Does anyone else here play Windows FreeCell? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 10:33:02 pm
content: I'm cringing as I post this, because it's so so stupid.I play a lot of FreeCell (Windoze 7 version). Alot.Got a few questions about it. Anyone else play this (and willing to admit you do)?

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2025, 06:50:38 am
content: I have played it many years ago while I was still on Windows XP. Good way to kill time.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2025, 07:00:37 am
content: I haven't played it a lot lately but I have in the past. I've gone thru the Sudoku phase, and Jigsaws during the pandemic and now I like the Kenken puzzles.I will still fire it up from time to time.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2025, 05:43:53 pm
content: OK, so let me ask some questions about it (this is the Windows 7 version):1. I'm almost positive that the first game that comes up when starting a new session is always a "gimme", not that difficult to finish. Seems like a design element; is this possible? I rarely, if ever, find myself abandoning the very first game because it's too difficult.2. There's a very strange behavior programmed into the game when moving cards from one stack to another, which only happens under certain conditions: when it happens, you cannot move a card (or a stack of cards) if you follow a certain path with the mouse; you have to do a little dance where you move the card(s) straight up the stack you're moving from and then to the destination, at which point the source stack does a little "curtsy" and then allows you to move the card(s).I wish I could tell you exactly what conditions this happens under, but I can't; it seems to happen when there are a fair number of cards in order from the bottom up. I can't for the life of me figure outwhyit behaves this way. Nowhere is this documented.3. The game has some stupid features, like the pop-up dialog that sometimes appears when you're trying to move a stack of cards to an empty column; it asks you if you want to move all the cards or just a single one. WTF? It knows where you clicked in the stack, obviously, so why does it have to ask you this? Annoying.I have a 95% score, which I used to think was pretty good, but there are apparently a lot of people in that game "community" with near-100% scores. I've taken to using the undo feature to back out of games I can't seem to finish rather than damage my score.

author: darkspr1te
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 07:50:44 am
content: You might find some insight into how freecell was coded/works in this blog post,https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/30067/A-FreeCell-game-using-Cards-dlldarkspr1te

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 08:49:40 am
content: It has been to long to remember such details, but I can confirm also using the escape trick to keep my score up.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 05:58:28 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 01, 2025, 05:43:53 pmI... seriously doubt this. It would be rather complicated to implement, requiring a whole new capability to score difficulty and filter them, or a heuristic to transform a deal into an "easy" case like pushing the aces to a predetermined location (which would probably be quite obvious). Unless you have really carefully taken quantitative data, it would be far easier to assume that this is just a psychological artifact. Most freecell games are relatively easy for the experienced player. For instance, if you frequently "play a few games or until you get stuck" you are going to mostly remember the first and last games of a session. The first game is usually easy because most games are easy for an experienced player. The last game will usually be hard because that's what caused you to stop.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 06:00:18 pm
content: Quote from: darkspr1te on June 02, 2025, 07:50:44 amYabbut,cards.dllhas been removed from Windoze 7.Besides, I don't want to know how I can program FreeCell; I want know how thems up in Redmond did it.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 06:03:27 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on June 02, 2025, 05:58:28 pmWell, yes, I'd think that it'd be way too complicated (not to mention kind of pointless) to actually program in such behavior ("first one's a freebie"), and yet I do notice this exact behavior.Must be gremlins.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 10:10:30 pm
content: I remember that tried to start it to see what is it, but never played it.

author: Andy Watson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 10:41:30 pm
content: Not played it on windoze for a while, possibly since windoze 98. But there was a time when I was addicted to it. The "deal" is not as random as one might expect. There used to be (perhaps still is) an eight or ten digit number that you could enter to recall a specific deal - so there must be an algorythm behind the deal. I recall reading somewhere that all except one of the deals could be solved.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 11:02:00 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 01, 2025, 05:43:53 pmYes, that makes perfect sense.I suspect they initialize it in a certain way and perform checks as necessary, which allows the first game to play (well) like that.WHY?It's because the psychology of gaming is well understood, by some people (some of the game developer experts). Who know that certain concepts, help keep players enjoying (partly addicted to) and playing things.So, I would think the first game is especially important for the player to win. Otherwise they can be put off that game, which is usually a bad thing for the game developers.Whereas, later in the game play, it doesn't matter so much (losing some games).A game known as Adventure Capitalist, is a pretty good example, of a game which implements various psychological aspects on-purpose, to keep players coming back for more (i.e. building up a sort of addiction to the game).

