Pyramid
The adding up solitaire. Twenty eight cards in a triangle, and every pair of cards that makes thirteen comes off together. A deal is quick to play and hard to clear, and the right pair at the right moment opens the whole pyramid up. Free, full screen, and it saves itself.
The game
Pyramid lays twenty eight cards out face up in seven rows: one card at the top, then two, three and so on down to seven at the bottom, each row lying over the lower half of the row above. The other twenty four cards wait in the stock, with the top one face up and in play. A card is free when no card lies on it, so at the deal only the seven cards of the bottom row are free.
Take off any two free cards whose values add up to thirteen. An ace counts one, the number cards their number, a jack eleven and a queen twelve, so an ace goes with a queen, a two with a jack, a six with a seven. A king counts thirteen by itself and comes off alone. The top card of the stock and the top card of the waste pile are free too, so they pair with the pyramid and with each other. When no pair helps, draw: the stock's top card moves to the waste and the next one turns up. When the stock runs out the waste turns back over to make a new stock, twice by default, so you go through the deck three times. Clear the pyramid to win the deal. When no pair, no king and no draw is left, the game tells you there are no moves left, and a new game counts that deal as a loss.
Tap a card to hold it, then tap its partner to take both off, or drag one card onto the other. Tap a king to take it off. Tap the stock to draw. Undo is a tap away, a game you leave is waiting when you return, and a tally keeps your deals, wins, best score and times.
Two ways to win
By default a deal is won when the pyramid is cleared, whatever is left in the stock and the waste. The Rules tab carries a stricter rule, Whole deck, where every card has to come off: the pyramid, the stock and the waste alike, with the last pair often the waste's top and the stock's top together. The same tab sets the passes through the deck to one, three or unlimited, and carry Covered pairs, off by default, which lets a free card pair with the one card it lies on when nothing else covers that card. Your statistics keep the two win rules apart, so a whole deck win is never compared with an easier one.
Standard scoring
Every card you take off pays five points, a pair's two cards and a king alike, so a cleared pyramid is worth one hundred and forty and a whole deck two hundred and sixty. Undo is free and the score never drops below zero. Timed play adds a finishing bonus of three hundred less the seconds the deal took. Or turn scoring off and just play.
What the scoring pays
The Scoring setting picks the ruleset, and the Timed switch adds the last row.
| Standard | |
|---|---|
| Card removed | +5 |
| Undo | Free |
| Lowest score | 0 |
| Timed play | Bonus of 300 minus the seconds taken, never below 0 |
The rules we play by
These are the rules as the well-known descriptions of the game agree on them: twenty eight cards face up in seven rows; twenty four in the stock with its top card in play; pairs that add up to thirteen taken from the free cards, the stock's top and the waste's top, kings alone; and two redeals of the waste. The default win is the pyramid cleared, the relaxed rule; the whole deck rule is the strict game, which is won far more rarely. A deal that is lost carries no penalty for the cards left behind: a loss is a loss. The rest of the table is as you would expect from the other games here: the cards bounce when you win, the deal animates, and a controller or the keyboard works as well as a mouse or a finger.
Anywhere, free
On a phone you can add the game to your home screen and it opens like an app. There is a desktop app for Windows and Linux for people who want it in the taskbar again. An account is optional and only saves your statistics and settings between devices. The same site has TriPeaks, Spider, Freecell and Klondike Solitaire, Minesweeper and Yacht, and Spades and Hearts to play with friends by a four-letter code or invite link, all free.