Peg Solitaire or Solitaire

The History of Peg Solitaire or Solitaire

Peg Solitaire has a long and interesting history. With the game dating back to the 17th Century, it was said to be invented by a French Mathematician, Pellison. As the story goes, Pellison designed the game for the entertainment purposes of Louie XIV. Originally known as Roi Soleil, or Sun King, the game seemed to be a preferred game of the French elite and Monarchs. It seems even back in the mid 1600’s, humans often experienced boredom and often craved intellectual challenges.
The game has a laid out traditional cross pattern always on a wooden board that consists of drilled holes, each of which can contains a peg.

Why Peg Solitaire?

I have fond memories of Peg solitaire from my childhood. My mother happened to have a smaller version of the game which always sat in our family room on the table. The game went with us to our mountain holiday’s, or with us on long train rides through Switzerland. Our peg solitaire was originally my grandmother’s game. Consequently, many personal items did not survive the world wars, but our solitaire game did. I can recall hours sitting around the house playing this game. Always trying to beat “the record”. As it turns out, the game was a great time passer for us boys. It stimulated a good bit of competition amongst us as to who could finish with fewer pegs in the end.

Fun Solitaire facts

Solitaire as I mentioned has been around for centuries, one can imagine that it’s had many names throughout the years…here are some examples of that.

• Roi Soleil
• Peg Solitaire
• Solitaire or Solitair
• Solo Noble
• Hi-Q game
• Sailor’s Solitaire
• Brainvita or Brain-vita
• Grillenspiel
• IQ Brain Puzzle
• Amender Tubbeli Spiel
• Nonnenspiel

How to play Solitaire

To start “play” on solitaire, you first need to remove a peg to start. Some say the center is the best peg to remove, but you can decide.
Now, begin your strategy.

The game of peg solitaire is to jump pegs until you have only one left. This means one jump per peg, moving up, down, right, left until ending the game with one peg left.
As you jump your pegs, you remove the pegs. With our version, as you remove your jumped pegs, you load them on the empty or second game board. This is our games custom feature, the ready load feature. Why is this so important to us? It keeps the momentum going in the game, allowing you to immediately restart your second game. In addition, it allows you to skip the bothersome and time consuming step of reloading the pegs. This is a great feature in saving time and preventing the loss of pegs during the play process-especially if you are playing in the car, on the train, or in the airplane.

Objective

The objectives vary but the most common is to start with a single hole vacant on the board and end up with a single peg at the end of the game. The complement problem, which is not attainable on all boards, is where one begins with a single hole vacant and ends the game with only one peg left in that initially vacant hole. Additionally, a valid jump consists of jumping one peg over another into an empty spot on the board. Remove the peg which was jumped over.
Diagonal jumps are not allowed.

Variations

A player may start with some pattern on the board (several holes vacant) and then attempt to reduce to just one.
In other variations, players may attempt to form some pattern of pegs at the end of the game. There are many ways to change the game around to increase the challenge.

Can 2 player play the Game?

Yes you can play the game with 2 people, but it is quite uncommon. Each player alternates by making peg-solitaire moves on the board. The player left without a move loses. In another variant the player left without a move wins.

Ideal for

• rainy days and evenings
• unique gift for birthdays, holidays, Xmas and parties
• Swiss company anniversaries or promotional gifts
• hospitals, visiting a good friend or family member
• playing alone and challenging yourself
• travels because of its “travel size”
• vacation homes, boats, road trips
• Swiss restaurants, so children can play
• young and old for mental stimulation
• appropriate for children and adults between the age of 4 years to 110
• a very unique souvenir from Switzerland

Features

• No WLan required
• Batteries are NOT required
• No cleanup needed after the game
• Ready to play, no setup needed
• No dust buildup, the game is closed when not played

Why Swiss Design?

Not only am I a Swiss living in Switzerland but I was educated in Switzerland. I embody what Swiss precision is. When it comes to design and manufacture, the Swiss have it nailed. Starting an apprenticeship from an early age I strove to produce products that resembled Swiss quality. When it came to designing our game, it was important to me through the entire design process to stick with what I knew best, Swiss quality principles. We believe that the Swiss precision and Swiss quality will be strongly seen and felt in this game and we’re certain the game will be a part of your family for generations to come.

Additional thoughts:
When sourcing our materials in Switzerland, we chose to work with local firms (unique to Switzerland) who employ “special needs” people. These are firms who hire people who could not be employed elsewhere due to special needs. These firms make it possible for people with handicaps to function and thrive in society by providing a job. We think this is very important and we are very happy to support firms as such. This does not by any means undercut quality or standards, but it ensures that we live in a community that believes we are all equally important.
Lastly, our game complies with the EU Norm EN 71-3 for Toy Safety.

Material

We use a hardwood called ‘Buchenholz in German’ or beach wood. It is a typical wood in Switzerland to also use for firewood, because it is very hard. It also has a very nice grain if you would only lacquer it. The reason we color the wood is to match it with the Swiss flag (red and white), when you open the game, you see again the white pegs(which show the Swiss cross) the the red surface.

Test your I.Q. by playing Cross Peg Solitaire

As an additional mention on the peg solitaire, this game can be taken ‘seriously’ and really used to challenge your skill and mind, or can be played very nonchalantly. However, if you put yourself in the first category, then you will consider this a “puzzle game”. Along with this consideration, there is a ranking system (example below) for those who wish to rank their intelligence, talent, or skill. It’s for fun, but it ups the stakes.

Countries of deliveries

About a year after we sold the first few games, we though it might be interesting to find out to which countries we ship to.
So I thought why not mention all the countries

How to purchase the game

Visit our own shopping page. (free shipping)