Patience is a Virtue

On small screens, you may want to use the Options menu to hide the Location, Toolbar and Directory Buttons.

Running on a fast machine improves performance.

At the start of the game, seven stacks are dealt across the top. The first has one card facing up. The second has one card facing down, and one facing up. The third has two cards facing down, and one facing up... The seventh has six cards facing down and one facing up. The remaining cards are left in the pile in the bottom left.

A card can be moved onto another card on the stacks if the other card is the next face value, and a different colour. So, you can put a red six on a black seven. (Cards are moved by dragging them, and you can drag more than one card at a time). A king has the highest value and can not be put on any other card. However, a king is the only card that can be placed on a blank stack.

If one of the stacks across the top of the screen shows the back of a card, clicking on that card turns it over.

Cards from the pile on the bottom left can be turned over by clicking on them: this moves the card into the discard pile, just to the right. Clicking on the bottom left pile when empty moves all cards from the discard pile into this pile.

The objective of the game is fill the four space along the bottom right. When these are empty at the start of the game, you can only put aces there. After you've put an ace down, you can move a two of the same suit on to that ace. When all the cards are in these space, the game is over, and you will be told so.

You can't win every hand the computer deals you, so if you get stuck, hit the "New Deal" button and the computer will deal a new set of cards.

• A button to automatically complete the game, when you've obviously won.
• Computer dragging of cards, for example when you let go in the wrong place, or when dealing cards.
• Choosing from a set of card graphics, or even use your own images.
• Choose from a slight variation of rules (e.g., deal out 3 cards at once).
• Internet recording of who's managed to finish quickest.
• Proper Internet multi-player games, such as BlackJack. (Don't hold your breath).

These are the improvements I've already made: (in chronological order)

• Faster loading in Netscape 3.0 (used zipped up classes)

Watch this page for more updates.