How to play Sweeper Frontiers
Sweeper Frontiers is minesweeper on a massive scale. There is one world map with millions of cells, and everybody plays on it at once, in the browser, with nothing to install. Every cell you open is a small puzzle solved and a little more ground of your own. Lock whole regions and countries, meet other players at your borders, and see how much of the map you hold when the round ends.
Your first cell
Choose a world, then open your first cell. Where you may start depends on the world. On most worlds it has to be in a country where nobody has opened a cell yet, away from everybody else. Your first press always opens safely.
From there, every cell you open must touch your own ground, so your territory grows outward from where you began. If a press is refused, the cell shows an ✕, and the message row at the top of the screen says why.
Reading the numbers
A number counts the mines among the eight cells around it, but it does not say which ones they are. The cells you have already opened are safe, so the mines are among the ones still covered.
- The last covered cells. When a number has exactly as many covered cells left around it as its count, every one of them is a mine. A 1 with one covered cell, a 2 with two: look for these first, because they are certain.
- Finished numbers. When a number has as many flags around it as its count, it is finished. While covered cells are still left around it, it lights up, and pressing it opens all its other neighbours at once.
- Too many flags. A number turns red when more flags stand around it than it counts. One of them is wrong, so take it off before you open anything there.
- Safe zeros. An open 0 that lights up still has covered cells beside it, and every one of them is safe to open.
Opening and flagging
- With a mouse: left-click a cell to open it, and right-click it to put a flag on it.
- On a phone or a tablet: hold a cell to open it, and tap it to put a flag on it. If you prefer it the other way round, swap them under Settings → Controls.
A flag is your own note that a mine is there, and pressing it again takes it off. Most of the game happens in the notches your ground has grown around, because that is where your border moves forward.
Mines
Open a mine and it goes off. Your own ground near it is covered again and goes back to nobody, and for a short while nothing near it can be opened. Set off several mines in a row and the wait grows longer.
The board is worked out on the game's server, and the page you play on is never told where the mines are. Every cell is solved the same way for everybody.
Regions and countries
Dashed lines divide the land into regions, and a solid line runs around each country, which is a handful of regions together. Open every safe cell in a region and it locks at once. It is yours, drawn in your full colour with a lit edge, and you do not need to flag its mines first. Lock every region of a country and the country locks too. Countries in turn make up continents.
Locked ground is worth more than open ground. What a lock does with the mines inside it, and whether anybody else may still enter, depends on the world's mode.
Score
Every land cell you hold is worth points. Locking a region, a country or a continent multiplies what each of its cells is worth. Your score is what you hold right now: ground you take goes straight on, and ground you lose comes straight off. The standings at the top right show everybody on the world.
The sea and its harbours
Along every coast runs a strip of shore that nobody plays. The way through it is a harbour: a grey disc across the coast with an anchor in the middle. Hold every cell of its land half, and its water half opens to you. From there the sea is played cell by cell, like the land.
Modes
Every world has a mode, so choosing a mode is choosing a world.
- Peaceful. Sweeping without the risk of losing ground. Land you have revealed is yours for the round, and nobody can take it. Sides that share a region finish it together, and each is paid for its own cells. There is no clock: the round lasts until every region of land is finished, and near the end the last stretch opens to everybody. The sea is closed.
- Competitive. The map changes hands. Borders meet, fronts move, and you can take ground from other sides and lose it to them, until the round's time runs out.
- Warfare. Competitive with abilities. Solving the board earns points to spend on abilities for attack and defence: Scout shows the mines in a small area, Disarm opens a cell that cannot go off, Fortify protects a region, and Wildfire burns across the ground.
Some Peaceful and Competitive worlds offer a few of the helping abilities as well.
Rounds
A round lasts a set time, shown at the top of the screen, except in Peaceful, which lasts until the board is finished. When a round ends, the biggest score wins, a new board is drawn, and the whole map is open to claim again.
Playing together
A map this size is better played together. Join forces with friends, or with players you meet on the board, and your fronts merge into one side under one house name, with one colour and one score.
To invite somebody, find them in the standings and press their name, then press Invite player. Or press Invite a friend on your own card and send them the five-character code it shows. Your friends need to be on the same world as you.
Playing with or without an account
You can play without an account. You are given a name like Player 647, and your ground lasts the round. A free account keeps your name, your look and your achievements from round to round and from world to world.
Tips
- Start with the certain moves: a number with exactly as many covered cells left as its count.
- Flag as you go. A finished number then opens the rest in one press.
- Work the corners and notches of your border first.
- When you are not sure, look somewhere else along your border. A certain move is almost always close by.
- Lock small regions early. A locked region is worth more than the same cells left open.