Do you remember the time when the sleekness of our laptops didn’t exist and we had to use a bulky, boxy computer setup? With no internet in sight, our only source of entertainment was the games our magical digital boxes had. One such game is minesweeper. It is a solitary puzzle in which the player has to successfully dodge the ‘mines’ planted on a rectangular surface. The game had come into force in the 1960s and it has evolved since then into various versions.
How to play minesweeper the right way?
1. Begin by launching the game and selecting the level of difficulty from options available, mentioned below.
• Simple 9×9 – A nine-by-nine lattice with 10 mines.
• Medium 16×16 – A sixteen-by-sixteen lattice with 40 mines.
• Master 30×16 – A thirty-by-sixteen lattice with 99 mines.
• Custom – Set your own boundaries, including the lattice size, number of mines, etc.
2. The rule of the game is when you click on a box, it displays how many boxes far away is the nearest mine located. Once you find a mine, you have to flag it by right clicking on the said box. There is an instructional play at the beginning of the game which is optional.
3. Click on any random box to start the game.
4. Now pay attention to the numbers written in the boxes, they indicate how close the mine is located.
5. If you spot a box that says 1, it means the mine is 1 block away either to the left or right, depending on the location of where it is written. When you find the box with the mine, right click on it to flag it as mine. Make sure that you don’t bring out a larger number of squares. It shouldn’t be more than the number of mines.
6. Double right clicking puts a question mark over the box that you feel might contain a mine but are not entirely sure about. It is a protective measure to not lose all the progress you’ve made so far.
7. Once you’ve identified all the mines on the lattice, click on the boxes that are left unchecked to clear the board.
8. Congratulations! If you have successfully found all the mines and checked all the boxes in the lattice, you are officially a winner of a tough game. And if your last click unveils a mine bomb, you need to choose from beginning a new game or re-trying the one that you just blew up.
