Cell Mates

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card order and colours
3. The parts of the layout
4. Setup
5. Your turn
6. Not a word
7. End of the game
8. Difficulty levels
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Cell Mates is a cooperative patience for two: you play one FreeCell layout together and win or lose as a team. (A patience, also called solitaire, is a card game in which you sort a shuffled deck by fixed rules.) Your goal is to sort the whole deck onto four foundations, one per suit, from Ace up to King. The catch: one of you may move only red cards, the other only black cards, you take turns making one single move each – and you may not talk about your plans. You understand each other only through the moves you make.

• Players: 2
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers and 6 pass tokens (coins, matches or buttons) – up to 10 for the easy level.

Cell Mates is a new game written for this site and not yet playtested. It is our own cooperative version of the classic patience FreeCell: the layout and the building rules are FreeCell's, the colour split, the single moves and the pass tokens are new. The numbers of free cells and pass tokens are a first guess and the first thing to tune (see "Difficulty levels").

Card order and colours

The Ace is low: A – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – J – Q – K. ♥ hearts and ♦ diamonds are red, ♠ spades and ♣ clubs are black.

The parts of the layout

• Tableau: the eight columns in the middle. The cards of a column are spread downwards so you can see all of them.
• Exposed card: the last card of a column – the one nearest to you, not covered by any other card. Only this card of a column can be moved.
• Free cells: four spaces above the tableau, on the left. Each holds exactly one card of any kind. You share them.
• Foundations: four spaces above the tableau, on the right, one per suit, built from Ace to King. They are empty at the start.
• Pass tokens: a small pile beside the layout. They belong to the team.

Setup

1. Choose colours: before you deal, decide who plays red (♥ ♦) and who plays black (♠ ♣). In the examples, Anna is red and Ben is black.
2. Shuffle and deal all 52 cards face up, row by row from left to right, into eight columns, exactly as in FreeCell: columns 1–4 get 7 cards, columns 5–8 get 6 cards. Leave room above for the four free cells and the four foundations.
3. Put 6 pass tokens beside the layout (Normal level).
4. Sit next to or opposite each other, so that both of you can reach every column. Red begins; after that you take turns.

Your turn

On your turn you move exactly one card of your colour – or you pass (see below). A move is one of these:

• Column → column: move an exposed card onto the exposed card of another column that is one rank higher and of the other colour. This is called building down in alternating colours: a red 9 goes onto a black 10, a black 8 onto a red 9. Since you only ever move your own colour, you always build onto one of your partner's cards.
• Column → free cell: move an exposed card into an empty free cell.
• Free cell → column: move a card from a free cell onto a fitting exposed card, or into an empty column.

An empty column takes any card, not only a King.

One card only. FreeCell lets you move a whole run at once as a shortcut – here there are no group moves. A run is a group of cards at the end of a column built down in alternating colours, such as 8♥ 7♠ 6♦. You move it card by card, and because its colours alternate, you can only do that together (see the example).

Foundations are free. On your turn, before and after your move, you may put as many cards of your colour onto the foundations as you like – exposed cards and cards from the free cells. An Ace starts a foundation; then comes the 2 of the same suit (the 2♥ on the A♥), the 3, and so on up to the King. This doesn't count as your move, and you may do it on a turn in which you pass, too. You may never move a card of your partner's colour, not even to a foundation. Cards on a foundation stay there.

Passing. Instead of moving a card, you may return one pass token to the box. The tokens belong to the team. You may pass even if you could move – a pass is often better than a move that spoils your partner's plan. When no token is left, you must move if you can.

No going back. The card you moved on your last turn may not go straight back to the place it came from – otherwise pushing one card to and fro would be a free pass.

Not a word

During the game you may not give any information about the game: no talking about cards or plans, no pointing, no gestures, no sighing, no hand hovering over a card. You may talk about the rules, whose turn it is and how many tokens are left. All cards are face up, so you both see everything – except what the other one is planning. You read that from their moves.

Example: The start shown above; Anna (red) begins. She would like to move the run 8♥ 7♠ 6♦ at the end of column 3 onto the 9♣ at the end of column 6. In FreeCell that would be one quick sequence move; here it takes five single moves, and they alternate between Anna and Ben by themselves:

1. Anna puts the 6♦ into a free cell.
2. Ben sees what she is up to and puts the 7♠ into a second free cell.
3. Anna moves the 8♥ onto the 9♣. This uncovers the A♦, which she puts onto a foundation straight away – for free.
4. Ben moves the 7♠ from its cell onto the 8♥.
5. Anna moves the 6♦ from its cell onto the 7♠.

Both cells are empty again, the run lies on the 9♣, the A♦ is home and column 3 now ends in the 5♦ – and nobody has said a word.

End of the game

• You win together when all 52 cards are on the foundations.
• One colour home: once all 26 of your cards are on the foundations, you have nothing left to move. From then on your partner plays alone, one move after another, and needs no pass tokens.
• You lose when it is your turn, you can't move any card and no pass token is left. The game is also lost when you both see that no more cards can reach the foundations – for example when you are only pushing the same cards back and forth. Then you may say so and stop.

Difficulty levels

FreeCell on its own can be won almost every time. What makes Cell Mates hard is the colour split, the single-card moves and the silence. The arithmetic behind the levels:

• Free cells: with c empty free cells (and no empty column) you can move a run of up to c + 1 cards card by card, as in FreeCell: 4 cards with three cells, 5 with four, 6 with five. An empty column is worth even more.
• Moves: a run of n cards takes 2n − 1 single moves – 5 for three cards, 7 for four. They alternate between you by themselves, but only if it is the turn of the player whose colour lies at the end of the run. Otherwise the player whose turn it is first needs a harmless move somewhere else – or a pass token.
• Pass tokens are your budget for turns in which one of you has nothing sensible to do: on Normal that is six such turns in the whole game, on Hard and Expert three.

For Easy, leave room for a fifth free cell; for Expert, simply use only three. These numbers are a first guess – not playtested and not checked by a computer simulation. If you win easily, go up a level; if you keep running out of tokens, go down one.

Tips for beginners

• Think in pairs of moves. Before you move, ask what your move lets your partner do – and what you will do after their reply.
• Leave your partner a harmless move when you set something up. If every move they have would wreck your plan, they must pass and spend a token.
• Use the free foundation plays. They cost no move, and every card you put home may uncover a card for your partner – in the endgame they often decide the game. Only hold back a low card if your partner still needs it to build on.
• Don't fill the last free cell. Full cells leave your partner fewer moves and the team no room for moving runs.
• Start a run on the right turn: the player whose colour is at the end of the run makes the first move.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Signal coin (easier): each of you gets a coin. At the end of your turn you may put it on an exposed card or an empty column – it means "please leave this free". You may move it or take it back at the end of any of your turns.
• Mixed suits (harder): Anna plays ♥ and ♣, Ben ♦ and ♠. Building still goes by colour (red on black), but runs no longer alternate between you by themselves – you have to read each other even more carefully.