Cruel is a solitaire card game based on

Perseverance Perseverance may refer to: Behaviour * Psychological resilience * Perseverance of the saints, a Protestant Christian teaching * Assurance (theology) Geography * Perseverance, Queensland, a locality in Australia * Perseverance Island, Seychelles ...

. Cruel became popular when it was published as

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

for Microsoft Windows by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

in 1990 as part of the

Microsoft Entertainment Pack ''Microsoft Entertainment Pack'' , also known as ''Windows Entertainment Pack'' or simply ''WEP'' , is a collection of 16-bit casual computer games for Windows. There were four Entertainment Packs released between 1990 and 1992. These games w ...

for

Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predeces ...

. Cruel has since been remade for other platforms by several vendors.

Rules

Cruel uses a standard deck of 52

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...

s. The aces are placed face up to act as the foundations, upon which the suits will be built in sequence. The rest of the cards are shuffled and then dealt in 12

tableau Tableau (French for 'little table' literally, also used to mean 'picture'; tableaux or, rarely, tableaus) may refer to: Arts * ''Tableau'', a series of four paintings by Piet Mondrian titled '' Tableau I'' through to ''Tableau IV'' * ''Tableau vi ...

piles, each with four cards. The aim of the game is to place all the cards on the foundation piles, ordered from ace to king, using an unlimited number of moves. For each move the player chooses any one of the top (exposed) cards from a tableau pile and places it either: * on another tableau pile – on the ''next higher'' value in the same suit (for example, the 5♣ can be placed on the 6♣), or * on a foundation pile – on the ''next lower'' value in the same suit (for example, the 8♣ can be placed on the 7♣). Only one card may be moved at a time. At any time the player may have the tableau piles re-dealt, whereby they are collected together in sequence (from left to right, row by row) without shuffling and dealt in piles of four. This is activated by the "Deal" button. The game is won when all the cards are on the foundation piles. The game is lost if no more moves are possible even if re-dealt.

Rules

References

See also