With time to kill and a deck of cards in your hand it's a good bet that you've found yourself dealing a hand of Solitaire. Some people call it Patience, others refer to the game as Idiot's Delight. Whatever the title you've almost certainly played a hand or two, and chances are pretty good that the first version you learned was Klondike. Seven columns of cards are dealt and remaining cards form a pack that are turned over three at a time to be played on opposite colors of a higher rank You attempt to move all the cards up to their respective suits at the top of the board. If you succeed you win. If you don't, you deal another hand. That's Klondike.
Russian Solitaire is somewhat different, and yet it has many similarities. The cards are dealt in much the same manner as Klondike up to the point where you normally stop dealing cards to the columns. In Russian solitaire you continue to deal the remaining cards. They are dealt face up across the columns until each column shows five cards face up.
The object of the game remains the same as the familiar game of Klondike. To win, all cards must eventually end up in suit sequence in four decks of thirteen cards with the Ace of each suit as the first card in each of these decks. To get to that point, however, the game of Russian Solitaire can be as enjoyable, and as frustrating, as any game of Solitiare you've ever played.
Once all cards are dealt the player examines the last card in each of the columns. In the game of Klondike the player could play on these cards with cards which were a different color and a lower rank. In Russian Solitaire the only legal cards which can be played are those OF THE SAME SUIT of a lower ranks. Instead of placing a black ten on a red Jack you can only play the ten of Hearts on the Jack of Hearts...or the six of Spades on the seven of Spades.
When the six of Spades is at the bottom of one column and the seven of Spades is at the bottom of another there's no problem and the single six is moved on top of the seven. When the six of Spades is in the middle of a column of cards, however, the player must move all the cards (from the six to the end of the column) under the seven of Spades. Remember, there's no deck to draw new cards to play. All action occurs with the cards placed in the initial deal.
Other actions parallel those of the familiar Klondike game. Kings can be promoted to empty columns and those cards which were initially dealt face down can be turned up when all those on top in that column have been moved either to another column or promoted to the final four suit decks.
Since columns in this version of Solitiare tend to be somewhat long we've moved the four suit decks to the side of your screen. We've also given you the option of simply clicking on cards you wish to promote to the suit decks. Saves a bit of time and effort.
A word about levels of difficulty. We've provided five levels with no hidden cards in level one and the traditional number of hidden cards in level five. The LEVEL button acts like a rocker switch. Click on one side and the level changes up, click on the other and the level changes down. You must then choose the NEW GAME button to restart at the new level.
Just one more point. Most of the time, particularly at the higher levels of play, the columns are less than 18 cards long. There will be times, however, when the columns get longer than the height of your screen. We do a little squeeze operation and redraw the column but you may experience some difficulty reading the identity of the individual cards in these long columns. We've found it helps to promote kings to empty columns as soon as possible. Perhaps our next version will come with a screen stretcher.
That's about it. We'd like to remind you that Russian Solitaire is shareware and if you like our version of the game send $5 to Dale Blackwell, 12621 Neon Way, Granada Hills, California 91344. We'll send along our latest version together with whatever new games we've programmed recently. Hope you enjoy the game. Just click to start.
