Freeware Solitaire

A guide to freeware Solitaire card game collections for Windows

Pysol variants and history - a short guide

PySol is an open source (GPL) and platform independent computer software with solitaire games (card games and other types of single-player games). It is written in the Python programming language and it uses the Tk GUI toolkit. It is available for X11 (Unix, Linux, BSD), Macintosh and Windows.

PySol was originated by Markus Franz Xaver Johannes Oberhumer. The first version (v.1.00) was announced on the comp.os.linux.misc newsgroup on Saturday September 12, 1998: "PySol 1.00 - a nice Python Solitaire card game".

Pysol featured a "very nice look and feel", had unlimited undo & redo, the ability to load & save games, hints and player statistics. The most important features were the ability to use custom-made carddecks (from v. 2) and the extensible solitaire engine. The first version had only four solitaire card games (Gypsy, Irmgard, 8x8 and Klondike), but this number has steadily risen through the years (complete list of user visible news).

The first PySol Logo (1998)

PySol logo from 2000

Klondike - from Linux Gazette 33 (oct. 1998)

'Klondike' - Linux Gazette 33 (oct. 1998)

'Braid' in v.2.00 (Nov. 1998)

When Larry Ayers wrote about PySol v. 1.02 in Issue 33 of Linux Gazette, October 1998, the game had reached 9 solitaire gard games. Ayers were "impressed by this game's quality and playability... [and] ..card-dealing at the onset of a game is nicely animated, and the mouse-dragging of cards works smoothly."

A toolbar was introduced in v. 1.10 (October 2, 1998). Version 2.00 was released with 16 games and support for plugins (November 30, 1998) and it reached 19 games before the end of the year (December 31, 1998, v. 2.01). This version was also the first with a seperate PySol-Cardsets package.

During 1999 PySol v.2.x got autoplay, 'quick play', support for changing card backgrounds and background table tiles, and the number of games rose to 40 (v.2.99 - October 14, 1999)

Sam Hart published this Pysol comics Saturday, Oct. 23rd, 1999

PySol version 3.0 was released November 6, 1999 with 111 solitaire games. The big increase in games is due to the fact that the author "bought a new solitaire book and implemented about 65 new games". This was also the first version with a setup file for Windows. But it still needed a separate installation of Python 1.5.2 first. Version 3.10 (December 25, 1999) added support for sound effects and background MP3/MOD music.

In version 3.20 (January 19, 2000) the work of T. Kirk on the plugin FlowerSol was incorperated into PySol. 8 Hanufada type games (Oonsoo, Pagoda etc.) were added. In the earlier version 3.10 (December 25, 1999) Kirks 19 cardsets were added. PySol has now 151 solitaire card games.

In the beginning of 2000, PySol got its own domain/redirector: http://pysol.tsx.org. It still redirects to the original pages at http://wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at/mfx/pysol.html

Screenshot 'Union Square' -
website Feb. 2000 - v. 3.40

Russian Bezique -
cardset from FlowerSol

Screenshot 'Grandfather's Clock -
website Feb. 2000 - v. 3.40

PySol 3.20 (January 19, 2000) had the first fully integrated installation file for Microsoft Windows. No need anymore for a separate installation of Python. "The Windows version ships as a completely self-contained setup file". This version had 151 games. Version 3.40 (February 12, 2000) had 161 games and 54 more cardsets were available.

PySol 3.40 for Windows.
'Die Böse Sieben'

PySol 3.40 for Windows.
'Die Böse Sieben'
with Maritime carddeck

PySol 3.40 for Windows
'Pagoda' (Hanufada game)

Download PySol 3.40 Windows (3,6 mb)

Download 54 cardsets for PySol 3.40 (10,3 mb)

PySol v.4.00 (April 12, 2000) raised the number of games to 173. There is now support for both Tarot type games and for Mahjongg games (the solitaire tile-matching version). 6 days later (April 18, 2000) version 4.10 was released with a new game driver which supported 100 mahjongg variants. The number of solitaire games then rised from 173 to 273.

