The classic card games have been a nice complimentary addition to the many generations of the Windows OS for years. In fact, it's hard to imagine one without the legendary Solitaire - it'd be as good as a Happy Meal without French fries or a cup of hot cocoa without marshmallows.

However, if you want to enjoy the good old card games from the Windows 98/XP etc. now, you'll have to start Microsoft Solitaire Collection download, since it's not included in the OS packages anymore.

What's on the menu?

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary, Microsoft Solitaire remains the most played video game of ALL TIME! Inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame in 2019, millions of players choose Microsoft Solitaire Collection because it offers the BEST Solitaire card games in one app – Klondike Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, FreeCell Solitaire, TriPeaks Solitaire and Pyramid Solitaire! Objective: Free Spider Solitaire is a solitaire game where the objective is to order all the cards in descending runs from King down to Ace in the same suit. Once a run has been completed, for example King of clubs down to Ace of clubs, then the whole run will be removed from the table. Once the table is completely empty the game has been won.

Microsoft Spider Solitaire Free Download Windows 7

Microsoft Solitaire Collection game isn't a single game - it's a whole bundle of innocent looking time-killers. All in all, you get to savor five timeless card games.

The bundle includes:

1) Solitaire aka Klondike - alternate red & black numbers in a descending order to pinpoint the 4 aces and build upon them.

2) Spider - you have 8 card columns (104 cards in total) to clear off the table. But the fewer moves you employ - the bigger you triumph is. You can switch between single/all four suits modes.

3) FreeCell - another immortal classic. Just like in Klondike, you must locate the aces, using the red & black principle. However, you can only use four cells for moving the cards around in. This game rewards strategic thinking and if you're experienced at chess even a bit, your superiority will be unquestionable.

4) TriPeaks - choose cards in a sequence either up or down to wipe them off the table. But here's the catch: your moves or deals are limited. A great portion of randomness is present in TriPeaks too.

5) Pyramid - a lovely brain-twister, in which you should pair two cards that add up to 13 in order to get rid of them and reach the top of the pyramid. Passionate, a bit addictive playing is guaranteed.

At first glance, some of the games may seem to be knotty and perplexing just a bit. But don't fret: in actuality, you'll master them after one or two practice rounds.

Should you be bored of playing solo, the game has a little competitive element to make things spicier and more fetching. Every game in the bundle has an online leaderboard assigned to it. In order to conquer an eminent position in the Leaderboard, you're supposed to complete daily challenges and earn the Honor Badges. Although the cornucopia of the high score tables for every single game kind of torpedoes the idea: they are not that much densely populated because of that.

Microsoft Spider Solitaire Free Game

As you become a champion by completing challenges one by one (chiefly they are endurance challenges) you will be awarded with the Stars. The Stars will, in turn, unlock even a bigger multitude of new challenges as a part of Star Club.

The pretty suites

Microsoft Spider Solitaire Windows 10 Version

The interface of Microsoft Solitaire Collection is clean, neat and plain. Landscape/portrait mode switching works finely at your command.

You have the colorful suites, laconic green table, and selectable themes, some of which, like Aquarium are animated. Or you can pick a nicely atmospheric Fable theme, in which the table is covered with yellow parchment, cards are shabby, Joker is represented as the Grim Reaper and you can hear some vintage pizzicato music in the background along with chickens clucking. Only a mug of ginger red ale and a walnut pipe are missing.

Controlling the game is marvelously easy, especially on mobile devices. Elementary tapping & dragging do the trick and it all feels pretty smooth, maybe because you're the only one to decide at what tempo to play.

And of course the Microsoft Solitaire Collection review wouldn't be full without mentioning what platform are compatible with it:

Desktop Spider Solitaire Windows 10

• Android.

• Windows 8/8.1.

• Windows 10

• Windows 7

• Windows Server 2012/R2.

• Windows Phone.

• Xbox Live.

If you're a proud iPhone/iPad owner then don't be discouraged - iOS version exists as well.
The game is free to download, but you'll have to watch 30-seconds long ads on a regular basis. There's no one-time payment to remove that eyesore - you can only buy a monthly/yearly subscription - $1.49/$9.99 respectively.

Spider Solitaire Rules

Objective

Spider Solitaire is a solitaire game where the objective is to order all the cards in descending runs from King down to Ace in the same suit. Once a run has been completed, for example King of clubs down to Ace of clubs, then the whole run will be removed from the table. Once the table is completely empty the game has been won.

Setup

Spider Solitaire is played with two full decks, 104 cards. At the beginning 54 of the cards are divided between 10 tableaus, the first 4 tableaus have 6 cards each, the other 6 tableaus have 5 cards each. The top card of each tableau is turned face up, the others are face down. The remaining 50 cards are placed in a stock at the top of the screen.

Valid moves

A card can always be moved onto a card that is one higher in rank. You can for example move a 7 of clubs and put it on an 8 of clubs, or an 8 of hearts, diamonds or spades. However, even though you can move cards onto other cards in a different suit, the objective of the game is to create runs in the same suit, so a run will only be removed from the table if it's all in the same suit, a full run in different suits doesn't do anything for you. (Although it can be useful to move cards onto other suits just to get them out of the way).

You can move multiple cards together if they are all part of a run in the same suit. E.g. if you have 8 of clubs, 7 of clubs, 6 of clubs, then you can click the 8 and move them all together onto a 9 of any suit. However if you have 8 of clubs, 7 of hearts, 6 of diamonds, then you can't move them all together, only the top card.

If a tableau is empty then any card or partial run is allowed to be moved onto it.

A full run does not have to be the only thing on a tableau to be removed. For example, a tableau might have three facedown cards and then a full run from King to Ace in the same suit and then the run would disappear, and the three facedown cards would remain.

Adding cards from the stock

When there are no more moves that can be made in the tableaus then you can click on the stock in the upper left corner. That will move 10 cards from the stock onto the tableaus, one card onto each tableau. Try not to do this until you are sure you have no other moves to make. It is required that there is at least one card in each tableau when the stock is clicked. If there is an empty tableau on the table you must first move one or more cards onto it before you can click on the stock.

Scoring

You start with 500 points. For each move you make one point gets subtracted. For each run you remove from the table you'll get a 100 extra points. Example: if you've managed to make three full runs in 70 moves you'll have 500-70+3*100 = 730 points.

Difficulty

The game can be played in three different modes, Spider 1 suit (beginner), Spider 2 suit (intermediate) and Spider 4 suit (advanced). In beginner mode there is only one suit (spades), in intermediate mode there are two (spades and hearts) and in advanced mode there are all four suits. There are the same number of cards, 104, in all modes.