Cruel is a solitaire card game played using a deck of 52 playing cards. Its arrangement and game play are almost like another solitaire card game Perseverance.
It was released as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows 3.1 in 1990, and can also be downloaded for Windows XP.
To start the game, the player must first take all the Aces and put them in a row as bases for the foundations to start the game. The rest of the cards are then put into 12 piles, each with four cards.
Only the top (or exposed) card in each pile is available for play. The cards in the tableau piles are built down by suit, while the foundations are built up by suit up to kings. For example, the 5♣ can be placed on the 6♣ if both cards are on the tableaux. Only one card can be moved at a time.
When no moves are available, all the remaining piles are put together and then put out in piles of four again. It is important not to shuffle these cards and to place one pile on top of the other face-up, starting from the first pile up to the last (this is actually the correct order, but some versions of the game use the opposite). The player can do this in an unlimited number of times.
The game is won when all the cards are put on the foundations. The game is lost if no more moves are possible even after a shuffle.