The Windows XP games you killed time with in 2003 are back in your browser, and the code behind each one is smaller than most website logos. Stillplay, an open-source project shared on Hacker News on 19 October 2026, rebuilds Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell, Spider Solitaire and Hearts in plain C, compiled to WebAssembly files of just 4 to 15 KB.
Key takeaways
- Stillplay brings back five classic Windows XP games: Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell, Spider Solitaire and Hearts.
- Each game’s rules are written in C with no standard library and compiled to a WebAssembly module of 4 to 15 KB.
- The project ships no Microsoft art, sounds or executables. Every card and tile is drawn in code.
- It is MIT-licensed, needs no install or account, and works offline once you have visited it.
- 3D Pinball is listed as “later, with the right licence”.
What is Stillplay, exactly?
Stillplay is a free browser collection of the card and puzzle games that came with Windows XP. Its tagline is “A little time. Well wasted.” That about covers it.
The code lives in a public GitHub repository by developer btahir, and the playable site runs at stillplay.shiptiffin.app. When we checked on 20 October 2026, the repo had 52 commits and the Hacker News post was still brand new, with a single point.
So this is not a viral hit yet. It is a careful, nerdy build, and that is the interesting part.
Which Windows XP games can you play?
Five games are live, each with the options XP veterans will remember, plus a few modern extras.
| Game | Options in Stillplay |
|---|---|
| Minesweeper | Beginner, Intermediate and Expert boards |
| Solitaire | Draw one or draw three, standard or Vegas scoring |
| FreeCell | Numbered deals, including the famous #11982 |
| Spider Solitaire | One, two or four suits |
| Hearts | You against three computer players |
| 3D Pinball | Not yet: “later, with the right licence” |
That FreeCell detail is a nice wink. Deal #11982 is, as Wikipedia’s FreeCell entry notes, the only one of Microsoft’s original 32,000 deals believed to be unsolvable. Volunteers in the Internet FreeCell Project tried every deal in the mid-1990s, and that one never cracked, though nobody has formally proved it impossible.
On top of the classics you get undo, optional sound, a daily board or deal that everyone shares, local stats, light and dark themes, replay files and share links. It supports mouse, touch and keyboard, and the layout scales down to a 320-pixel phone screen.
How do C and WebAssembly make the games so small?
WebAssembly (WASM) is a compact binary format that browsers run at close to native speed. You write code in a language like C, compile it to a .wasm file, and the browser runs it next to normal JavaScript.
Stillplay keeps only the game rules in C: shuffling, legal moves, mine counts, scoring. It skips libc, the standard C library that most programs pull in by default. Without it, each rules engine compiles to 4 to 15 KB. The repo says the cores are built with Clang’s wasm32 target and wasm-ld, for example through wasi-sdk.
Everything you see is plain HTML, CSS and ES modules, with no framework and no bundler. The developer says the home page weighs about 75 KB and scores 100 on Lighthouse, Google’s page-quality audit. Tests run in Playwright.
Think of it like a board game box. The C module is the rulebook, small and strict. The HTML and CSS are the board and pieces. Keeping them apart means the rulebook stays tiny and easy to test.
Is it legal to rebuild Microsoft’s games?
Stillplay is careful here. The repo says it “ships no Microsoft bitmaps, icons, sounds or executables.” Cards and art are drawn in code, the fonts (DM Serif Display and Space Grotesk) use the open SIL licence, and the sounds were generated or synthesised and then mastered by hand.
The project calls itself independent and “not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft”, and it uses “Windows XP” only to describe the historical games. Game rules generally cannot be copyrighted, while original artwork and code can. Recreating the rules with new art is the usual safe line, though we are not lawyers.
There is also a clever extra. If you still own an original game .exe, you can drop it into a built-in inspector to view its bitmaps. The file is read in your browser and, the site says, nothing is uploaded.
Why do people still want these games?
Partly nostalgia. But there is a practical reason too. Microsoft stopped shipping the classic games with Windows 8 in 2012 and moved them to its store as separate apps, where the replacements came with ads and paid tiers. Heise’s look at Minesweeper’s 35th birthday describes the current store version pushing an annual subscription.
Stillplay goes the other way: no account, no install, and the site says everything stays on your device. Opinion: a five-minute game of Minesweeper shouldn’t need a login, and it’s refreshing to see someone build it like it’s 2003 with 2026 tools.
It is not the first XP tribute in the browser. Projects such as win32.run recreate the whole XP desktop. Stillplay is narrower: it skips the Start menu and focuses on getting the games right.
What happens next
The most ambitious goal is still ahead. Stillplay wants to reconstruct each original XP game and check it byte for byte against Microsoft’s version. The repo says that work “hasn’t started” and lists its verified match count as zero.
Turning bitmaps from your own .exe into a playable skin is also being checked. And 3D Pinball, probably the most-missed XP game, waits on a licence. Because the code is MIT-licensed, anyone can fork it, add a game or fix a bug.
FAQ
Is Stillplay free to play?
Yes. It runs in any modern browser with no install or account, and the source code is free under the MIT licence.
Does Stillplay work offline?
Yes. It is an installable progressive web app (PWA), so once you have visited the site, the games keep working without a connection.
Does Stillplay include 3D Pinball Space Cadet?
Not yet. The site lists 3D Pinball as coming “later, with the right licence”. The five live games are Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell, Spider Solitaire and Hearts.
Want to test your memory? Open Stillplay, pick FreeCell and try deal #11982. Then tell us how long you lasted.
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