As many of you know, I am addicted to Spider solitaire. When I bought my Dell a couple of years ago, it came with XP and the very addictive Spider solitaire game.
Spider can be played at three difficulty levels: Easy (one suit), Medium (two suits), and Difficult (four suits). When I first started playing, I always played medium, and had trouble winning. The game is pretty challenging, and after playing several (probably dozen) games at the medium difficulty, I moved on to four suits.
The four suit game was really challenging at first. This is what I always play now. I usually the game until I win... I try not to ever just quit a game. When I get stuck, I just restart the game, and play it over from the beginning.
I'd like to add right here that this is what I do on my computer about 80% of the time. It's sad, I know, since my computer and my brain could be put to much better uses. But I can't help it.
I used to play majongg this way. The trouble with majongg is that I have some very specific (and not necessarily painful) memories that surface whenever I play the game. It kind of sucks, because I'd like to just be able to play the game without practically reliving my freshman year of college - when I first played the game. So I don't play it much anymore. Spider, on the other hand, doesn't stir up any such memories, so it's something I can't do without any emotional investment.
Until now.
I've had pretty good luck beating each game. Sometimes I have to leave it alone for a couple of hours or until the next day, then when I see it with fresh eyes, I can complete it.There have, of course, been times when I had to reboot my computer, or the power failed, or I just clicked the wrong thing and closed the game, so I can't say that I've finished *every* game that I've started.
That brings me to the last several days. I have been playing the same damn spider game for the last four days, and I can't seem to finish it. I have come pretty close a couple of times, but each time I get backed into a corner and have to start it over.
This caused me to do some research to find out whether you can beat every game or not. It sounds like it is not possible (see the wikipedia entry) but it is possible to hack the statistics, if one were so inclined.
I was going to try to save the game and send it to fellow spider addicts to confirm that it is an unpossible game, but I can't seem to find where the game data is saved. If anyone has an idea of where the saved game goes, please reply. In the meantime, here is a screenshot of the game I can't win:
Mar.08.06 at 11:56 PM
tim writes:
Now, I seem to recall Freecell (perhaps?) had a Game # system.
That way you could keep track of what game you are working on...
diane writes:
Apparently that was a false alarm. I just now completed the game!
Clint writes:
Admitting you have a problem is the first step.
Rachel writes:
Try C:WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
It should be in there somehwere
or
C:WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386
if you struggle with this then you could simply go to your start menu look on the right hand side of it and it should have thinks like run, search etc. pick search and type in spider, this will come up with all of the short cuts and things but the original will be in there somewhere.
Rachel writes:
also how on earth do you play in on medium? easy is too easy but then when i get onto medium i don't know whether to mix them all up and wait untill i can sort them out or just keep them to each suit.
diane writes:
Medium and Difficult are played with the same basic strategy... you want to uncover a free spot on the board as soon as possible to have more options for moving cards around. The more spots you have on the board to move cards around, the easier it is.
When you're trying to play with multiple suits, whether it's two or four, you pretty much have to mix the suits together in order to uncover cards on the board. In a two suit game, if you have a 3♥ to move and open 4♥ and 4♠, one is naturally inclined to put the 3♥ on the 4♥ but that may not win the game!
Jimmy writes:
how do i win on medium its too hard :(
Anna writes:
When I played the game and saved it it just went to My Documents. You could always try to search for it, it is usually called spider.sav So I don't know, I would just try it.
Paula writes:
I just stumbled across this site today. All I can say is based on my experience, most of the games are winnable. The screenshot you posted of the game you can't win appears to be an ordinary game you can easily win. You've probably found after getting further into the game that's it's difficult to win for a reason: not because of the initial cards revealed, but because of what's behind those cards plus the sequence of the deck of cards that will be revealed once you deal. Hope this makes sense. It's all a matter of the random combination of cards that will show up each time you deal.