Minesweeper

Minesweeper is a single-player video game developed in 1990. It was first released as a part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows and has been a regular program of the Microsoft Windows standard install. Minesweeper is a point-and-click game that utilizes memory and reasoning.

The objective of the game is to clear a minefield shown as a grid filled with square cells, while avoiding the squares containing mines. Clicking on a cell with the mouse overturns it and reveals either a “safe” square or a mined square. Safe squares are shown as a blank area or it may contain a number ranging from 1-8. The number tells the player the number of mines adjacent to the uncovered square. If a player clicks on a square that contains a concealed mine, the game will be over. The game is won once the player has uncovered all the safe squares.

Minesweeper has three difficulty levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. The Beginner level is the easiest and starts with a 9x9 grid containing 10 mines. A higher level difficulty presents a larger grid and more mines. Intermediate level is played on a 16x16 grid with 40 mines while the most difficult level, Advanced, has 99 mines, and is played on a 16x30 grid. Upon winning a game, a player is ranked according to how fast they cleared the minefield.