox or switch has focus. |
| F1 | Open the rules and controls from the board, pausing the game while you read. |
| F2 | Restart the board. If asked to confirm, No is selected first; Tab then Space selects Yes. |
| Ctrl+, | Open Settings from the board. |
| Ctrl+Enter | Toggle full screen on any screen. |
| Escape | Go back a screen, or leave full screen from the board. |
| Ctrl++ / Ctrl+− | Grow or shrink the board by one row and column and deal a new game immediately, without confirmation. Ctrl+= also grows it. Available from the board, except for a joined LAN client. |
With an Xbox controller
Xbox controller support is available in the Windows game, with Steam for PC still to come. Controller support on Android is not yet available. The controls below use Xbox button names.
Start with the D-pad or left stick. Your first tile action shows the cursor without revealing or marking anything. Move to a tile, press A to reveal it, and X to mark it. The view follows your cursor across flat and 3D boards.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| D-pad | Move to a neighbouring tile. Use two directions together for a diagonal; hold to keep moving. |
| Left stick | Aim towards a neighbouring tile, including neighbours between the D-pad's directions. Hold to keep moving. |
| A | Act on the cursor's tile: reveal it, chord a revealed number when the flags match, or mark a hidden tile while flag mode is on. If a toolbar button has focus, A activates it. |
| X | Mark the cursor's tile. With question marks enabled, repeated presses cycle flag, question mark, clear. |
| Y | Turn flag mode on or off during a game. |
| LB / RB | Revise your last move by choosing a different neighbour of the tile you moved from: LB goes anticlockwise, RB clockwise. Repeat to cycle around that starting tile's neighbours. |
| Right stick | Pan a flat board or turn a 3D board. Tilt further to move faster. |
| LT / RT | Zoom out / in around the middle of the board. |
| Right stick click (R3) | Fit the board back into view and return a 3D board to its starting orientation. |
| View (hold) | Hold for about 0.6 seconds to request a new board. A quick tap does nothing; confirm the restart if prompted. |
| Menu | Open Settings from the board. |
Rest the cursor on a revealed number to preview the hidden, unflagged neighbours a chord would open, then press A when the flags match. As with touch and keyboard play, incorrect flags can still uncover a mine.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| D-pad / left stick | Up and down move between controls. Left and right change a selected value, such as a difficulty or board size. In a picker, move between its tiles. |
| A | Activate the focused button, choose an item or toggle a checkbox. |
| B | Go back from a menu. In a confirmation dialog, choose No or Cancel. B does nothing on the board, so it won't take you out of full screen. |
| Left / right in a dialog | Select the button on that side, then press A to confirm. Restart confirmation starts on No. |
Entering a high-score name still needs a keyboard.
Two things you never have to worry about
-
Your first tap is always safe. In Standard mode, mines are placed after you click. Your opening tile is excluded, along with its neighbours when the board has room. Puzzle mode starts from a checked, partially revealed board.
-
Puzzle mode never asks you to guess. In the classic game a perfectly played position can still come down to a coin flip. Switch to Puzzle mode in Settings and every board is checked in advance by a solver — it is guaranteed to be finishable by logic alone, right down to the last tile. If you're stuck in Puzzle mode, there is something to work out.
What changes when the board isn't squares
The rules above never change. A number always counts the mines touching that tile. What changes from tiling to tiling is how many tiles count as touching — and that quietly rewrites every instinct you have.
Inside the classic square board each tile has eight neighbours, and after enough games you stop counting them consciously. On hexagons there are six, and the familiar 1‑2‑1 patterns simply don't arise the same way. Further out it gets stranger: on Kisrhombille an interior triangle touches sixteen other tiles, and on Triakis Triangular it touches twenty-one.
Two consequences worth knowing before you start:
- Higher numbers aren't harder, they're just bigger. A 7 on a board where tiles have twenty neighbours carries less information than a 3 on a hex board. Mine counts are tuned per tiling to keep the numbers meaningful rather than uniform.
- In several tilings, neighbour counts vary between tiles. Where a tile sits in the pattern determines how many others touch it. Look at the shape before you count — assuming every tile is like the last one is the single most common way to blow up on an unfamiliar board.
The advice, then, is simple: start on Square to remind yourself of the rules, move to Hex to feel the ground shift, and treat everything after that as a new game that happens to share a rulebook.
Playing in 3D
Open the game-type picker and choose 3D to find thirteen rotatable shapes. Drag with a finger or mouse to turn the board; a tap or click still reveals a tile. Numbers count neighbouring cells on the surface, including across a polyhedron's edges.
On a Torus, the board wraps all the way around the ring and tube. The Hex Torus does the same with hexagonal cells. The Möbius Strip has a half twist: follow a row once around and you arrive on its other face; a second circuit brings you back.
Neighbour counts can change at a shape's corners. For example, a Cube's corner cells have seven neighbours, while its other cells have eight. Turn the shape to check the cells around a number before trusting a flat-board pattern.
See a 3D replay or browse the whole catalogue.
Difficulty
Easy, Medium and Expert each have presets tuned individually for every tiling, so "Medium" means a comparable challenge whether you're on squares or pentagons rather than a blindly copied board size. Custom lets you set width, height and mine count yourself, up to 150 in each dimension and 2,500 mines, within the board's capacity. Use Suggest to choose a mine count suited to your tiling.
Your best times are recorded per tiling, per difficulty, per board size and per mode, so a fast hex win is never quietly ranked against a fast square one.
Find your next board
Open Settings and choose the game type. The gallery groups all 130 boards into Standard, Two-uniform, Three-uniform, Aperiodic and 3D families. Pick a preview to change boards. The next Android update will include six free tilings, with Pro unlocking the other 124. Minesweeper: Retiled is also coming to Steam for PC.
Aperiodic boards include Penrose, Hat, Spectre and Pinwheel. Their patterns do not repeat periodically, and a new game chooses a fresh patch. Take a moment to check which tiles touch before trusting a familiar pattern.
Make it yours, then share it
Choose from seven themes and nine tile styles, including Stone, Marble, Flagstone and Wood. Use the full-screen button for more board space. Android also offers adjustable haptics for marking tiles and game outcomes.
On the share screen, choose a destination preset: Reels/TikTok/Shorts, an Instagram/Facebook feed, YouTube/X, a photo post or a chat. Custom lets you choose the format, shape, resolution and replay length yourself, including 30- and 60-second videos.
Enable Pan and Zoom to follow the action. A 3D replay turns the board to show each move and ends a finished game with a full spin after the Win! or Mine! banner. MP4 includes game sounds when sound is enabled. Share opens your device's sharing options; Export saves the result and shows progress with a live preview.
Your in-progress board autosaves, and the app remembers your board and appearance choices for the next session.
Ready? The Android game is free, six tilings are unlocked from the start, and nothing about it is on a timer or behind an advert. Get Minesweeper: Retiled.