Islands: A New Single-Player Card Game created by Bryan and Caiqian

The card game, “Islands”, was born from the combined efforts of Bryan Cropper and Caiqian Wu. Bryan first attempted to create a single-player grid-based card game that would be more skill based than solitaire. After tinkering for several days, he showed a prototype to Caiqian. Together they perfected it. On April 11, 2011, while visiting the 117 islands of Venice, Bryan and Caiqian finished fine-tuning the game and dubbed it “Islands.”

Setting up the game

1) Make sure you have a full deck made of 52 cards (with Jokers removed). Shuffle the deck.

2) The deck should be face down. From the top of the deck, place 12 cards face up on the table in a 3 card by 4 card rectangle. You are now ready to solve the grid on the Easy level!

Feel free to try more challenging initial grid set ups as suggested by the diagram below.

3) Check to see if there are any strings* in the initial grid, you must clear them now and make them into land* (as you would do upon creating a string during a turn) before starting your first turn. If the initial setup contains a string that makes the grid impossible to solve, follow steps explained in the Impossible Initial Setup Procedure.

*Strings and land are defined in the sections, Clearing Strings and Making Land.

The Turn

1) Flip the card from the top of the remaining deck.

2) Place the card face-up on the grid. You may only place it on top of land or face-up cards.

3) If any strings are formed, all cards of the string(s) MUST be cleared and made into land.

4) Repeat this process until you’ve won the game or your deck has no more cards.

At any point during the game, you may choose to look at any face-up card on the grid, even those underneath other face-up cards. You may NOT look at any face-down cards (this includes all land and the cards in your remaining deck other than the top card).

How to Win

You win if, at any point during the game, there are no more cards face-up on the grid. You lose if there are still cards face-up on the grid when you run out of cards in your remaining deck.

Clearing Strings

In order to get rid of face-up cards on the grid, you need to clear strings and make land. A string can either be a set (three or four of a kind) or a run (three or more consecutive cards of the same suit). Each card in the string must connect to the next card on one of its sides (diagonal connections do not count.)

Only the top cards of the grid are used in strings. Strings do not have to be connected in straight lines or in ascending or descending order (for runs). Aces can either be high or low, not both. Below green checks indicate valid strings.

Making Land

Once you have made a string it is time to make land! Making land is the only way to get rid of face-up cards on the grid. In the diagram below the pile of flipped-over cards is the land. To make land:

1) Be sure you have a connected, valid string.

2) Choose one location amongst the three or more cards that make up the string to form your land.

3) Gather ALL of the cards from string to that one location on the grid.

4) Flip ALL of the cards in that location on the grid to the face-down position, including any cards not involved in the string.

Here is an example of making land once you have a string. For this example, The 8 of diamonds is chosen as the location where land will be formed.

Since land can be made on any point of the string, this move would also be a legal choice.

Land could NOT have been made at the king’s position because the king was not part of the string.

Once land is made, it stays face-down for the rest of the game. For the remainder of the game you can place a card from the remaining deck on top of land during a turn.

Chain Reactions

If a new string is revealed by clearing a previous string, you must also clear the newly revealed string on the grid (and any other new strings created as a result, and so on) and turn them into land before you may flip over the next card from the top of the deck.

Multiple String Possibilities

If there is a card that may be used for two unique strings, you may only choose to use that card for one string, but not both.

Impossible Initial Setup Procedure

Impossible initial setups are caused by initial strings that isolate one or more cards. If you are in this situation do the following.

1) Remove all of the cards in the string that makes the setup impossible. Shuffle these cards into your deck.

2) Deal out new cards where the string used to be.

3) Start the game as normal.

Here is an example where a string on the initial grid isolates two cards and therefore makes the game impossible to win.