FreeCell Variants
FreeCell has a whole family of cousins, each one taking the familiar game and turning a single dial. Build by suit instead of color, hand out more cells or fewer, widen the table, lock the empty columns to Kings, and you get a game that looks the same at a glance but plays quite differently. The 6 on this site each change a rule or two, and the sections below take them one at a time.
If you have not met the original yet, start with how to play FreeCell, because everything here builds on it.
What they all share
Every game on this page keeps the bones of FreeCell. You are still filling 4 foundations, one to a suit, each climbing from the Ace to the King, and you still have a row of cells off to the side that each hold one card as temporary parking. The whole deal is face up from the start, so nothing is hidden and every one of these is a puzzle of order rather than luck.
What changes from game to game is how you are allowed to build in the columns, how much spare room you get and what a cleared column will accept. Those small differences add up to games that feel genuinely their own.
Baker's Game: build in suit
Baker's Game keeps the FreeCell layout exactly, 8 columns and 4 cells, and changes one thing: you build the columns down in the same suit rather than in alternating colors. A nine of spades goes only onto a ten of spades, never onto a red ten.
That single switch makes the game markedly harder, because the loose color matching that bails you out so often in FreeCell is gone, and a run only holds together while the suit does. An emptied column still takes any card you like. If FreeCell has started to feel routine, this is the natural next step up, and it is the game that gave the whole family its name.
ForeCell: Kings only on an empty column
ForeCell leaves the color building alone, so the columns still go down in alternating reds and blacks just as in FreeCell. The catch is at the empty columns. Where FreeCell lets you drop any card at all into a gap, ForeCell allows only a King, the same restriction Klondike places on its spaces. It sounds minor and it is not.
A cleared column is the most valuable space you can hold in this family, and tying it to Kings means you cannot always use the room you worked to open. Plan your spaces around where the Kings are or you will clear a column you then cannot fill.
Three Cells and Two Cells: less room to work
These two keep every FreeCell rule and simply take cells away. Three Cells gives you 3 rather than 4, and Two Cells leaves you with just 2. Because the cells are both your parking and the gauge of how big a stack you can shift in one go, losing them bites twice.
Fewer cells means fewer cards you can carry at once and less space to break a column apart, so each one you remove tightens the screws. Two Cells in particular asks for real care, since a single careless parking can leave you with nowhere to move at all. They are the games to reach for when you want FreeCell with the safety margin trimmed away.
Eight Off: more cells, suited building
Eight Off pulls in the other direction and hands you 8 cells instead of 4, though 4 of them already hold a card when the deal lands, so you begin with 4 free. The board is wider too, 8 columns of 6, and like Baker's Game it builds down in suit.
Empty columns take only a King. All those cells make it feel roomy and forgiving, and most deals do come out, but the suited building still demands you keep your suits in order rather than leaning on color. It is a fine place to get comfortable with same suit play before trying it with the tighter four of Baker's Game.
Seahaven Towers: 10 narrow towers
Seahaven Towers spreads the pack across 10 columns of 5 rather than the usual 7, which is where the towers in the name come from. You get 4 cells, but 2 of them arrive already filled, so only 2 are free at the start. Building is by suit, and an empty tower takes a King alone.
The mix of narrow columns, suited runs and just 2 cells to spare makes it a tight, planning-heavy game with a distinct feel, and yet most deals are still solvable with care. Of all the variants here it is the one that least resembles the FreeCell it grew from.
Which one to try
If you want a gentle step away from FreeCell, Eight Off is the friendliest, with all those cells to lean on. For a real test, Baker's Game and Seahaven Towers both make you keep suits in order and punish a loose plan, while Three Cells and Two Cells keep the familiar color building but slowly starve you of room. ForeCell sits in the middle, ordinary FreeCell until the moment you try to use an empty column.
None of them needs a fresh set of skills so much as a small rewiring of the FreeCell habits you already have. As with every game on the site, the deals here are certified, so each one you play has a solution to find.
Common questions
What is the difference between FreeCell and Baker's Game?
One rule. FreeCell builds the columns down in alternating colors, while Baker's Game builds them down in the same suit. The layout, the 4 cells and the foundations are identical, but suited building is stricter, which makes Baker's Game the harder of the two.
Is Eight Off easier than FreeCell?
In some ways, yes. Eight cells give you far more room to maneuver than FreeCell's four, and most deals can be solved. The catch is that Eight Off builds by suit rather than color, so the extra space is balanced by a stricter way of stacking.
Why does Seahaven Towers start with cards in the cells?
The deal works out that way. Ten columns of 5 use 50 cards, which leaves 2 over, and those 2 are placed into cells at the start. So you begin with 2 of the 4 cells occupied and only 2 free to work with, which is a big part of why the game plays so tight.
Are these FreeCell variants winnable?
As a rule they are very winnable, more so than most solitaire, though the suited games ask for sharper play than FreeCell does. Every deal on the site is checked for a solution in advance, so whichever variant you pick, what you are dealt can be brought to a finish.