TriPeaks
The quick solitaire. Three peaks of cards, one pile to play onto, and a streak that pays more with every card you add to it. A deal takes a few minutes, a good one is a chain of plays that clears a whole peak at once. Free, full screen, and it saves itself.
The game
TriPeaks lays twenty eight cards out as three peaks: three cards at the tops, then rows of six, nine and ten, each row overlapping the one above. The ten cards of the bottom row lie face up and the rest face down. One more card starts the waste pile, and the other twenty three wait in the stock. A card turns face up as soon as nothing lies on it.
Play any face-up card that is one rank higher or one rank lower than the top card of the waste, whatever its suit. An ace goes on a king and a king on an ace, so the ranks wrap all the way round. The card you play becomes the new top of the waste, and the next card must be one away from it, so a seven, then an eight, then a seven again is a fine chain. When nothing on the peaks will play, turn the next card from the stock onto the waste. Clear every card from the peaks to win the deal. When the stock is empty and no face-up card will play, the game tells you there are no moves left, and a new game counts that deal as a loss.
Tap a card to play it, or drag it onto the waste. 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.
Streak scoring
Each card played without a draw in between pays one point more than the card before it: the first card after a draw pays one, the next two, then three, and so on, so a long chain is worth far more than the same cards played in short bursts. Clearing the top card of a peak pays fifteen points, and the third and last peak pays thirty. Every draw from the stock costs five points and ends the streak, and an undo costs five as well. 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.
| Streak | |
|---|---|
| Card played in a streak | +1, +2, +3 and so on |
| Peak cleared | +15, the last +30 |
| Draw from the stock | -5 |
| Undo | -5 each |
| 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 in three peaks over rows of six, nine and ten, the bottom row face up; twenty three cards in the stock and one turned to start the waste; a free card played one rank up or down from the waste, ace and king wrapping; a card turning up when the cards over it are gone; and the streak score of one, two, three and so on a card, fifteen for each of the first two peaks and thirty for the last, with five off for a draw. 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 Spider, Freecell and Klondike Solitaire, and Spades and Hearts to play with friends by a four-letter code or invite link, all free.