---
title: "Solitaire games"
package: "@phaser-ae/solitaire"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-0
released: 2026-10-19
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "Klondike, FreeCell and Spider patience as rule tables over one engine, with an animation journal, undo, real-move hints and deals a solver has proven winnable."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/solitaire
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Solitaire games

The patience card games, Klondike, FreeCell and Spider, as three rule tables over one engine. Moves come back as a
journal to animate, a hint is always a real move, and a solver deals games it has actually won.

## What it does

A card game here is a deal, a set of piles and a small number of legal moves. Each variant is a table of rules:
how many tableau columns, foundations and free cells, whether there is a stock and what clicking it does, how many
cards it draws and how many times it may be recycled, what may land on an empty column, what stacks on what, which
runs lift together and whether foundations take single cards or whole runs. The engine plays any table, so the three
built-in games are configuration, and a patience game of your own is a `Variant` you write.

The table's verbs, `move`, `draw`, `autoMove` and `collect`, each return an ordered list of steps: cards moving, a
card flipping, a draw to the waste, a recycle, Spider dealing a card to every column, a completed run leaving, a win
or a dead end. Your presenter plays them at its own pace. Undo and redo treat a cascade, a move that flips a card that
completes a foundation that frees a column, as one step. FreeCell's supermove is counted for you from the free cells
and empty columns.

A random deal cannot be won perhaps a fifth of the time, and the player cannot tell. `dealWinnable`, or `winnable` on
`createSolitaire`, deals until a bounded best-first solver has won one and marks the game `proven`; when every attempt
runs out of budget it says `unproven` instead, or throws if you ask it to be strict. `rateDeal` gives the length of
the solver's winning line as a measure of difficulty. The hint comes from the same move finder the solver uses, so it
never suggests something the rules refuse.

## Features

- **Three games built in** — Klondike with draw one or draw three and limited or unlimited redeals, FreeCell with any
  number of cells, and Spider in one, two or four suits.
- **Rule tables** — a `Variant` sets the piles, the stock, the stacking and run rules and the deal, for patience games
  beyond the three.
- **Step journal** — `move`, `flip`, `draw`, `recycle`, `dealAll`, `complete`, `win` and `stuck` steps in play order.
- **One-step undo** — undo and redo unwind a whole cascade together and roll the move count back with it.
- **Real hints** — `hint` and `findMoves` come from the solver's own move finder, ranked by value.
- **Winnable deals** — a solver-proven deal, with `dealProof` saying `proven`, `unproven` or `unchecked`.
- **Deal rating** — `rateDeal` reports whether the solver won and in how many moves.
- **Auto-finish** — `canAutoComplete` says when nothing is face-down, and `collect` sweeps every playable card up.
- **Seeded and headless** — the same seed gives the same deal, and games autoplay and rate without a screen.

## Good for

- **Classic Klondike solitaire** with draw-one and draw-three modes and a "winnable deals only" option.
- **FreeCell**, with the number of free cells as a difficulty setting.
- **Spider**, from the gentle one-suit game to four suits.
- **Daily deals**, where a seed gives every player the same game and the solver says whether it can be won.
- **Patience games of your own**, such as a variant with different columns, stacking or stock rules.
- **3D card tables**, since the rules and the journal are independent of how the cards are drawn.

## Make it yours

Each built-in game takes options: `klondike({ drawCount, redeals })`, `freecell({ cells })` and `spider({ suits })`,
and `createSolitaire` also accepts the names `'klondike'`, `'klondike-3'`, `'freecell'`, `'spider'`, `'spider-1'` and
`'spider-2'`. The winnable search takes a node budget per candidate deal, a number of attempts and a strict switch.
Beyond those, a `Variant` is yours to write: the counts of each kind of pile, the stock, the draw count and redeals,
the rules for empty columns, stacking and lifting runs, the foundation rule and the deal itself.

Two materially different games: a draw-three Klondike with three redeals and proven-winnable deals for players who
want a challenge they know can be won; and a one-suit Spider with ten columns and a stock that deals a card to every
column, for a relaxed game where runs complete themselves into the foundations.

## A quick look

A Klondike deal the solver has won, a move, and its steps animated:

```ts
const table = game.solitaire.createSolitaire({ variant: 'klondike', seed: 7, winnable: true, attempts: 40 });
if (table.dealProof !== 'proven') { /* not proven: tell the player, deal again, or raise maxNodes */ }
const r = table.move('t3', 4, 't6');
for (const step of r.steps) animate(step);
const hint = table.hint();
```

## Works with

- `cards` — required: the deck and piles the games are dealt from.
- `card-art` — card faces and backs to draw the table with.
- `card-motion` — cards that glide, flip and deal in style, from the journal's steps.
- `blackjack` — for a casino card game rather than patience.

## Good to know

- The solver is a bounded beam search, not an exhaustive one: a "no" means not found within the budget, not
  impossible.
- At the default budget a quick check won about 3 of 8 Klondike deals, 6 of 8 FreeCell deals and none of 8 Spider
  deals, so Spider with `winnable` usually comes back `unproven` unless the budget is raised a long way.
- Check `dealProof` before you tell a player a deal is winnable.
- The rating is the length of the solver's line, not a proven minimum number of moves.

---

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