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Solitaire only recently has become a game played on computers. Before a player begins a game of computer Solitaire, many things have already transpired. First there are thousands of years of game history, during which general game conventions have taken shape. Video games, as a subset, have emerged only during the last forty years. Then there is the time frame of designers, who develop a game in some weeks, months, or years, using their knowledge of previous games and their assumptions about the game’s audience. And before an individual game of Solitaire is played in the present, the player has experience with other games and other media during his or her lifetime.These are the four time frames of games, which can be described as follows: n Historical time The evolution of games transcends the lifetime of any player or developer. Games and audiences evolve over millennia. Games and game genres are associated with specific audiences, but these associations also change over time. For example, it was once assumed that video games would only be played by young men, but this is changing with the rise of casual games. Furthermore, the introduction of card games on the Windows operating system illustrates how a game can appear, become popular, and move between technological platforms because it is widely known and understood.

In Design time Whereas traditional folk games were rarely, or only apocryphally, associated with specific designers, the rise of commercial board games and video games introduced a division between game designers and game players. Contemporary video game developers appear to be gaining a more nuanced view of the audience for their games, and casual game design is often framed as being more sensitive to audience demands than traditional hardcore game design. Casual game design introduces more distance between players and developers, with developers encouraged to create games for audiences other than themselves.

In Player lifetime Players see new games in the light of the previous games they have played. This game literacy is not a general game literacy but is tied to the specific genres a player has experienced. We identify new games based on the games and genres we already know. In Game-playing time The preceding time frames lead up to the time of game-playing where, hopefully, the player understands and enjoys the game.

Even before Solitaire became one of the most popular games played on computers, it matched casual game design principles very well: it is a usable game that players can play at their own pace, and supremely interruptible. Solitaire can be replayed indefinitely, so the game does not punish the player for failing by making him or her replay a level-the player is replaying the game anyway. Furthermore, the extended use of randomness relieves the player from some of the responsibility if a game is not solved. Finally, if the amount of space needed to place the cards of Solitaire have historically been a barrier to playing, players who own a computer can now play Solitaire without taking up any additional space.

Computers just made Solitaire even more casual. The successes of Puzzle Quest and computer-based Solitaire emphasize that games fail or succeed due to the interaction between game design and players. But even this is only a partial truth: in the bigger picture, neither game designers nor players start from scratch, but carry the history of games with them. Being aware of this is a requirement for understanding the casual revolution-and video games at all.