Minesweeper RPG
About Minesweeper RPG
Minesweeper RPG is our own dungeon crawl built on minesweeper logic. The numbers do not count neighbouring mines, they add up the total strength of the monsters around a square. Fight what you can beat, level up on it, and work your way to the dragon in the middle. The dungeon is one hand-built seven by nine board, short enough to finish in a sitting.
How to play
Tap a square to reveal it. The number shows the combined strength of the monsters next to it, so a low number can still hide one nasty thing. Fight monsters you can beat to level up, pick up hearts to heal, and reach the dragon at the centre.
Rules of Minesweeper RPG
- The dungeon is a 7 by 9 grid, you start at the top, and the dragon waits at the centre.
- Tap a cell next to you to attack it. You win the fight if your level is at least the monster's level, and you take damage if it is higher.
- Tap a distant cell to peek at it instead. The number on a revealed cell is the sum of the levels of the monsters touching it, which is the minesweeper half of the game.
- Beating a monster pays its level in experience. Levelling up costs more each rung, so the weak monsters near the start are worth clearing before you push down.
- Four hearts hide on the board and heal three each. Finding them is often the difference on the deeper rows.
- Kill the dragon to win. It is level 8, the same as the demons guarding it, so it takes most of the board's experience to earn that fight.
Controls
- Tap a square to reveal or attack it
- Compare your level to the monster before you commit
What makes it worth playing
- Minesweeper deduction turned into a dungeon crawl
- Numbers show the combined strength of neighbouring monsters, not a count of them
- Monsters are banded by strength, with the weak ones near where you start
- Hearts scattered through the dungeon to recover health
- A dragon at the centre as the run's boss
- A seven by nine dungeon you can finish in one sitting
Screenshots
Captured from this build on 2026-09-01.
Tips from playing it
- Clear the top rows first. The weakest monsters are up there and you need levels before you go anywhere near the middle.
- A three could be three slimes or one goblin. Reveal around it before you walk into it.
- Take the hearts when you are near them, not when you need them. Going back across the board costs you more health than the heart returns.
- The dragon is flanked by the two strongest monsters on the board. Get your level up before you approach the centre row.
Notes from building it
Turning the minesweeper number from a count into a sum of monster strengths changes the deduction in a way we had not seen elsewhere. A two is safe and a two is also possibly one thing that will kill you, and telling those apart is the whole game, because the same number can mean two slimes you can walk through or a single bat you are not ready for. The board is hand-authored rather than generated for exactly that reason: every number on it had to be worth reading. The threat zoning is deliberate, with slimes and bats near the start so there is somewhere to earn levels before the goblins and skeletons in the middle bands, and the demons and the dragon sitting together on the centre row so the last fight is the one you have to prepare for. Hearts are placed as recovery points on the way in rather than as rewards at the end, which means a player who takes a beating early still has a route back rather than a run that is quietly already over.
More from the studio: why difficulty needs a rhythm and how we test a game.
- Category
- Puzzle
- Plays in
- Your browser, no download
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Players
- One player.
- Difficulty
- Hard, and it does not hold your hand
- Typical session
- 5 to 15 minutes a run
- Last tested by us
- 2026-09-01
- Studio
- Our own game
