MineOnline
Play
The Drill Yard is the classic part of MineOnline: plain minesweeper online, the way it played on Windows, without ads and without anything to install. Open the page, pick a board and click. You don't need an account to play.
The three boards
| Board | Size | Mines | Mine density | Average 3BV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 9×9 | 10 | 12.3% | 15 |
| Intermediate | 16×16 | 40 | 15.6% | 64 |
| Expert | 30×16 | 99 | 20.6% | 171 |
These are the standard sizes, so your times compare with times set anywhere else. 3BV is the fewest clicks a board can be cleared in: the average here is measured over 20,000 boards dealt by this game.
Controls
- Left click opens a tile.
- Right click, Space or F puts a flag on the tile under the cursor.
- Click a number that already has all its flags to open the rest around it. That is chording, and it is where most of the speed comes from.
- R or F2 deals a new board.
- On a phone: tap to open, hold to flag, or switch the big button to flag mode. Drag to move around the board, pinch to zoom, and tap the minimap to jump.
A first click that never wastes your time
The mines are placed after your first click, and never on that tile or the eight around it. So the first click always opens an area and you start with numbers to read, instead of a single lonely number and a forced guess.
Timed properly
The clock starts on your first click and stops when the last safe tile opens, and it counts to the millisecond. Your browser stamps every click, so a slow connection never ends up in your time, and the server checks those stamps against its own clock before a time counts.
What you get after a run
- Your numbers: time, 3BV, 3BV per second, clicks and efficiency, and how far you were from your personal best.
- Leaderboards for every board, this week and all-time. Guests can play everything; save an account (a name and a password) to appear on the boards.
- Replays: every time on a leaderboard can be watched back, with the mouse path and every click, at any speed.
- A challenge link: send a friend the exact board you just played, with your time to beat.
- The Daily Shift: one board a day, the same for everyone, one try.
New to minesweeper?
Start with how to play minesweeper, then the patterns that solve most of a board on sight. When a board leaves you without a certain move, this is how to pick a guess. And when solo gets quiet, the same boards exist with other people on them: multiplayer minesweeper, up to eight players on one board.