Solitaire

Solitaire demands almost nothing except attention, and that is exactly why so many people still reach for it. By our assessment, it remains a clean, readable card game for a single player, built around sorting suits and columns, checking every move, and accepting that luck can decide a lot. Its strength is the same one it has always had: it is quick to start, quiet to play, and easy to fit into a spare minute. The downside is also familiar, because a bad deal can make a round feel dead before it begins, and the repetition is part of the package. In practice it is a small puzzle that asks for patience without asking for much setup. Compared with larger digital games, Solitaire is almost bare, and that bare shape is why it endures.