HexADeck and Memory type variants were included in v. 4.20 (April 28, 2000) and the number of games were 287.

PySol 4.20 for Windows -
MahJongg Inca

PySol 4.20 for Windows - 'Good Measures' and 'Get Around' cardset

PySol 4.20 for Windows - 'Spanish Patience' and 'Houbigant' cardset

Download PySol 4.20 Windows (3,7 mb)

Download 60 cardsets for PySol 4.20 (14,3 mb)

The development continued rapidly: v. 4.30 with 293 games were released May 23, 2000; version 4.40 on May 30, 2000 and then version 4.41 with 298 games on May 31, 2000.

Download PySol 4.41 Windows (3,8 mb)

Download 71 cardsets for PySol 4.4x (19,6 mb)

With version 4.50 (June 11, 2000) the MahJongg games were taken out and moved to the new PyJongg package. PyJongg: "A Python Mahjongg Game Collection" was never realized. The number of solitaire card games are now 195.

With the next version (4.60) on august 2, 2000, the game number rose to 201. This is the last version for Microsoft Windows. This message from the author was on the website: Due to a major disk problem I've lost a bunch of files, including my whole Windows disk... This means that I cannot provide a convenient setup program for the moment, and Windows/Mac users will have to manually install Python and Tcl/Tk."
If you encounter versions 4.81 or 4.82 for Windows - these belongs to the fork "PySolitaire - Python Solitaire".

Download
PySol 4.60
for Windows
(3,8 mb)

Larger image: Forty Thieves (standard deck)

PySol 4.60 - Forty Thieves (standard deck)

Larger image: Blue Moon (Hard a'Port cardset)

PySol 4.60 - Blue Moon (Hard a'Port cardset)

The development of PySol after this were not so rapidly, only bugfixes. In late 2001 the website was moved to http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/pysol/. These pages are not archived i 'The Internet Archive Wayback Machine'. The last version, 4.82, were released on September 2, 2003 with 202 games. The author promised a version 5 "with lots of improvments". A new version never materialized. During 2004 the access to the cardsets and prebuilt packages disappeared. There was also a message implying that development was abandoned because people was stealing PySol code and selling it in propriate solitaire games.

In 2006 (?) this message appeared: "Fare Thee Well: As of 2004 any work on PySol has stopped, and PySol is officially discontinued. Fortunately a number of enthusiastic people have continued from where I left off and have created the PySol Fan Club edition. Please contribute all your patches and enhancements to this new project. It has been very much fun creating this game, and I hope you will appreciate the result of my efforts. Share and enjoy!". Only the source code remains.

Download 4.82 developers source code (296 kb)

Download 3.01 sound server source code (198 kb)

Review of PySol 4.82 by Hans-Joachim Baader in Pro-Linux.de - January 21, 2004 (in German)

Review of PySol 4.82 by Scott M. Norris at Novell - September 27, 2005

FlowerSol

The first version (1.00) of FlowerSol were released October 24, 1999 by T. Kirk. It contained several new cardsets and Hanufada games including Oonsoo and Pagoda. These games used the hanafuda flower card deck common in Korea, Japan, and other parts of the Pacific. The games were plugins to PySol. And only available for X Windows System (GNU/GPL).

On December 25, 1999 with version 3.10, PySol added Kirks 19 cardsets. In PySol version 3.20 (January 19, 2000) the 8 Hanufada type games was incorperated.

I have not found any news/log to document the development of FlowerSol. The last version was 4.61 which were released on March 10, 2001. The homepage of FlowerSol were not archived by WayBack Machine until April 30, 2001. Then FlowerSol had more than 400 different solitaire games; including 102 MahJongg games, 15 Dashavatara Ganjifa games, 13 Mughal Ganjifa games, 15 Tarock games, Matrix games, 14 Hex-A-Deck games, 33 Hanufada games, and 252 solitaire card games.

