Free Online Games for Seniors and Older Adults

Free mahjong, puzzle and word games for seniors

People look for these games under different names, so here is where each one lives. For free mahjong games, Teahouse Mahjong is mahjong solitaire, a solo tile-matching puzzle: match pairs of free tiles to clear 36 stacked boards in four tea rooms, with free Hint, Shuffle and Undo and no countdown. For solitaire, Cozy Peaks Solitaire is standard TriPeaks with big, high-contrast cards, and nothing is timed. Porch Swing Solitaire is Klondike, the game most people simply call solitaire, with Draw 1 or Draw 3 and winnable deals. Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire is the classic Golf solitaire, with every card face up from the deal and a nine-hole scorecard instead of a clock.

For sudoku, Sprout Sudoku is classic 9x9 sudoku with a Gentle level and hints that explain the next step in plain words. If you already know sudoku and like the killer sudoku in newspaper puzzle pages, Sprout Killer Sudoku is its sibling with cage sums, a step harder than the eight here. For nonograms, Little Stitches is a picture logic puzzle with 72 patterns that opens with small 5x5 grids. For word search, Cottage Word Search has 48 themed puzzles in four seasonal books. For jigsaw, Rainy Day Jigsaw has twelve illustrated pictures in 12, 24, 48 or 96 pieces.

All eight are free browser games, with no account or purchase. If you searched for brain games for adults, note that these are puzzles to enjoy, not brain training: we make no claims about memory, brain or health benefits for any of them. The four that ask the most thought are Porch Swing Solitaire, Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire, Sprout Sudoku and Little Stitches, which are listed as Medium.

What makes these easy to pick up

Across the eight pages, three things repeat. First, there is no countdown: Cozy Peaks Solitaire and Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire say nothing is timed, Porch Swing Solitaire has a timer only if you turn one on, and in the other five the clock only records your time. Second, help is built in. Teahouse Mahjong has free Hint, Shuffle and Undo. Sprout Sudoku’s Hint explains the next step in a sentence, and Little Stitches hints are unlimited. Cottage Word Search’s Hint circles the first letter of the next word you have not found, and Rainy Day Jigsaw offers Peek, a ghost picture, outlines and a hint for one piece. Cozy Peaks Solitaire gives every hand three free undos, and Porch Swing Solitaire and Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire have unlimited undo and a hint that uses only the cards you can see.

Third, several pages describe large, readable pieces. Cozy Peaks Solitaire has big, high-contrast cards, Porch Swing Solitaire shows a large rank and suit on every card in classic red and black, Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire has large, bold card ranks with a different shape and color for each suit, and Teahouse Mahjong sizes every board to keep tiles large on phones. Sprout Sudoku uses large digits on a high-contrast grid with thick box lines, and Cottage Word Search uses large capital letters in a rounded font.

"Easy" is not the same for every game. Cozy Peaks Solitaire, Teahouse Mahjong, Cottage Word Search and Rainy Day Jigsaw are listed as Easy. Porch Swing Solitaire, Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire, Sprout Sudoku and Little Stitches are listed as Medium. Klondike and Golf solitaire have short rules, but winning a deal or clearing a hole takes planning. Sprout Sudoku and Little Stitches start gently: Sprout Sudoku has a Gentle level where puzzles fall to cells with only one digit left, and Little Stitches opens with a quilt of small 5x5 patterns that teaches the rules.

Playing on a computer, tablet or phone

All eight pages list keyboard, mouse and touch controls and support for desktop, tablet and mobile screens. Each game also has a toolbar with pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen. How you play differs a little by game. In Cozy Peaks Solitaire you tap a card, in Porch Swing Solitaire you drag a card or tap it and then its new place, in Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire you tap anywhere on a column to play its bottom card, and in Teahouse Mahjong you tap a free tile and then its match. In Cottage Word Search you drag across a word or tap its first and last letters, and in Sprout Sudoku you tap a cell and then a digit key.

Rainy Day Jigsaw lets you drag a piece to the board or tap a piece and then tap its spot, so no precise drag is needed. Its page also says that on small screens the game turns off piece counts whose pieces would be smaller than 40 pixels: most phones offer 12, 24 or 48 pieces, and tablets and computers offer all four sizes. Little Stitches has a Stitch and Cross switch under the hoop for touch, while with a mouse a left click stitches and a right click crosses.

If you prefer a keyboard, each of these pages describes keyboard controls, and the arrow keys move or choose in every game.

What gets saved, and where

Each page describes saving on the device you play on. Teahouse Mahjong saves your path through the tea rooms, best times, settings and the board in play move by move, so a reload picks up where you were. Cottage Word Search saves each puzzle you started (words found, hints and time so far). Sprout Sudoku saves the puzzle in progress at each difficulty along with your garden, and Rainy Day Jigsaw saves every puzzle you start, with the pieces placed, so you can keep several going at once.

Little Stitches saves after every stroke, undo, hint and finish, and when you pause or switch tabs. If the browser blocks saving, the page says you can still play but progress lasts only until you leave the page. Cozy Peaks Solitaire saves your garden, crops and coins on the device; its page does not say whether a hand in progress is kept, so finish a hand if you want to be sure of your place. Buttercup Links Golf Solitaire saves the round in progress, with every move of the current hole, along with today’s hole and your best rounds. Porch Swing Solitaire saves the deal in progress, with every move, along with today’s deal and your statistics.

These games have no accounts, so progress is not shared between devices: a tablet and a computer each keep their own.

What to expect before you play

The content notes on all eight pages say there are no purchases or accounts. Cozy Peaks Solitaire has coins, but they are earned in the garden and spent on helpers, and its page says there is nothing to buy with real money. Sound is described as optional on every page.

If you want a pairs game, Toasty Tile Flip is a memory-matching game: you turn two breakfast cards at a time across 20 short trays. Seventeen of its twenty trays have no clock. Three rush trays do, and that clock starts with your first card. It also has toast hearts: turning a card you have already seen and getting it wrong costs a heart, and running out loses the tray. A tray in progress is not saved, though stars and best scores are kept in the browser on that device. It asks more of you than the eight classics above.