Solitaire Games You’ve Never Heard of Before Which You Should Try

Labyrinth

Overview: Labyrinth is a builder game with a single deck that you will find in a few solitaire apps, such as BVS Solitaire. It is unusual in that it has an important spatial aspect to the game-play. The four aces start as foundations, which you build up by suit to Kings. There’s also an initial row of eight cards. Each time you draw from the deck you do so with eight cards in the style of Spider, making a second row, then a third row, etc. However gaps in the rows are not filled (except for the top row), which is important because you need gaps to play to the foundations. Cards can’t be moved within the tableau but you can play any card from the top or bottom row, or if a card has a gap above or below it.

Thoughts: The game’s name originates from the gaps that get created as you play, which gives the tableau a superficial resemblance to a labyrinth. It’s hard to win, especially if you don’t get the 2s and 3s out early, so you need a favourable luck of the draw to have any chance of success. I’ve only won about 5% of the roughly hundred games I’ve played. But when you do start making progress in playing cards to the foundations, more and more gaps appear, opening up more opportunities, and a win is incredibly satisfying. But even a loss isn’t too painful, because games only take a few minutes at most. For a two-deck game with a slightly similar feel (but without gaps), take a look at Babette, which is most satisfying when playing with relaxed rules that allow three redeals of the stock.

Roaming Proils

Overview: Roaming Proils is a member of the family of Fan games, and like Ascension above, is found in the book The Complete Book of Solitaire by Pierre Crepeau. It has been implemented in the Allgood Solitaire app, and someone has also created a video demonstrating game-play with actual cards. Like many games in the Fan genre, an entire deck is dealt into 17 fans of three cards each, but each fan consists of two face-down cards and one face-up. The extra card makes up a special reserve pile that can only be filled with a King when empty. Most regular rules for Fan games apply: you’re building up foundations by suit from Ace through King; cards can only be moved within the tableau one at a time; and empty spaces can’t be filled. But there’s one big change: you can only move cards onto a card of matching value. Furthermore you’re limited to placing a maximum of three cards of the same value together, which is called a “proil”.

Thoughts: The use of three card “proils” consisting of cards of matching values is a fascinating limitation that really changes the feel of the game. Once you do have a proil of cards, it means that the remaining card of that value is stuck elsewhere in the tableau, until either you can play it to the foundations, or if you play a card from the corresponding proil to the foundations. The use of the special reserve spot for Kings is an excellent rule that prevents a bad deal of Kings blocking other essential cards. The creator of Allgood Solitaire came up with a variant he calls Open Proils where you begin the game with all cards face-up, and I agree that this is a significant improvement because then you have open information from the start. AllGood rates the odds of winning Roaming Proils as 5% and Open Proils as 15%, but I’ve found that I can win almost a third of my games of Open Proils if I begin with a starting layout that has the Aces and Kings favourably positioned. This has become my new favourite Fan game!

Crossword

Overview: Like the name suggests, in Crossword you’re making a crossword type layout, in a 7×7 area which starts with a single card in the center. You place cards from the deck one at a time into an empty space that is adjacent (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) to an existing card. Jacks, Queens, and Kings are placed in a separate reserve pile at the start of the game, and these function like the black squares in a crossword, and can be placed face-down (without being adjacent vertically or horizontally to another such card). The goal is to make the numbers in each row add up to an even number, and also the numbers in each column add up to an even number.

Thoughts: The rules of this game are very simple and easy to understand, and the concept is brilliant. It really proves to be a rewarding tactical puzzle, and is more difficult than you might expect to achieve successfully. I enjoyed this creative solitaire game a lot due its unique feel. It will especially appeal to people who enjoy working with numbers. Originally published by George F. Hervey in his book Enjoying Card Games for One, Peter Arnold has published a variation that is much easier to win in his book Card Games For One, and you’ll find good implementations for both in the Solitaire Forever app.

Empire

Overview: Empire is a clever game that only uses 18 random cards from a single deck. You deal fifteen of these face-up into three rows of five cards each, with an additional three cards making a face-down stock. A card can “capture” any card that is immediately adjacent horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, if it is either the same value or suit. At any time you can flip one of the cards from the stock, and must then place it immediately into one of the empty spaces; all three must be played by the game end. As spaces appear, you can also capture a card of matching value or suit if it’s in the same row or column and there are no other cards between them. The goal is to get all the cards into a single stack.

Thoughts: This is an original solitaire game created by Jim Owen, and when I first played it on BVS Solitaire I knew right away that it belonged on this list. It’s an ingenious game that reminds me of the tactical elements of a game of chess, and also some of the tactical elements of more well-known non-builder games like Accordion and Royal Marriage. While it is very simple to learn, real skill is needed to get a win. Before your very first move you should assess the entire board, and figure out which cards should be the ones that you capture with. It’s easy to capture cards of the same suit as you play, but eventually you want to get down to a single suit. You’ll need to rely on matching values to eliminate a suit, and keeping cards of matching values in play until the latter stages can really help. Bringing in cards from the stock of the game can help or hinder your efforts, and it’s wisest to bring these in during the mid-game phase.

