Most of us associate Solitaire with Klondike, the version of the game that was included with Microsoft Windows for many years.
However, there are over 500 different Solitaire types and variations, and Spider Solitaire is one of our faves. That's why we're ecstatic that developers Neal Taparia and Darshan Somashekar have released Spider Solitaire Challenge for mobile and web.
In case you're unfamiliar with the game, Spider Solitaire is taking two shuffled decks of cards and sorting them into eight clean stacks, all in numerical order.
You're dealt 54 cards in ten heaps at the start of each game, with the top card in each pile facing up. After that, you can deal yourself another ten cards at any time – albeit you can only do so five times because you only have 50 cards left after the original deal.
To play, simply place one card on top of another of the same number in ascending order - 7 on 8, ace on 2, and so on. You can shift the entire stack at once if you have a straight sequence of cards, such as 3,4,5,6,7.
Unless you're using two suits, in which case you can only move a stack if all of the numerically arranged cards in it are from the same suit. Mixed stacks are unyielding, trapping cards behind them until you can disentangle the knot you've created.
Because of this innovative twist, Spider Solitaire can be very easy to learn if you only play with one suit, or exceedingly difficult if you play with two or more. It's either harmless or deadly, just like a spider.
Spider Solitaire Challenge would be a must-have game even if it didn't have any gimmicks, but it does have a terrific bonus function. Its creators collaborated with institutions such as MIT and Encyclopedia Britannica to build a variety of unique cards honoring amazing people from the past and today.
There's a deck dedicated to civil rights heroes, a deck dedicated to the world's most inspirational inventors, a deck dedicated to the main personalities in the suffrage fight, and so on.
There are also several well-known card designs to choose from, such as numerous lovely Jones decks and the classic Parrots.
Spider Solitaire Challenge can be played in your browser or downloaded from the Google Play Store.
