Card game simple simon

It became somewhat popular being featured in some computerized collections of Solitaire card games, but its origins possibly predate its implementation as a computerized game. At the beginning of the play the cards are dealt all facing the player, starting from 3 columns of 8 cards each, and then 7 columns with 7, 6, and so forth cards until 1.

A card can be placed on any card on the top of a column whose rank is greater than it by one with no cards that can be placed above an Ace. A sequence of cards, decrementing in rank and of the same suit, can be moved as one. An empty column can be filled by any card. A sequence of cards from the king down to the Ace - all of the same suit - can be moved to the foundations.

The object of the game is to place all four suits in the foundations. A mixed-suit sequence of cards can be moved to a different location, given enough empty columns or parent cards to place intermediate components and sub-sequences of cards on. So instead, he opted for a scheme in which every sequence of moves conducted by the solver ended up in either clearing a column, moving a card on top of a card of the same suit, or more rarely moving a column to the foundations.

Implementing this strategy turned out to be sufficient for solving many games, and so it was kept. The statistics presented by the solver when run over a range of random games are quite interesting.

Most of the rest were unsolvable by the solver but not necessarily by a human player , with a median of 8 iterations. Stephan's Kulow analysis of these statistics was: "But what you found out, is what makes the game a joy: either it's impossible to solve and you see it in the first moves or it's solvable and you only have the find the best route.

A programmer called Michael Mann later on added another type of move to Freecell Solver which placed cards above a parent of a different suit.

This change was not incorporated into the mainline Freecell Solver, because it increases the necessary time and iterations to solve many games considerably.

On 30 May, a more up-to-date version of Freecell Solver with more bug-fixes and other modifications was used to collect statistics on the first 5, PySol Simple Simon boards. Of the boards that the solver could not solve, it gave up after iterations or less at roughly The solutions that were generated by the solver for the solvable boards were validated as correct by Games-Solitaire-Verify , a CPAN distribution written in Perl for such tasks.

New Releases. Desktop Enhancements. Networking Software. Trending from CNET. Developer's Description By Kevin White. Simple Simon,despite its name,is a actually very skillful solitaire.

The goal in this game is to move all cards to 4 foundations by suit from A to K. A card can always be moved onto a card that is one higher in rank. You can move multiple cards together ifthey are all part of a run in the same suit. Free spaces can be filled by any card. The game is won when all cards are built onto the foundations. Full Specifications. What's new in version 1. Mop, and Scorpion. At the beginning of the game, all cards are shuffled and dealt face up onto the tableau into columns.

The first three columns have eight cards each. The fourth column has seven cards. From there, the number of cards in each column decreases: The fifth column has six cards, the sixth column has five cards, the seventh column has four cards, the eighth column has three cards, the ninth column has two cards, and the tenth column has only one card.

All fifty-two cards are thus laid out in a total of ten columns. During play, the open bottom card of each column is available for play. This card may be placed on an open card of the next highest sequential value.

A card of any suit can be placed on a card of any other suit of the next highest sequential value. However, only sequences of cards of the same suit may be moved together as a whole unit. The goal of the game is to create full sequences of each suit, from King down to Ace. When a sequence is fully complete, it can be moved to the foundation at the top. When all cards of all four suits are in the foundation piles, the game is won. The cards are already laid out on the tableau at the beginning of the game, so there is no redeal or shuffling.

You must play the cards as they are. While a card of any suit can be placed on any other suit, only cards of the same suit can be moved together. For example, the Four of Spades can be placed on the Five of Spades or the Five of Diamonds, but if placed on the Five of Diamonds, the player can only move the Four of Spades from that column. If placed on the Five of Spades, the player can move the Five of Spades and the Four of Spades together as one move, here likely onto a Six in another column.

Any card or sequence of the same suit can be moved into an empty column, and thus they are often used as extra spaces in which to place unwanted cards. Kings cannot be placed on any other card and thus can only be moved to an empty column.

No card can be placed on an Ace as it is the last card in the descending numerical sequence. Once a full sequence has been created, you can move it to the foundation pile. If you are playing an online version of the game, the computer will automatically do this for you. The game is one when all cards are in the four foundation piles arranged by the four suits: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs. Because all of the cards start out on the tableau face up, take note of where all the cards are.

Take a minute to look over the entire tableau and create a strategy of which cards you will try to free first.