Clicking on any cell will reveal its contents. A cell can hide an empty space, a number, or a mine. If you expose a mine, the game is lost. If you uncover an empty cell, a section of the mine field is automatically cleared. A field is cleared by exposing all neighboring squares until the area is bordered by a fence which can contain a number, a skull, or the edge of the board.

When a number appears, the number indicates how many surrounding mines are present in the eight neighboring squares of that cell. If there are no neighboring mines, the cell is empty.

eg.
X X X Exactly three of the
X 3 X surrounding cells
X X X contains a a mine

To mark a hidden mine, move a skull sign from the Skull-Button to there. When all mines are marked with a skull sign, and all other cells have been uncovered, the game is won.

If you placed a skull and later decide to remove it, you can click on it to restore the cell to its previous hidden state.

The numbered cells offer clues, so focus on areas which have a high concentration of these cells. The game is mostly one of deduction. although in some cases guessing is required. In some cases the very first move explodes a bomb, but in other cases the first move exposes a large area, so keep trying.

If the game is lost, the hidden mines are displayed and if there were skull signs placed over cells which do not contain a mine, a mine with a red 'X' is displayed.

If all cells are marked or uncovered but you do not see any win or lost message, you certainly have marked wrongly also some other fields with the skull sign. Then you should continue the game by finding the wrongly marked cells, remove the skulls from there, and uncover them.

After Greg Schmidt's implementation of the game by an Axiom engine this ZRF shows how you can generate hidden information als by conventional means of Zillions:

1. use the same graphic file for more pieces;
2. use the command (notation "...") to assign the same name string on the display for different pieces;
3. use the command (translate ...) to hide the exact names of the positions on the display;
4. use the command (dummy) in piece definitions to exclude those pieces from the context menus, and their moves from displaying in the moves list on the display.