Minesweeper World Records and History

Who invented Minesweeper?

The Windows version of Minesweeper was written by Robert Donner and Curt Johnson at Microsoft. The idea is older: earlier hidden-mine grid games include Mined-Out (1983) for the ZX Spectrum and Relentless Logic (1985). The Microsoft version made the numbered-grid format famous.

When did Minesweeper come out?

1. 1990 — Minesweeper appears in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows.
2. 1992 — Windows 3.1 includes it, putting the game on millions of office and home computers.
3. 2000s — Windows XP keeps the classic gray look many players remember.
4. 2007 — Windows Vista ships a redesigned version with an optional flower theme in place of mines.
5. 2012 — Windows 8 no longer includes it by default; Microsoft offers it as a separate free app.

Our classic Windows-style Minesweeper is an independent tribute to that look. MinesweeperHQ is not affiliated with Microsoft.

How Minesweeper world records are measured

Competitive players compare more than raw time. Two games of the same difficulty can differ a lot in how many clicks they require, so records are usually reported with these measures:

• Time — seconds from the first click to the win, per difficulty (Beginner, Intermediate, Expert).
• 3BV — the minimum number of left clicks needed to clear a board without flags: each opening counts as one click, and so does each number that does not touch an opening. It measures how much work a board requires.
• 3BV/s — 3BV divided by time. It rewards speed while adjusting for board difficulty, so it compares games fairly.
• NF (no flags) — games won without placing any flags, a common style among fast players.

Official rankings are kept by the competitive community, which verifies games with recorded replays. Because records keep improving, we do not quote specific times here; check the current community rankings for the latest numbers.

Is Minesweeper hard for computers too?

In a precise sense, yes. In 2000, mathematician Sadie Kaye (published as Richard Kaye) showed that deciding whether a Minesweeper position is consistent is NP-complete, placing it among a famous class of problems with no known fast general solution. In practice, positions on normal boards are small enough for a Minesweeper solver to check exactly.

Track your own best times

Every game you win here records your time per difficulty in My stats, in this browser only. Improve accuracy first with our guide on how to win Minesweeper, then chase the clock.

Sources

• “Minesweeper (video game)”, Wikipedia — authorship, Mined-Out, the Entertainment Pack release, the Vista flower tiles, and removal in Windows 8. Checked September 2026.
• Richard Kaye, “Minesweeper is NP-complete”, The Mathematical Intelligencer 22(2), 2000.
• Minesweeper statistics definitions, minesweepergame.com — 3BV and 3BV/s.