Motivation

As a kid, my mother taught me her favorite game of solitaire. It's played with two decks and I have never seen anyone else playing it.

When I started getting interested in java, I decided to turn the game into a Java application, just to see what the language was like. Of course, having an application wasn't any fun at all, so I turned it into an applet.

Object of the Game

The Object of the game it to get all of the cards in their appropriate piles on the top and right hand side. The piles on the TOP are the ACES piles. The cards on the right are the KINGS piles. The first 13 piles in the playing field are the "value" piles. They correspond to the card "values" Ace, 2, 3, ..., 10, Jack, Queen, King.

How to Play

You don't have to deal the cards because the game now does it for you, but the method of dealing is interesting. In the deal, you deal the cards in the original pile out to each of the 13 piles in the playing area. You can deal one card at a time by hitting Deal1 (no longer available) or you can deal them all out by hitting Deal (also no longer available). While you are dealing, every time a King shows up, you get 1 card in your PLAY pile. When an Ace shows up, you get 2 cards in your PLAY pile. After the 13th card dealt, you get 3 cards in your PLAY pile. Finally, any time the card that comes up matches the "value" of the pile that it is to be placed in, you get 3 cards for your PLAY pile. Once your ORIGINAL pile it empty, you can begin playing from your PLAY pile.

Click on the PLAY pile. When you press the mouse button, the card will flip so that you can see it. When you unclick the button, the card will be put in the pile corresponding to the "value" of the card. That pile will then be placed at the bottom of the screen.

Play a card into the KINGS or ACES pile by clicking on it and dragging it to the appropriate pile. In the ACES pile, you first put an ACE, then the other cards of the same suit in ascending order. In the KINGS pile, start with the KINGS, then the other cards of the same suit in descending order.

When you can make no more moves, click on the downpile again to get another card. Continue until you are out of cards in the downpile. If you've gotten all 8 of the KINGS and ACES piles filled at the end of the game, you WIN!!!

You can hit the PlayAll button to let the computer finish playing for you. It's not very smart about choosing the best options when there are multiple play possibilities.

You can hit the restart button to start a new game.

Critique of the game

  1. FORMAT!!
  2. Needs a cleaner screen update.
  3. Needs context sensitive buttons. Deactivate the things when they shouldn't be used
  4. Needs something neat when you win.
  5. Could use a nice background, with a names for the piles.

Thanks

  1. Thanks to Sun for trying to create a defacto programming standard for the internet.
  2. Thanks to Microsoft for their card images.
  3. Thanks to cjs@netcom for pointing out those images.
  4. Finally, thanks to the haynes@asel.udel.edu for the Suit images.

What's next?

And now, back to my regularly scheduled research....
dlheine@leland.stanford.edu