What it is

Klondike solitaire. Seven columns, four foundations, twenty-four cards in the stock. One card turns at a time, the pile can be turned over as often as you like, and you can undo as far back as you want.

Nothing here has been made clever. It is the game you already know, which is the whole point of it — every other game on this site takes a moment to work out, and this one takes none.

Every deal can be won

A thousand layouts are built into the file, and every one of them was solved end to end before it was allowed in. If you lose, it was a hand you could have taken.

Better than that: the solver was never allowed to pull a card back off a foundation, so every deal comes out using only forward moves. You never have to find the counter-intuitive one.

You can still play yourself into a corner — which is a different thing from an unwinnable deal. When it happens the felt says so, and taking moves back costs you nothing.

Draw one, or draw three

Draw one is the default, because it is the version people actually finish. Draw three is in the options if you want the older and harder game, with the caveat printed next to the switch: the deals are verified for one at a time, so on three a hand may not come out.

How to play

Move a cardTap it
Pick between two placesTap the card, then the place
Turn the stockTap the pile
Take a move backUndo

A card with exactly one legal home just goes there on a single tap — an ace never needs aiming. A card with more than one lights up every place it could sit, and you tap the one you meant. A tap that isn't a legal move does nothing at all.

On a desktop, click instead of tapping. There is no dragging anywhere in the game and nothing is behind a key.

What it does not do

No account, no ads, no lives, no currency, no unlocks, no daily deal, no streak, no leaderboard, no hint button and no sound. A clock sits on the screen and nothing reads it — you are not being timed against anything.

It keeps one setting on your device, and only if you open Options. Play a whole game without going in there and it leaves nothing behind at all.

What isn't settled yet

Whether somebody who has never seen it can sit down and move a card within ten seconds, with nobody explaining anything. That is the one thing this game is really for, and it has not been tried on a stranger yet.

Sound is the open question. A soft tick as a card lands might make it better under the hand — but the kind of screen this is built for is usually one that wants silence.

Credits and licences

No third-party engine and no embedded typefaces — it uses whichever fonts your device already has. Cover art was rendered from the game’s own card-drawing code.

Seven Columns is original work by Launchway Games.