Looking for an obscure card game...

[techieMoe]

When I was in eighth grade I used to play an old game on our computer lab's Macintosh LC-IIs. It was a very simple game based on the card game of the same name: Fifteens.

I really liked it, and recently I had an inkling to try and find that game again. The original Mac OS 7 game is probably long gone (and I have no way of playing it anyway), but I've looked for perhaps a freeware collection of card games that included it. So far I've not found any.

The game may not be called "Fifteens" in its proper form, which could be why I'm having such trouble. I'll attempt to explain the concept so that if any of you recognize it under another name, you can let me know. If you find an electronic version of it, even better.

Cards are arranged in a 16-card square four cards across and four cards down. All the cards are face up. The object of the game is to eliminate combinations of cards that add up to 15, until the entire deck has been removed. Each time you remove a set of cards, you draw from the deck to fill in the holes (as long as there are still cards in the deck).

Number cards 2 through 9 are face value. Ace is 1. Tens can only be paired with themselves, and only all 4 at the same time. The same goes for face cards (Jack, Queen, King).

I've managed to find one place (Zylom.com) that allows you to play a flash-based version of the game online, but I'm curious if there's a local machine option out there. Anyone recognize this?

[Zelmo]

PySol has a game called Fourteen. The layout is different, but the idea is the same (except that you find pairs adding up to 14).

[fingal]

I think the game you've described is called 'four-leaf clover' ... I found a description of the rules here.

I once had a book about patience (a penguin paperback) which kept me entertained for hours. This man wrote it ... He's a world authority on patience card games.