A round
No board ever asks you to guess
Every layout is generated and then handed to a solver that plays it using logic alone. If the solver reaches a position where it would have to flip a coin, the board is thrown away and another is drawn.
On the largest size that rejects roughly nineteen boards in twenty, which is a fair measure of how often the version on your computer asks you to guess at the end and calls it losing.
The board is not in your browser
The layout is never sent to you. You are told what a square is at the moment you open it and not before, so there is nothing to read in the console, nothing to pull out of the network tab and nothing to datamine.
That is not a claim about our good intentions. It is a test that fails if it stops being true.
Race it, or take one board between you
Racing gives everyone the same layout and their own sweep. The rail shows how far the others have got as a count and never which squares they opened, because that would be a map of where the mines are not.
Sharing gives the table one board. Every square anybody opens appears on everybody's screen, the flags belong to the table and anyone can lift one, and a mine takes whoever found it out of the game without ending it — they go on watching, and they are told no more about the layout than anybody still sweeping. You lose only when the last of you is out.
On the sheet
Questions people ask
Can one person play Minesweeper here on their own?
Yes, and it is the usual way somebody tries this product for the first time. Open a room, take the board, and nobody else ever has to arrive.
Is this the Windows one?
It is the same game and none of the same code. Two things are different on purpose: no board ever requires a guess, because every one is checked by a solver before it is dealt, and the layout lives on the server instead of in the page, so it cannot be read out of the browser.
Does anybody have to install anything to play Minesweeper?
No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.
Do we need accounts?
No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.
How many people can play Minesweeper?
1 to 8 — best with anyone, including nobody. A room seats up to 12.
How long does a game of Minesweeper take?
About 5 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.
Does it work over a video call?
That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.