Data Miner offers seven difficulty levels:

• Minor Miners - seasonally-themed puzzles suited to young players, and with a simple set of rules
• Junior - the same puzzles offered to Minor Miners, but with the regular Data Miner rules
• Easy
• Intermediate
• Hard
• Advanced
• Extreme - the hardest puzzles

To play Data Miner, begin by selecting a difficulty level. The following rules are used for all levels except Minor Miners:

• No word breaks are shown in the puzzle at start. To show word breaks, click on the "SPACES" link. Clicking on this link will cause 30 points of damage (out of 100) to the parchment.
• Clicking on any letter will show all occurrences of that letter in the puzzle. If the letter is in the puzzle, clicking on the letter will do 4 points of damage to the parchment. If the letter is not in the puzzle, clicking on the letter will do 10 points of damage to the parchment.
• To solve the puzzle, click on the "SOLVE" link. A text box will show what you have decoded in the puzzle thus far, with undecoded letters appearing as asterisks. Replace the asterisks with the correct letters and click on the "SOLUTION" link to submit your answer, or click on a letter to continue trying to find letters in the puzzle.
• Your score for the game is based on the difficulty of the puzzle and the number of letters you had to guess before solving the puzzle.

For Minor Miners, the following rules are changed:

• Clicking on "SPACES" does not cause damage to the parchment.
• Guessing a letter that is in the puzzle does not damage the parchment.

Data Miner is also offered as a gamelet in PlutoCrat, with additional rules.