Two people, a lot of card games
About Aces Up Solitaire
This site is made by Brian Hamilton and Karan Hamilton. It exists to be a fast, quiet place to play solitaire — no account, no download, and nothing between you and the cards.
Who we are
Puzzle people, mostly
We are card players, puzzle solvers and strategy game enthusiasts, and we have been building puzzle sites and apps for years. Between us Brian writes the game logic and Karan reads every page as a player before it goes anywhere near the site.
The division is deliberate. Card games fail quietly — a foundation that accepts a card it should not, a wrap rule that works in one direction only — and the person who wrote the code is the worst possible person to notice that the explanation on the page does not match it.
Why this exists
It started with grandchildren
We began making puzzle games because we are grandparents. We wanted our grandkids to find the games we grew up with, but on the devices they actually use rather than the pen-and-paper versions we learned them on.
That still shapes everything here. A game should open instantly, be understandable in about thirty seconds, and be genuinely pleasant to play on a phone — while keeping enough depth for anyone who wants the strategy and the history behind the rules.
The site takes its name from Aces Up, which is about as pure an example of that idea as card games get: four piles, one rule, thirty seconds to learn, and genuinely hard to win.
Elsewhere
What we have built before
Solitaire is not our first attempt at this. These are the other puzzle projects we have made, and they are where most of what we know about explaining a game clearly came from.
| Puzzle sites | |
|---|---|
| Sudoku for Kids | Sudoku scaled down for younger solvers, with 4×4 and 6×6 grids as well as the full size. |
| Puzzling Fun | A general puzzle site: logic problems, printables and brain teasers. |
| Word Search Online | Playable and printable word searches across a wide set of themes. |
| Mobile games | |
| Cargo Shuffle | A sliding logistics puzzle about getting containers into the right order. |
| Bulls & Cows | The classic code-breaking game, the ancestor of Mastermind. |
| Liar's Dice | Bluffing dice against the computer, with the usual escalating bids. |
What this site is
And what it deliberately is not
- No account, no sign-up, and no download. Every game runs in the browser.
- No progress tracking, leaderboards or streaks. Close the tab whenever you like.
- Every game page states the exact rule version it plays, because solitaire rules genuinely differ between sources.
- No borrowed win rates. If a number is not measured against the page it appears on, it is not on the page.
- No invented difficulty scores. We describe why a game is hard instead.
Where a rule here differs from the version you learned, that is usually a deliberate choice rather than a bug — and the "this version" box on each game page will say so.
What it is not
Built as plain static pages
The site is static HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The games run entirely in your browser, so nothing about your play is sent anywhere and there is no server deciding what you are dealt.
Brian handles the game logic and the rule testing; Karan does the player-clarity read. The full process — the automated rule tests, the layout and link checks, and what happens when somebody reports a bug — is set out on how we build and test these games.
Get in touch
Corrections are welcome
If a rule behaves differently from the page, a move is refused when it should not be, or a board breaks on your phone, please tell us. Reports like that are how most of the rule bugs on this site got found.
The contact page has the address. Naming the game, your device and what you expected to happen makes a report far easier to act on.