A few months ago, entrepreneurs Darshan Somashekar and Neal Taparia released Solitaired, a bumper collection of Solitaire games boasting every variation of the card-sorting classic known to humanity. We love Solitaired, but we’re also very happy to see FreeCell Challenge, …
A few months ago, entrepreneurs Darshan Somashekar and Neal Taparia released Solitaired, a bumper collection of Solitaire games boasting every variation of the card-sorting classic known to humanity.
We love Solitaired, but we’re also very happy to see FreeCell Challenge, a standalone version of our favorite game from the expansive Solitaired library. Sometimes you just want to get right to the good stuff.
In case you’re not au fait with your Solitaire variants, FreeCell is a challenging take on the classic card-sorting game in which you have to take a random assortment of cards and organize them into four tidy numbered and suited piles.
No surprises there, but FreeCell mixes things up a bit by dealing all of the cards face up at the outset. All 52 cards are visible in eight columns, with 44 of them locked behind the eight on the top. You don’t get to deal yourself any more, so you need to make do with what you have.
The only wriggle room that FreeCell gives you comes in the form of four cells where you can store up to four cards. This lets you get at the cards underneath, but you need to use cells with care. The more more you fill up, the fewer cards you can actually move on the board.
FreeCell is an intense tactical challenge, since a single wrong move can see you trapped in a dead end, with all your cards tied up.
It’s a great card game, and this particular version comes with an extra layer of awesomeness in the form of a variety of beautiful, informative, and edifying card designs.
Working in conjunction with institutions like MIT, Encyclopedia Britannica, Who2, and others, Somashekar and Taparia have come up with decks celebrating important figures from the worlds of women’s suffrage, space travel, the civil rights movements, and so on.
There’s Notable Women in Computing, Heroes of Space & Flight, Inspiring Inventors, and heaps of other decks besides. There’s even one for the 1980s.
FreeCell Challenge is available right now. You can play it for free online, or by downloading it on the Google Play Store.
