Gaps 31 X

Gaps 3.1 X is the Carbonized Mac OS X release of Thomas Reed's long-running freeware solitaire Gaps. The 1998 original ran on System 7 through Mac OS 9; this 2002-era 3.1 build ports the game cleanly to OS X while keeping the same minimalist card layout and rules. The goal is to slide cards into the four empty slots and sort each row 2 through King by suit.

Rules of Gaps

The full deck is dealt face-up into four rows of thirteen. Aces are removed, leaving four gaps. A gap can only be filled by the card that is one rank higher than, and the same suit as, the card to its left. Reach the right edge with a King and that gap closes for good. Two redeals are allowed before the game is lost.

What's new in 3.1

Version 3.1 splits into a Classic PPC build for Mac OS 8.1-9.x and a Carbon build that runs natively on Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Aqua-friendly windowing, auto-redeal options, undo, statistics tracking, and a cleaner card-back picker were added during the Carbon port. The 68k build was retired at this version.

System requirements

Carbon build: Mac OS 9.0 or later, or any Mac OS X release of the era; PowerPC. Classic build: PPC, Mac OS 8.1 through 9.x. Both require Color QuickDraw and a screen set to at least thousands of colors. The game is freeware and ships as a small download with no installer.

Author and lineage

Written by Thomas Reed (The Safe Mac), who maintained Gaps alongside several other small Mac freeware solitaires through the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Gaps card mechanic itself dates back centuries under names like Spaces, Vacancies, and Addiction Solitaire.