What Is Minesweeper Worlds Online?

Minesweeper, with the board taken away

Classic Minesweeper gives you one small rectangle of covered cells, and the game is over when you clear it or hit a mine. Minesweeper Worlds Online keeps the part everyone loves, which is reading numbers and working out where the mines are, and removes the rectangle.

The grid has no edge in any direction. You open a cell, read the numbers around it, flag what you can prove, and keep going. When one stretch of the map is done, you scroll or zoom to the next one.

The rules do not change. A number still tells you how many of the 8 surrounding cells hold a mine. For example, a 1 with seven opened neighbors and one covered neighbor tells you that covered cell is a mine. If you are new to this, start with how to play and what the numbers mean.

How it differs from classic Minesweeper

If you have played the version that came with Windows, these are the changes you will notice first.

• An infinite map. There is no fixed board size, and the grid extends in every direction.
• Areas. The map is divided into 8x8 blocks of 64 cells. An area is the unit you clear, and the unit you lose if you hit a mine.
• A mine costs you one area, not the whole game. When you open a mine, that area explodes and becomes locked. The rest of the world stays exactly as it was, and you can restore the locked area and try it again.
• Terrain. The map is drawn as a landscape of grassland, mountains, forests, deserts, lakes and ocean rather than a flat gray grid.
• Other players. In the Shared World you see other people digging in the same world as you.

Mine density varies with the terrain, so different parts of the map can feel different to play.

Areas, terrain and continents

Every area is a fresh puzzle. Zoom in to the cell level to work out the numbers, or zoom out to the area, continent or world level to see how much you have uncovered. A map overview shows how far the world has been explored.

Your starting land is called Origin Land. As more areas are cleared, new continents appear. In your own world a new continent is born after milestones in how many areas you have cleared, and you are asked to give it a name. In the Shared World a continent can emerge as the world's total cleared areas grows, and any player can name a continent that has no name yet. The first name sticks.

Terrain is mostly scenery and atmosphere. The look of the land can change as the world is cleared, but the rules of the puzzle stay the same.

Some limited-time events have also unlocked extra color schemes for your map, such as Mars, Cyberpunk and Ink Wash. You can read about them on the worlds and terrain page.

Solo or Shared World

The home screen has two big buttons. Solo opens your own world, saved to your account, where a mine only ever locks your own area. Online opens the Shared World.

The Shared World is one world for every player in a season. Cleared areas become permanent for everyone, and you can watch other players open cells in your part of the map a few seconds after they do. Their flags show up semi-transparent, and their names appear near their activity. The game calls its players pioneers.

This is multiplayer Minesweeper in the cooperative sense. You are not racing a single opponent on the same board. Everyone is digging the same world, and cells opened by others appear on your map even though they do not count toward your own score.

Mistakes are visible too. If you hit a mine in the Shared World, your remains are shown on that spot to other players. When another player clears the area, your remains turn into a grave, your area is unlocked, and you may be notified who buried you. The full story is on the Shared World page.

Locking is private. A mine you hit locks the area on your screen only, so you cannot block other players and they cannot block you.

Seasons

The Shared World runs in seasons. Each season is one world, and by default a season lasts 14 days. The online button shows the season number and how many days are left.

When a season ends, its map is closed and shown as view only, and a new world with a new seed begins. A Season Records screen keeps the history of past seasons: how many areas were cleared, how many people took part, which continents were discovered and who named them, the final top 100, and a picture of the map.

Your own Solo world is separate from seasons and is saved to your account.

Rankings count areas cleared, minus 10 for each area that is currently locked. The leaderboard can be filtered by all time, today, this week, personal and country, and there is a separate Season tab. The game does not promise prizes for any rank.

Who it is for

It suits people who already like Minesweeper and want more boards than a fixed grid gives them. It also suits people who like the idea of playing alongside others without any pressure to compete head to head.

Beginners are welcome as well. The game has a tutorial that you can skip and replay from Settings, plus a hint option for revealing a safe cell if you spend coins on it. Newcomers can learn from common patterns and strategy tips, then test them on real boards.

A few things to know before you start. The maps are generated, so a situation that forces a guess can occasionally come up, and the Shared World does not promise a safe first click. Avoiding guesses explains how to deal with those moments.

Where to play and what it costs

Minesweeper Worlds Online is free to play in a web browser at minesweeperworlds.com, on iPhone through the App Store, and on Android through Google Play. The browser version needs no download or sign-up.

On first launch the game creates an anonymous account, so you do not enter a name or email. The Shared World needs an internet connection. The game is available in English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Indonesian.

The browser and the apps run the same game and use the same Shared World, so you dig next to the same players on any of them. Each browser or device keeps its own account, and the browser saves your progress in that browser, so clearing your browser data may lose it. The mobile apps add notifications and ads that can give extra restores. The mobile app page covers the details.

Controls follow the platform. Click or tap to open a cell. Right-click or long-press to flag it. Click or tap a number to chord. Drag to move the map, and use the wheel, slider or a pinch to zoom.

Minesweeper Worlds Online is made by nineclove. You can read more about the studio on the about page, or open the play page and try your first area.