How to play
The entire deck is dealt out face up into 8 columns. The object is to move all the cards to the ace piles (in the upper right corner of the screen), starting with aces and working towards kings. Cards may be moved around between the columns, so long as the cards being moved are in alternating color and descending rank. Four free cells (upper right corner of screen) are available as temporary card holders. Any card may be moved to a free cell or to an empty column.
The game is won when all the cards have been moved to the ace piles.
The game is lost if there are no legal moves available to make.
After a game is over, a new game dialog will pop up to let you start a new game. Or if the screen is displaying "Game Over", tap on the screen to bring up the new game dialog. You may also start a game any time from the menu. If you start a new game in the middle of an unfinished game, the unfinished game will count as a loss on your statistics.
Moving stacks of cards
FreeCell allows you to move stacks of more than one card, when there are enough placeholders to allow it. Both the free cells and any empty columns will be used to move a stack of cards. The number of cards you can move depends on the number of empty free cells and columns. The number displayed at the top center of the screen indicates the largest stack of cards you can currently move.
Undo
You can undo the last move by pressing the page-down button, selecting Undo from the FreeCell menu, or entering the graffiti backspace stroke. You may undo up to the last 100 moves made.
Other Features
You can quickly see where all the cards of a particular rank are, by graffiti'ing in the letter for the rank. For example, type 'A', and the aces will flash momentarily. Use the numbers 2-9, 1 or 'A' for aces, 0 or 'T' for tens, 'J', 'Q', and 'K' for face cards.
FreeCell will flash the entire screen when you only have one move left.
Menu commands
FreeCell | New Game - starts a new random game.
FreeCell | Select Game - allows you to choose a particular game by specifying a random number seed.
FreeCell | Restart Game - restarts the current game using the current game seed.
If you select any of these menu items before you've finished the current game, it will count as a loss on the statistics.
FreeCell | Undo - undoes the last move. You can also select this by pressing page-down, or graffiti'ing in a backspace character.
FreeCell | Preferences - launches the preferences dialog
FreeCell | Statistics - launches the statistics dialog
Help | Contents - displays this info
Help | How to purchase - displays purchase info
Help | About FreeCell - displays the about box
Preferences
Select the menu FreeCell | Preferences to change several options in the game:
'Use large suit icons' displays a larger, easier to see suit on the card.
'Invert black cards' inverts all black suited cards to better distiguish them.
'card style' allows you to pick between two different styles of suit icons.
'show game number' toggles the on-screen game number display. You can also toggle this by tapping the '#' icon on the screen.
NOTE:The 'invert black cards' and 'card style' options are only available when the game is running on a monocrhome screen. On a color screen these options will not appear.
'Auto play' automatically moves cards to the ace piles when they can safely be moved there. You can selectively use autoplay at any time by pressing the page-up button
Statistics
Statistics are kept of all your games played. Use the menu FreeCell | Statistics to see the current statistics, which include total games won/lost, and longest winning and losing streaks.
How to Order
You may purchase FreeCell online using your credit card. Please visit our web site at http://www.electronhut.com/ for more information. Or, you can order by mail. Send a check for $12 (US funds drawn on a US bank) to:
Electron Hut
P.O. Box 127
Santa Clara, CA 95052-0127
Include the following info along with your check:
- Name of the app you wish to purchase
- your email address
- your Palm Username
We will email you a serial number to unlock the software for permanent use.
Feedback
We welcome feedback about our products. Please email all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to freecell@electronhut.com