Minesweeper

A9×9 board with 10 mines is the friendliest minesweeper gets. Roughly 12% of cells are mined, leaving plenty of breathing room. Your first click opens a cascade that typically reveals a third of the board immediately, and from there, basic deductions handle the rest.

What you need at this level: satisfied numbers and forced mines. When a number has enough flags around it, the remaining neighbors are safe — click them. When a number's hidden neighbor count matches its remaining mine count, flag everything. These two moves applied repeatedly will clear the board.

Easy boards rarely require pattern recognition or constraint counting. The information is always local — each number gives you what you need without checking neighboring numbers. That makes this the right place to learn the interface: left-click to reveal, right-click to flag, chord by clicking a satisfied number. Get comfortable with those mechanics before moving up.

A clean win on easy in under 30 seconds is a reasonable benchmark. If you can do that consistently without hints, the 16×16 medium board is the next step. The mine density jumps to about 16%, and the patterns you'll need are different from anything on easy.