FreeCell

Here’s one to make your Windows-using friends jealous! FreeCell has become widely known and popular because a version is included with Windows95, but we think our version is better. It has been claimed that all games of FreeCell are winnable, and also claimed that unwinnable games exist but are extremely rare. What we can tell you for certain is that we’ve played hundreds of games of FreeCell and never lost even one.

Layout Size: Fits nicely on a medium-size screen.

Difficulty: Some games of FreeCell can be quite difficult to conquer, while others will unwind neatly and easily. But with enough patience and determination, we think you should be able to win every game—eventually!

Rules: Shuffle the deck and lay out all the cards in eight tableau piles, face up and fanned down. Four of the tableaus will have seven cards each, the remaining four only six cards each. Above the tableaus, on the left, are four free cells, and to their right are the four foundations, all of which start out empty.

Tableaus build down, alternating color. Top cards of tableaus are available for play on other tableaus, on foundations, or on free cells. Any available card can be played to an empty tableau. An empty free cell can hold any card, but each can hold only one card at a time; and of course such cards can be removed only by correctly playing them back onto tableaus or foundations.

(See picture: FreeCell. There are many possible plays. One way to start is to move the Queen of Diamonds to a free cell, revealing the 2 of Clubs which can be played onto the 3 of Hearts. The Aces of Diamonds and Hearts can then be played to the foundations, followed by the 2 of Hearts, and so on.)

On the Screen: Solitaire Till Dawn will lay out the cards for you as usual.  The rules state that you can move only one card at a time. But as a shortcut, Solitaire Till Dawn will allow you to move a full or partial build if there are enough empty free cells or tableau piles, because you would have been able to accomplish the same effect by temporarily moving the extra cards into the empty tableaus.