Line Up

Overview: Line Up is a game I came across in the Solitaire Suite app from Rikki Games. Effectively it is like a mini version of Gaps (Montana), but with a stripped deck. It only uses the cards Ace through 5 in each suit. You’re working with four rows of six columns, into which the cards are randomly laid out face-up, plus four empty spaces. You can move a card from anywhere in the grid into an empty space if it is the same suit and one less in value than the card on its right, or is the same suit and one more in value than the card on its left. The goal is to have each row filled with cards of the same suit in order from Ace through 5.

Thoughts: This is an extremely fun tactical challenge, that is super easy to learn, and yet can prove more tricky than you might think. The key lies in placing the Aces and 5s, since no card can be placed on the left of an Ace, and no card can be placed on the right of a 5, so you have to try to avoid situations where that happens otherwise you’ll get stuck. Getting Aces into the first space of every row will give you a strong start. The fact that you can complete a game in just a couple of minutes adds to its appeal. Other abridged versions of Montana/Gaps include Four Ways, Journey, and Long Trip, all of which use 36 cards (6s through Kings) laid out in four rows of nine columns.

Mixtures

Overview: Mixtures was suggested by Leopold Jeandet and implemented in the BVS Solitaire app, and I haven’t found it elsewhere. It is easy to learn and play, using a single deck with a starting tableau of eight face-up cards. Pairs of cards can be discarded from this tableau if they are of adjacent value, e.g. an Ace can be discarded together with a 2 or together with a King. Empty spaces are immediately replenished from the stock. The goal is to work through the entire deck, discarding all the cards.

Thoughts: Pairing games tend to be simpler games, and usually require matching cards that are identical in value or that add up to a certain value. This game changes that up, which makes it immediately stand out from the many other games in this genre. Because there are thirteen different values from Ace through King, you can’t always simply pair the same set of values (e.g. 1s and 2s, 3s and 4s etc), otherwise you’ll be stuck with the Kings. Furthermore you are forced to work with whatever cards are in the tableau, and sometimes that will compel you to make matches you’d prefer to avoid. You can get stuck if you play without any thought, and having some sense of which values haven’t yet been discarded can increase your chances of success; as can a healthy number of “undos” in the closing stages.

Rectangular Rovers

Overview: I came across Rectangular Rovers in a 2008 article about patience games in The Guardian, and I’ve not been able to find mention of it anywhere else, at least not under that name. To play, you used a stripped deck that consists only of the Aces through Fives, along with the Jacks. You deal these into a rectangle shape with four rows of six cards, and then remove the Jacks to leave blank spaces, into which you can move an adjacent card. The goal is to rearrange the cards so that within 20 moves each line consists of the four cards of the same suit in the correct order.

Thoughts: This works much like a traditional sliding puzzle, the most well known of which is the 15 puzzle, which has the goal of moving 15 numbered tiles into the correct sequence within a 4×4 frame. But while that only has a single space, having four spaces at the start of the game increases your options significantly. What I like about this game is how it offers a very different way of using playing cards than most other solitaire games.

Slide

Overview: Slide is an obscure but excellent game that was created by Warren Schwader in 1988, and it can be played online for free over at Solitaire Network. The layout consists of four rows of six cards each, making a grid of 24 cards. Cards from the stock are turned up one at a time and played to the right or left of a row, making that entire row move sideways to accommodate the new card. The card pushed off the row is discarded and out of play, unless there is a card of matching value in that row, in which case it gets recycled to the bottom of the stock instead (which you want, because it helps you keep the game going). The goal is to remove cards by aligning three cards of the same value in a vertical column. This earns you points corresponding to their value multiplied by the number of sets removed so far.

Thoughts: Slide is vaguely reminiscent of the spatial and matching elements of Monte Carlo, but involves considerably more strategy and more interesting choices. It’s a good strategy to try to keep cards in the game by only sliding off a card if there is one of matching value in that row. Removing sets of higher valued cards will also earn more points later in the game, since the multiplying factor is higher. Empty spaces produced by the removal of sets can also be filled directly by the stock, and creating these spaces will also prove very useful. Slide is a very unique and enjoyable solitaire game, where decisions really matter.

Final Thoughts

Bear in mind that in order to make this list, I also played a lot of obscure solitaire games that weren’t much fun for me at all. I’ve only included games here that I actually enjoyed, and that provided a welcome change up from the more common solitaire games we typically come across.

Most of the above games work very differently from the run-of-the-mill solitaire games that we tend to be familiar with. At the very least, you’re certain to come across some very novel solitaire games here, and you may be surprised by how much fun can be had with them. Happy exploring!

Final note: You can certainly play these with an actual deck of playing cards, which is particularly satisfying with an attractive custom deck. But when it comes to learning the rules of a new solitaire game, the best way to play is with the help of a reliable software program, like the ones offered by BVS Solitaire. Their program for Windows is one of the best I’ve tried, and they also have excellent versions for Mac and for mobile devices.

About the writer: EndersGame is a well-known and respected reviewer of board games and playing cards. He loves card games, card magic, cardistry, and card collecting, and has reviewed several hundred boardgames and hundreds of different decks of playing cards. You can see a complete list of his game reviews here, and his playing card reviews here. He is considered an authority on playing cards and has written extensively about their design, history, and function, and has many contacts within the playing card and board game industries. You can view his previous articles about playing cards here. In his spare time he also volunteers with local youth to teach them the art of cardistry and card magic.

Last update date: 10/14/22