FlowerSol - Dashava Ganjifa

FlowerSol - French National Suit Symbols deck

Download FlowerSol 4.61 (4, 8 mb)

Download FlowerSol 4.61 extra cardsets (1,8 mb)

FlowerSol - Hanufada

UltraSol

UltraSol is a continuation of FlowerSol. It was registered on Freshmeat on November 20, 2003. "Ultrasol is a collection of nearly 400 different solitaire or patience games. There are games that use the 52 card International Pattern deck, games for the 78 card Tarock deck, eight and ten suit Ganjifa games, Hanafuda games, Matrix games, Mahjongg games, and games for an original hexadecimal-based deck".

The developer is still T. Kirk and copyright belongs to the Mt. Hood Playing Card Company. GNU/GPL. For Linux it requires Python with Tkinter and Tcl/Tk and a Python Interpreter for Windows. Version 1.02 was released on December 20, 2003. The homepage disappeared in 2007.

UltraSol - MahJongg

Download UltraSol 1.02 (10,1 mb)

UltraSol - American Toad

UltraSol - Klondike

Legacy PySol

Also called PySol Solitaire 4.81. An attempt by Trevor Lowing (July 22, 2003) to create an Windows installer of PySol 4.81. It still needs a Python Runtime installed first.

Download PySol Solitaire 4.81 Lite (5,1 mb)

Download PySol Solitaire 4.81 Full with cardsets (22,1 mb)

Download PySol Solitaire 4.82 (July 30, 2003) - 5,5 mb

PySolitaire

PySolitaire (Python Solitaire) is Trevor Lowings second attempt. A fork of PySol 4.81 which has reincorporated the MahJongg games. The first (and only) version, 0.10, was released on August 11, 2003. It has 304 solitaire games; with over 200 solitaire card games and almost 100 mahjongg layouts. Also Hanafuda, Hex A deck, Taroc and Puzzle games. 3 tilesets and 101 cardsets. GNU/GPL. But this version also needs an installation of the Python Runtime first.

PySolitaire: Red Moon

PySolitaire: Free Napoleon

PySolitaire - MahJongg Deep Well

Download PySolitaire 0.10 (33 mb)

Download PySolitaire 0.10 Lite (5,2 mb)

PySol Fan Club Edition

And then, at last, came a true windows version. The first 'sharp' version of PySol Fan Club Edition (PySolFC) were released on February 21, 2007. It contained all the different solitaire game types in previous versions of PySol; 1001 games. The latest version, 2.0, were relased December 4, 2009 and has 1061 games. The main developer is ' Skomoroh'.

The entry on my main 'Freeware Solitaire' page:

PySol icon

PySol Fan Club Edition 2.0

PySolFC is a fork of PySol and a great collection of 1061 games.

There are 722 games that use the 52 card International Pattern deck, 22 games for the 78 card Tarock deck, 20 games each for eight and ten suit Ganjifa games, 43 Hanafuda games, Matrix games, 200 tile-matching Mahjongg/Shisen-Sho games, 15 Trumps only games, and 19 games for an original hexadecimal-based deck.

PysolFC has a nice, modern look and feel and has multiple cardsets and tableau backgrounds. Sound, background music, unlimited undo & redo, load & save games, statistics, hint, demo games, and a solitaire wizard.

Among the supported card games are classics like Aces Up, Baker's Game, Canfield, FreeCell, Forty Thieves, Golf, Klondike, Pyramid, Scorpion, Spider, Yukon, and many more.

OpenSource (GNU/GPLv3) and written in Python (uses Ttk widget set). Main contributer/Author: Skomoroh. Latest version released December 4, 2009.

	Pysol Cardset Maker 0.1 (2,4 mb)
	153 cardsets (35 mb)

Download PysolFC (8,9 mb)

Homepage

Wanted: PySol version 3.20 for Windows

As written before: PySol 3.20 (January 19, 2000) had the first fully integrated installation file for Microsoft Windows. No need anymore for a separate installation of Python. "The Windows version ships as a completely self-contained setup file".

Does anybody have this? Thanks in advance.