Parlour
Casual games suite
Twenty-eight quiet card and puzzle games built for older players: large by default, no adverts, no timers, no accounts.
- games, all playable
- 28
- touch targets
- 64 px
- automated checks
- 505
// What it does
Twenty-eight games
Cards, tiles, puzzles and board games, from Solitaire, FreeCell and Spider to Mahjong, Crossword, Sudoku, Backgammon and Draughts.
Large by default
20 px text and 64 px touch targets from the first screen, for somebody who left their glasses in the other room. The size setting only makes it larger.
Unlimited undo
Every move can be taken back. A slipped finger never costs a game.
A hint in every game
Stuck is never the end: each game can show a move that helps.
Challenges
Three a day and packs of hand-picked deals, played in any order, with no streak to lose.
Opponents to suit
Every game played against the computer lets you choose how hard it plays.
High contrast
Black on white or white on black, with a line around everything, plus a choice of table cloths and card backs.
No network at all
No adverts, no accounts, nothing sent anywhere. It runs off disk in a browser, or as a Windows program.
// Screens
Captured from the running game, not mocked up. Select one to see it full size.
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Eight seconds of play: opening Solitaire from the home screen and turning the deck, at a person's pace. -
Solitaire on a green baize: large cards, Hint and Undo always at the top, and the state of the game in words. -
Mahjong on wood: match the tiles in pairs, in four difficulties. No characters to read. -
Backgammon against the computer, at gentle, steady or sharp. -
A crossword with plain clues, three sizes, an on-screen keyboard and no clock. -
High contrast: black and white with a line around everything, for eyes that need it. -
The home screen on an upright tablet: the promises first, then the games, each in a card large enough to press.
// The problem
The people who play Solitaire most are sold it wrapped in adverts, countdown timers and tiny type. Large text is offered as a setting, when it should be the starting point.
// What was built
- Card, tile, puzzle and board games, each with rules and a hint.
- Challenge packs, themes and a high-contrast mode.
- A Windows program for the family laptop, besides running straight off disk in a browser.
// Engineering
- Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no network access at all.
- 20 px body text, 64 px touch targets and AAA contrast as the defaults, not options.
- An Electron wrapper for Windows, keeping saves across updates.
Built with
- Status
- BUILT / NOT YET ON SALE
- What it is
- Casual games suite
- Public address
- None yet — not launched
// How it got here
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Sep 2026
Started, with Solitaire first; hints and computer opponents within days.
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Sep 2026
All twenty-eight games playable, each with its rules and a hint.
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Sep 2026
More Mahjong layouts, and daily challenges without the pressure.
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Sep 2026
Table cloths, card backs and a high-contrast mode.
-
Sep 2026
A Windows installer, so it can live on a family laptop.
// What comes next
- A price and a way to sell it. The plan is a small one-off purchase, with no adverts and nothing to buy inside the games.
// Notes on Parlour
A passing suite proves what it was pointed at
Parlour finished with twenty-eight games and a green test suite, and then four bugs turned up in the first few minutes of opening it in a real browser. None of them threw an error. Each was a kind of thing a test suite is structurally blind to.
Parlour is being built against a rule, not a spec
A suite of quiet card and tile games for people the casual-games market treats badly. The constraint that shapes every decision is that large is the DEFAULT, not a setting: the trap is adding a large-text option and then designing the default for yourself. So body text starts at 20px, touch targets are 64px rather than the 44px mobile guidance calls a minimum — that guidance assumes steady hands — and the size setting only scales up.