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2025, 12:10:00 am
content: I have played quite a bit, and still do. My version of chewing gum when I don't want to do something complex or difficult.1. I haven't seen the strange movement limitation.2. The question about whether you want to move a single card or the whole stack has relevance. FreeCell is basically a Towers of Hanoi variant, and sometimes the movement strategy does not involve moving the whole stack.3. Win percentage depends on the game level. Beginner uses one suit, intermediate uses two and advanced uses all four. If you score 94% on anything beyond the beginner level I worship you. I usually play intermediate and struggle to keep it above 81% and far lower on advanced.4. I suspect the game complexity on startup is an illusion, or the result of a very simple random number generator.5. I play the original FreeCell on Win11. Does require copying cards.dll and the game itself from earlier Windows. I haven't noted any ill effects, but probably will hear dire warnings of security problems from the OS mavens.6. The biggest "bug" I have found is that FreeCell won't do a long stack transfer that involves two open columns. You have to manual move the first part of the stack one open column, then move the next part to a second open column and then move the first part on top the second part. Not really a bug, just annoying after they went to the trouble of automating single slot moves of shorter stacks.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2025, 01:59:33 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on June 04, 2025, 12:10:00 amYes, of course.But the really stupid thing is that the gameknowsexactly how much of the stack I want to move by where I click on the stack, so why is it asking me how many cards I want to move?

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 08:41:21 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 02, 2025, 06:03:27 pmMy point was: I just don't believe any anecdotal observation of this sort of thing unless it's backed up by quantitative data. Recency and confirmation bias are just too strong.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 08:50:18 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on June 09, 2025, 08:41:21 pmI wish I could do that, I really do.Well, I could post the numbers of the first games, but I don't know if anyone would be able to use that as evidence without actually playing them.I also wish I could post evidence of what I find really puzzling, which is that behavior where it absolutely will not let me move a card or stack of cards unless I move the mouse in a certain pattern. Thatmustbe programmed in somehow, but why? And until I can prove it (like never) people will just think it's a hallucination on my part. (But it isn't.)Ah, the mysteries of life ...

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 09:12:09 pm
content: Apparently, if you have updated to the (later?) latest available version of FreeCell. There are around one million starting positions, out of which ALL of them are winnable, except for only eight.The older version(s), were limited to around 32,000 game starting positions.It (speculation), looks like they changed from 16 bit to bigger, random numbers.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2025, 11:09:05 pm
content: There is a website that ranks freecell games by the minimum number of free cells used and the shortest path:https://freecellgamesolutions.com/stats.htmlThat's not necessarily the same thing as "easiest" but it's probably a pretty good proxy.So if you had a database of deal number for 1st games vs second games and ran it through that program and do a statistical significance test.

author: eutectique
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2025, 04:36:30 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 01, 2025, 05:43:53 pmI am pretty sure that the cards in the deal are generated as the game progresses. So, it's not a fixed deal but rather a function of the moon phase, minutes left to 17h00, number of excel sheets open, number of incoming emails marked as important but yet unopened, and who knows what else. Why? Because they can. A conspiracy, I know.An example from a different game of the same vendor:Windows Vista introduced guaranteed openings on the first click.Quote from: Analog Kid on June 01, 2025, 05:43:53 pmPerhaps, this part was coded by a student apprentice on his/her three-week summer assignment. It was good-enough for release but too minuscule to bother to fix.