Are these hard mine hunt free to print?

Yes. Generate the puzzle above and print it with its answer, at no cost and with no sign-up.

Does every puzzle have one solution?

Yes. Every puzzle is generated and checked so the printed numbers fix exactly one mine layout, verified before it prints. You never have to guess, and the answer is on the second page.

Can I make a Mine Hunt book to sell on KDP?

Yes. The free tool makes one puzzle. The KDP Mine Hunt maker generates hundreds of graded puzzles at any KDP trim, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior and solutions PDF.

Free printable

Hard Mine Hunt

A hard Mine Hunt needs over ten times the work of an easy board, measured in the steps a solver has to chain together. This is the grade where comparing two numbers that share cells stops being optional.

Difficulty

Bigger boards with fewer numbers on them are harder. Every puzzle has exactly one answer, and never needs a guess.

12×12 board. Each number counts the mines in the eight cells around it, and never sits on one itself. Find every mine.

Two pages: the puzzle and its answer. Every puzzle is proved to have exactly one answer by the same engine as our KDP studio.

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This makes one puzzle. Sign up to turn it into a full Mine Hunt book for Amazon KDP: hundreds of graded puzzles at any trim, as print-ready PDFs.

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The puzzle and its answer, as they print.

Mine Hunt Hard

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Mine Hunt Hard · Solution

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How to solve a mine hunt

Every printed number counts the mines in the eight cells around it, diagonals included, and never sits on a mine itself. Work out where every mine hides from the numbers alone.

The method

1Start with the zeros. A 0 has no mines around it at all, so every one of its eight neighbours is clear. That is free information and it is usually what opens the first corner of the board.
2Then take the numbers that are already full. When a number has as many blank cells around it as mines it is still looking for, every one of those blanks is a mine. A 3 with exactly three blanks left has found all three.
3And the ones that are already satisfied. The mirror image: once a number has all its mines marked, every other cell around it is clear. Marking a mine and clearing its neighbours alternate, and most of a board falls out that way.
4When it stalls, compare two numbers that overlap. Two numbers side by side share some of their cells. If a 1 and a 2 overlap and the 1 is satisfied by a cell inside the overlap, the 2 needs its second mine from the cells only it can see. That is the step that gets a hard board moving.

The one rule people get wrong: A number counts all eight cells around it, corners included, not just the four beside it. And a cell with a number printed on it is never a mine.
What the answer page shows: Every mine, marked on the same grid at the back.
How the grades differ: Bigger boards with fewer numbers printed on them, which measurably about triples the chain of deductions a grade at a time.
Good for: Anyone who has played the computer game and wants it without the guessing.

Making a whole Mine Hunt book?

This page makes one puzzle. To publish a book on Amazon KDP, the KDP Mine Hunt maker generates hundreds of graded puzzles at any trim, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior and solutions PDF.

More printable minesweeper puzzles

See every printable Mine Hunt

Questions

Are these hard mine hunt free to print?: Yes. Generate the puzzle above and print it with its answer, at no cost and with no sign-up.
Does every puzzle have one solution?: Yes. Every puzzle is generated and checked so the printed numbers fix exactly one mine layout, verified before it prints. You never have to guess, and the answer is on the second page.
Can I make a Mine Hunt book to sell on KDP?: Yes. The free tool makes one puzzle. The KDP Mine Hunt maker generates hundreds of graded puzzles at any KDP trim, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior and solutions PDF.