Klondike Solitaire

Solitaire is a popular game, and over the years many variations have sprung up. Klondike is perhaps the most popular version, the one that people tend to learn from grandparents, parents, or the small suite of games that comes with Windows. Despite its simplicity and ubiquity, Klondike Solitaire remains an entertaining card game, and this basic rendition is quite playable, but not particularly impressive.

The program’s interface is plain but attractive, with the cards displayed on a patterned green background. Unlike other versions of solitaire, this program doesn’t allow for any customization of the game’s appearance; users can’t choose from multiple decks of cards or change the background color. In fact, although the graphics are decent and the game is playable, the program lacks many features that are common to even basic versions of solitaire. There is no draw-one option, only draw-three. There is only one style of scoring. Users can’t even double-click on cards to send them to the foundation piles; each card must be dragged and dropped. This version of Klondike Solitaire isn’t bad in a pinch, but even the version of the game that comes with Windows has more features. In fact, the only thing about this game that is the least bit customizable is the music; a cool jazz track can be turned on and off. The program doesn’t have a Help file per se, but it does include brief instructions for playing solitaire.

Klondike Solitaire is free, but it contains advertisements for other games. The program installs and uninstalls without issues. We recommend this program to all users seeking an extremely basic version of solitaire.