Overview

Blindfold Cat And Mouse Solitaire is a fully accessible card game inspired by the Skipbo card game, for both sighted and visually impaired people, designed for rapid audio play.
Skipbo was originally created by Minnie Hazel “Skip” Bowman in 1967, and is the commercial version of the original card game Spite and Malice, which is also known as Cat and Mouse.

You control this game using iPhone gestures.
First, in the main menu, select one of the Cat And Mouse Solitaire games, and tap it.

The objective of the game is to be the first one to empty your stock pile.
Your stock pile starts off with 30 cards.
All cards are numbered from 1 to 12, and there are a total of 162 cards.
There are also wild cards, but that’s discussed later.

You have a stock pile with 30 cards, 4 discard piles, and your hand of 5 cards.
Your opponent has a stock pile, 4 discard piles, and his hand of 5 cards.
The table has 4 build piles.
All build piles start off empty.
All of your discard piles, and your oppoonent’s discard piles, start off empty.
Both you and your opponents can place cards on the build piles, but only if the card you place is 1 higher than the card that’s already there.
If the build pile is empty, you can only play a 1 card.

In the three and four player games, the stock pile as 20 cards, not 30.

The game starts by both you and your opponent getting 5 cards in each hand.
You go first, and you can play a card on either your discard piles, or the build piles.
If there’s a 3 on one of the build piles, you can only play a 4 on that pile.

You can play any card form your hand, or the top card of your stock pile, or the top card of one of the four discard piles to place on one of the build piles.
After you place a card on one of the build piles, you go again.

If, on the other hand, the build piles are showing top cards of 1, 2, 3 and 4, and you don’t have a 2, 3, 4, or 5 in either your hand, or in one of your discard piles, or as the top card in the stock pile, you have must discard a card from your hand.
To discard a card, take one of the cards from your hand and put it on any of the four discard piles.
Which discard pile you pick is up to you.
You’ll be dealt additional cards so that your turn ends with 5 cards in your hand.
Then it’s your opponent’s turn.

If you play all 5 cards in your hand in one turn, you are given 5 additional cards, and you continue to play.

Your opponent can only discard to his own discard pile, but both you and your opponent can place cards on any of the four build piles, as long as the card you place is one number higher than the card that’s already there.

You cannot move your top stock card to your discard pile, or to your hand. It can only be moved to one of the build piles.

You should try to play your top stock card first, since you win the game when you have no more stock cards left.
If you can’t do that, you want to play cards on the build piles to increase the likelihood of eventually playing your top stock card.
Hence, if your top stock card is a 7 card, you want do play cards to get the build pile to have a 6 card as soon as possible.
More hints are included in the Strategy guide.

Wildcards

There are 18 wild cards, and you can use a wild card at any time.
A wild card can be any number from 1 to 12.
If you place a wild card on an empty build pile, it acts like a one, and you or your opponent must follow with a two.
If you place it on a build pile with a 6 card, the wild card is considered a 7 card, an must be followed by an 8 card.

Clearing the build piles

Once a build pile has a 12 card on it, all cards are removed from that build pile, and it starts over again, waiting for a 1 card.
Only a 1 card or a wild card can be used to start an empty build pile.

Ending the round, scoring and ending the game

The round is over when any player’s stock pile is empty.
When the deck there are no more to replenish each player’s hand, you continue to play the cards in your hand or your discard pile.
When the first player runs out of cards in their hand, the round is over.

Once the round is over, the round is scored.
The player who has no cards in their stock pile wins the round.
If everyone still has cards in their stock pile, then the player who has the lowest number of cards in their stock pile wins the round.

If you have no cards left in your stock pile, you gain an extra 25 points.
If you have the lowest number of cards in your stock pile, you receive 5 points per card on the other player’s stock pile.
For example, if you had used 23 of your 30 stock cards and your opponent used 15 cards, then your opponent has 8 more cards than you do.
You would get 5 points for each of those 8 cards, for a total of 40 points from that opponent.

You continue playing rounds until one of the players hits the game target score, which is normally 500 points.

Gestures

To move between your piles, swipe left or right with 2 fingers.
You will hear the name of each pile: BUILD, for the 4 shared build piles, DISCARD, for your four personal discard piles, STOCK for your stock pile which initially contains 30 cards, and HAND, which always contains 5 cards.
To move within your hand, swipe left and right.
To move within your discard piles, or the build pile, swipe left and right.
To hear your opponent’s top stock card, number of stock cards, and top cards for each of his discard piles, swipe down with 2 fingers.
To hear your top stock card, number of stock cards, top cards for each of you discard piles, and your hand, swipe up with 2 fingers.

To select a card to play, tap twice. You will hear a drum sound.
To move that card to another pile first swipe left or right with 2 fingers to get to the next set of piles.
Then swipe left or right with one finger to get to the specific pile.
Then tap twice again.
To cancel moving a card, swipe down with 3 fingers.

End of Game

The game is over when you played your last stock card.
The winner is the person who did that first.