Penguin

Penguin is an original game by the British games scholar David Parlett, written for The Penguin Book of Patience, and it is one of the more elegant modern additions to the FreeCell family. Fifty-two cards face up, seven columns, seven cells — and a single idea that makes it its own game.

That idea is the beak. The rank of the first card dealt sets where every foundation starts, and the fourth card of that rank is buried at the very bottom of the first column. So the deal hands you your objective and then hides the key to it under six cards, and the whole game becomes a piece of careful archaeology. It is harder than FreeCell despite having three more cells, because building is suit-strict and empty columns are far less useful than they look.

All 52 cards are dealt face up into seven columns of seven, so nothing is hidden. Seven cells sit alongside, each holding one card. The distinguishing rule is the beak: whatever rank the very first card dealt happens to be becomes the base rank for all four foundations, which then build up in suit and wrap around past King back to Ace. Three cards of that rank are placed as foundations at the start; the fourth sits at the very bottom of the first column, and digging it out is the central problem of the deal. Columns build down by suit, and an emptied column accepts only a card one rank below the beak.

Everything is arranged around one buried card, so plan the excavation of the first column before making any other move. Seven cells sound generous after FreeCell's four, but suit-strict building consumes them faster than you expect — a run you could have kept together in alternating colours has to be taken apart here. The restriction on filling empty columns is severe: only the rank just below the beak will go there, so an empty column is often useless for a long stretch, and clearing one is not automatically progress. Wikipedia notes that while the game is winnable most of the time, genuinely impossible positions arise far more often than in FreeCell.