Minedive Rules and Relic Guide
Minedive is minesweeper played eight floors deep. This page covers the rules, how the pressure rises, and how to pick relics.
What it is
You play minesweeper eight floors in a row. After each floor you pick one relic. Relics change the rules or give you new information.
It is a separate game built on classic minesweeper. The plain one-board-a-day version lives in a sibling app.
Run rules
Floors and lives
A run is 8 floors. Open every non-mine cell to clear a floor. Hit a mine and you lose 1 life. The blown mine stays marked. At 0 lives the run ends. You start with 3.
Safe start
Every floor begins with the center cell and its neighbors already open. No mines sit there.
Picking a relic
After every floor except the last, three relics show up. Pick one and it applies from the next floor. You never see a relic you already own.
Where luck comes in
Luck enters in two places. One is the mine layout. Floors 1 to 5 only deal boards that can be solved without guessing. From floor 6 we pick the board with the fewest forced guesses out of a few candidates, and deeper floors get fewer candidates, so you guess more. The other is the three relic offers, drawn at equal odds from the relics you do not own. We print that count under the offers.
Seeds
The same seed gives the same boards and the same offers. The daily run uses the date as its seed. A new run puts its seed in the share link.
Saving
Progress stays in this browser only. Reloading keeps your run. Nothing is sent to a server.
How pressure rises
Bigger boards, denser mines
Floor 1 is 6x6 with 5 mines. Floor 8 is 11x11 with 31 mines. Mine density climbs from 14 to 26 percent.
Thicker fog
From floor 4, some opened cells hide their number. Floor 4 has 2 fogged cells and floor 8 has 10. The Clear Eye relic removes the fog.
No timer
Nothing rushes you. Pressure comes only from board size, mine density and fog. Take your time.
The 15 relics
The list below uses the same text as the relic cards. Eleven relics change how you play. Four only add a number.
Stout Heart Max lives and current lives each go up by 1.
Buckler The first mine you hit on each floor costs no life.
Lantern Opens one more safe cell when a floor begins.
Scout Opens every safe cell in the center 5x5 when a floor begins. A cell still closed in there is a mine.
Probe Once per floor, check one closed cell. Safe cells open, mines get a flag.
Row Gauge Shows how many mines sit in each row, on the left of the board.
Column Gauge Shows how many mines sit in each column, above the board.
Beacon When a floor begins, the two mines nearest the center get flags.
First-Aid Kit Heal 1 life each time you clear a floor, up to your max.
Flag Tally Clear a floor with every flag on a mine and at least half the mines marked to heal 1 life. Blown mines count as marked.
Scorebook Each cleared floor adds 60 times the floor number to your score.
Clear Eye The fog lifts. No number is ever hidden.
Last Breath Once per run, when lives hit 0, you hang on with 1.
Lighter Floors Every floor has 1 fewer mine.
Quick Open Tap an opened number: when the flags around it match the number, the other neighbors open at once. A wrong flag means you hit a mine.
Minesweeper basics
A number counts the eight neighbors
If a 1 touches exactly one closed cell, that cell is a mine. Flag it. If a 2 already has two flags around it, every other closed neighbor is safe.
These two checks cover most deductions. When you feel stuck, run them again.
Overlap two numbers
When two neighboring numbers share closed cells, the difference gives the answer. If one number's cells sit entirely inside the other's, look at what is left over. Two 1s side by side along a wall often make the outer end cell safe.
When you must guess
With no sure cell left, pick the lowest odds. A cell far from the frontier is often safer than one on it. From floor 6 your lives cover this.
How to pick relics
Match the pressure
After floor 4 the fog thickens, and Clear Eye pays off. After floor 6 you guess more, so life relics like Buckler, Last Breath and Stout Heart pay off.
Stack information relics
Row Gauge and Column Gauge work far better together. You can narrow down the cell where a row and a column meet.
Score-only relics
Scorebook does not help you clear floors. Pick it only when you are chasing score.