Card Games for Seniors: Free, Large Print

How to turn on Larger text

Look at the bar of buttons above the cards. On a tablet or computer, the "A A" button labeled Larger text is there; on a phone, open the Game menu from the three-line button at the top left of the game and tap the Larger text row. The Accessibility page offers the same switch and lists the games that have it. It is off until you switch it on, and it works with no account.

You can turn it on in the middle of a hand, a bid or a deal, and the game is not lost: the cards are redrawn where they lie. In Hearts and Spades, the first thing you will notice is your own hand, which spreads out so each card shows its full rank and suit instead of being tucked under its neighbor. The choice is remembered on that device for every game that has the switch. Hearts and Spades also have Undo, Hint, Last trick and Menu on the shelf below the table, and the switch is not among them.

Hearts: Kettle Burrow Hearts in large print

Hearts is a trick-taking game for four. You sit at a kitchen table in a hedgehog’s burrow with three computer players: Hazel the hedgehog on your left, Bertie the badger across the table and Mabel the mole on your right. Everyone gets 13 cards. Each heart you take costs a point and the queen of spades costs 13, so the aim is to take as few points as you can. Take all 26 and you shoot the moon: everyone else scores 26 and you score nothing.

Most hands begin with a pass: you choose three cards, see who they go to and confirm. The pass goes left on the first hand, right on the second, across on the third, and nobody passes on the fourth. Then the 2 of clubs leads, everyone follows suit if they can, and the highest card of the suit led takes the trick. On your turn the cards you may play stand out and the others dim, and a card you cannot play tells you why: follow suit, hearts not broken, or no points on the first trick. A game ends after a hand in which someone reaches 100, and the lowest score wins. A score card after every hand lists each player’s hearts, the queen and the points beside the running totals.

With Larger text on, every card shows a big rank in the corner with its suit under it. Your hand fans out so every card shows its whole rank and suit, in two rows on a phone, and a card played to the trick shows its rank and suit in two corners, so the card on top never hides it. The name plates, scores, messages, buttons and menus get bigger too.

Spades: Larch Hollow Spades in large print

Spades is a partnership game. You sit across a workbench in a garden potting shed from your partner, Constance the pine marten, against Cornelius the hare and Agatha the rook. Everyone gets 13 cards and bids once, starting on the dealer’s left, and your bid and Constance’s add up to your side’s contract. Your bid starts at a quick count of your aces, kings and long spades, and you step it up or down and tap Bid. Spades beat every other suit, and a spade cannot be led until one has been played (spades are broken).

Nil is a bid of no tricks at all. Tap Nil, and if you take none your side scores 100; if you take even one, it loses 100. A made contract scores 10 a trick bid, and tricks over the contract are bags worth a point each, until the tenth bag costs 100. The first side to 500 wins, and a sheet kept in pencil shows every hand’s bids, tricks and running totals when you tap the score board. A result card after every hand shows the contract, any nil and the bags.

With Larger text on, every card gets a big rank in the corner with its suit under it, your hand fans so each card shows its full rank and suit, and a card played to the trick shows both in two corners. The name plates, score board, bid, messages, buttons and menus get bigger. On a phone held upright, the three name plates at your end of the bench stand in a row above your hand, and the Bid button shows the number you are about to bid, beside minus, plus and Nil.

Playing with a partner or against the computer

Every other seat at the table is played by the computer, so no one has to be found, nobody is kept waiting, and there is no chat and no account. In Hearts all three others are opponents; in Spades one is your partner. Hazel, Bertie and Mabel, and Cornelius and Agatha, choose from what a player at the table could see, not from your cards, and the hints follow the same rule.

The computer players come in three levels, Gentle, Steady and Sharp, chosen from the menu. Gentle is the one for learning: in Hearts it plays its lowest card and often a card at random, and in Spades it bids roughly and never bids nil. Sharp counts every card. Neither game can be played with a friend by invite link, so these are games against the computer.

Pace: waiting, undo, hints and saves

Nothing is timed in Hearts or Spades. The computer players wait while a menu is open, and the table speed has three settings: Normal, Relaxed and Quick. Relaxed is slower, so every card is easy to follow. Last trick shows the trick that just finished whenever you want to look back.

Undo takes back the card you just played, as long as nobody has played a card since. Once the next player plays, your card stands. A Hearts pass is final once made, and so is a Spades bid. Hint suggests a play and says why, using only what you can see at the table. Both games save after every card: close the page in the middle of a hand and carry on later on the same device, with your settings and statistics, and nothing leaves the browser.

Both games let you play a card with two taps (tap to pick it up, tap again to play it) or one tap, which you choose in Settings. Both can be played with a keyboard as well as by touch or mouse.

Six solitaires to play alone

Porch Swing Solitaire is Klondike, with Draw 1 or Draw 3, and with Larger text on a covered card in a column shows more of itself so the ranks read down a long column. Dewdrop Garden Solitaire is Spider, played with one, two or four suits, and one suit is the gentlest start. Snowberry Cabin Solitaire is FreeCell: every card is face up, deals are numbered, and a solver gives hints that look for a whole way to win. Cozy Peaks Solitaire is TriPeaks, where nothing is timed and a lost hand never takes away your crops or coins.

Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire is the short one: seven face-up columns and a nine-hole round with a par of 45. Puffin Bluff Solitaire is Pyramid, where you pair free cards that add up to 13 and Kings go off alone. Undo is unlimited in five of the six, and TriPeaks gives three free undos a hand. The solitaire page linked below goes through all six, with the rules, the daily deals and what Larger text does in each.

Other card games on CozyWorld

CozyWorld also has gin rummy, cribbage and euchre, and the Larger text switch is not in them: Birch Cove Gin Rummy, Chickadee Hill Cribbage and Sugar Camp Euchre. They are not on this page for that reason, and their game pages are linked below.

Which one to start with

If you want a table game, start with Kettle Burrow Hearts at Gentle with Larger text on, and play the first hands slowly. Hearts is listed as Easy, and the rules guide linked below explains the pass and the scoring. Choose Larch Hollow Spades if you already know partnership card games or like to work as a pair; it is listed as Medium, and the bid step is the part to take slowly.

If you would rather play alone, Porch Swing Solitaire is the familiar one, and Snowberry Cabin Solitaire is the one where you can see every card before you move. A hand of Hearts takes about four minutes and a hand of Spades about three, and a game is several hands, saved as you go.