Play Square Deal Online

Square Deal came out for the Game Boy in 1990, published by Hect. It was one of those many puzzle games that filled out the system's library, a simple concept built to kill time during car rides or between classes. You wouldn't call it a headline title, but it had its own quiet place among the Tetris clones and other logic games.

You control the placement of playing cards as they drop onto a five by five grid. The main objective is to slot them in to form poker hands, like flushes or full houses, which then clear from the board. The core mechanics involve quick spatial decisions and a constant race against the rising pile of new cards. It starts off feeling almost too relaxed, but the pace picks up sharply, and soon you're desperately searching for a spot to put that last ace before the screen fills. The whole experience is a tense, satisfying scramble against a clock you barely notice until it's almost too late.