The recreation is so vivid and “soothing” that it’s clearly a love letter to a bygone era a nostalgic dream by way of Tron (without the crappy virtual-blue grid world). The music is intrinsic to the whole thing: dainty plucks of a guitar underscored by a shimmering wave of magical strings. Instead, they stand on end like walls and ensnare you inside a maze. The cards in this game of Microsoft Solitaire aren’t piled up as if to play the classic game, though.

You’re placed right inside a 3D recreation of the 2D game. The sky box is the default not-quite-teal desktop color of the 1995 operating system and even has a few basic shortcuts placed upon it, like “My Computer” and “Microsoft Outlook”. It’s played in first-person as if looking through the familiar grey frame of Windows 95. It’s the comfortable tabletop green space of this digital card game that Camp Cult‘s debut videogame Solitaire.exe simultaneously celebrates and destroys. No, according to a 1994 Washington Post article it was intended for the many neophytes out there, specifically, “to soothe people intimidated by the operating system.” The drag-and-drop requirement to play Microsoft Solitaire was particularly efficient at giving players practice with the swooping precision of the computer mouse, you see. Microsoft apparently didn’t intend to breed procrastination and bring about the crashing of productivity at every company, small and large. But back in 1990, this game was new and exciting just because it gave office workers a means to entertain themselves while the boss wasn’t around. The sky box is the default not-quite-teal desktop color of the 1995 operating systemįor many of us, Microsoft Solitaire has always been there it may have even been the first game you played (and probably the first one you obsessed over, too).

Solitaire '95 free