If you had a Microsoft computer in the 90s, chances are you’ve probably come across the classic logic puzzle game Minesweeper. Released by Microsoft in 1990, the game board is composed of squares, the number set by the player or a default difficulty. Within this grid lay a certain number of mines — click on a mine and you lose. Sometimes the boards can get crazy, with some Minesweeper boards containing tens of thousands of mines. Because it remains an incredibly accessible game with no graphics requirements, virtually any smartphone or PC with an internet connection can play Minesweeper for free, hence its popularity — and differing strategies.

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Since there’s no clear indication of which square has a mine at the very start of the game, the first click is largely luck-based, with even world-class speedrunners typically starting in different locations on the board. Typically, after the first click, a certain amount of squares clear themselves, and other squares are marked with numbers, ranging from 1 to 8. So what do the numbers mean?

The answer’s fairly intuitive once you understand the concept — the numbers indicate how many mines are present in the adjacent squares. For example, let’s say a square you cleared has a number “2” on it. That indicates that there are exactly two mines within one square of that tile; this includes squares diagonally next to it as well. Let’s elaborate a bit on exactly how this works and why they’re so crucial to playing Minesweeper.

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Let’s continue off the previous example. You have nine tiles total: a middle, and all the surrounding ones. Pretend you click on a square, and it clears the row above it. So you’re now left with the row below it uncleared, and a bunch of numbers. The square you clicked on now reads “2.” This means that, just below your square, there’s at least two mines. Next, have a look beside that square. The one on its immediate left reads “1,” the one on the right reads “2.” This means that the square on the left has only one mine around it, while the right has two.

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From here, it’s a simple process of elimination. If both the middle and right squares have a “2” and all the adjacent squares are cleared, then you know that both the right-bottom and middle-bottom squares have mines on them. Since you know where those two mines are, next you look at the square with the “1.” Because this square has exactly one mine around it and you already know that the middle-bottom square has a mine, that means that, in this example, the left-bottom square must be clear. Granted, it’s easier to understand when it’s plotted on a graph, but the game does that for you.

These days, Minesweeper certainly isn’t as popular as it once was, but it remains a fan favorite. Even Bill Gates loved Minesweeper — so much that it inspired the Xbox.

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