Eight columns, four open cells, and not one card hidden from you. Almost every FreeCell deal can be won by somebody. Whether it can be won by you is the entire game.
Play FreeCellOpens in your browser. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.
All fifty-two cards are dealt face up into eight columns. You build downward in alternating colours, park single cards in the four open cells at the top, and send each suit up to its foundation from Ace to King. Empty a column and you have somewhere to work; fill all four cells and you have nowhere left to go.
How many cards you can shift at once is not a separate rule. It falls out of how many cells and empty columns you have free, which is why spending a cell casually is the mistake that loses most games.
| Cards in play | 52 |
|---|---|
| All of them dealt face up | 52 |
| Columns | 8 |
| Open cells | 4 |
| Foundations to fill | 4 |
Every other game in this app has to think carefully about information: what the hint may look at, what an opponent can see, whether the deal could have been tilted against you. FreeCell dissolves all of it. You can see the entire deal before your first move.
The complaint that dominates this whole category, that the deal was rigged against you, cannot even be formed here. There is nothing to rig and nowhere to hide it.
It also means we make no winnability claim on this game, and would be wrong to. Our Klondike deals go through a gate where a blind player has to win the hand first, because in Klondike what a solver knows and what you know are different things. In FreeCell they are the same thing, so the gate would prove nothing. Difficulty here is about the shape of the deal, not about what you cannot see.
No advertisements at any point. No account, no email, no sign-up. No timer, no energy, no coins, no daily streak pestering you to come back. This game is free and stays free, and the games that are not free are one payment rather than a subscription.