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FreeCell is a solitaire game that was made popular by Microsoft in the 1990s.
One of its oldest ancestors is Eight Off. In the June 1968 edition of
Scientific American Martin Gardner described in his "Mathematical Games" column, a game by C. L. Baker
that is similar to FreeCell, except that cards on the tableau are built by suit instead of by alternate
colors. This variant is now called Baker's Game.
Paul Alfille changed Baker's Game by making cards build according to alternate colors, thus creating
FreeCell. He implemented the first computerized version of it for the PLATO educational computer system
in 1978. The game became popular mainly due to Jim Horne, who learned the game from the PLATO system and
implemented the game as a full graphical version for Windows. This was eventually bundled along with
several releases of Windows.
- Shuffle, then deal the 52 cards face up in 8 columns with each card visible but only the end card
of each column fully exposed. Four columns will have 7 cards, the others only 6.
- Apart from the columns, there are four single card free cells and four suit piles
(foundations). The objective is to get all the cards into the foundations.
- Single exposed cards may be moved:
- Column to column, placing the card on a card of the next rank and different colour
suit. (E.G. Place a red 3 on a black 4.) (Aces are low.). Empty columns may be filled with any
suit or rank.
- Column to FreeCell, any exposed card as long as there is an empty cell.
- FreeCell to Column, as column to column.
- Column to suit home pile. Next card in order, starting with the Ace, ending with the
King. Each suit is completely independent.
- FreeCell to suit home pile. As column to suit home pile.
To improve the game play, multiple cards may be dragged at once as long as there are enough empty
FreeCells such that the move could be made by moving the cards individually.
There are many keys you can use to make your game playing more efficient:
- Space
- Auto-finish—In foundation games, this moves all the cards it can up to the foundations
- z
- Undo
- x
- Redo
- n
- New Game
- g
- Replay the same game
- f
- Flip a card from the stock
There is also a card-finder keyboard feature you can use to help you locate cards:
- a
- Highlight the aces
- 1 though 9
- Highlight the cards with the rank pressed
- 0 or t
- Highlight the tens
- d, c, h, s
- Highlight the cards with the suit
- r, b
- Highlight the red or black cards
You may combine the rank keys with the suit or color keys. For example, if you hold down the "5" key and
the "d" key then only the 5 of diamonds will be highlighted. "a" and "r" will highlight the red aces.
There are ways to use the mouse to make your game playing more efficient:
- Left Click
- Move the card to the most logical place (might not be the best move, however)
- Left Click in Empty Area
- Auto-finish—In foundation games, this moves all the cards it can up to the foundations
- Right Click
- Undo
You can use super moves to make your game playing more efficient.
Clicking or dragging a card that isn't immediately accessible will attempt to move all the cards
above it in its stack until the move is valid. The effect will be the same as clicking each card. If you
cancel the drag or undo the move, all the cards will go back to where they were.
Dragging a card or cards to the middle of a stack will attempt to move all the cards above the
destination out of the way. The effect is the same as clicking each card. To see where the cards will
move, hold the dragged card(s) at the destination for a second. If you decide to move the dragged
card(s) somewhere else, just drag them there and the other cards will go back to where they
were. Undoing the move will also move the cards back.
If you drag a card or cards to the middle of a stack and the cards that move away would be valid to
move back on top of the dragged card(s), then they'll slide out of the way and let you just slip the
card(s) in.
