About MSO Games

Who's behind this

Hi — I'm Erik, the solo developer behind MSO Games. I started this project because I love playing FreeCell and I wanted this game to exist. I spent a long time trying to get other developers to understand the experience I had in mind — competitive, deep, ad-free, with real visibility into how you actually played — and eventually realized that if it was going to exist at all, I was going to have to build it myself.

Ads in games are something I feel strongly about. They destroy the flow and the enjoyment of a game — the whole point of a coffee-break round is the coffee-break feeling, and you can't have that when a video ad is shouting at you between hands. "No ads, ever" isn't a marketing line; it's a non-negotiable.

My professional background is in Business Intelligence, which is where the analytics depth of MSO Games comes from — per-deal leaderboards, skill radar charts, replays, percentiles, the works. Showing players how they actually performed, against a comparison set that means something, is the part of this project that genuinely excites me. Most card games have stat screens that exist; very few have stat screens that say anything useful.

Development happens on Linux, with cross-platform builds for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. The Linux build isn't an afterthought — it's the build I run every day.

What we ship

• MSO FreeCell Arena — Competitive FreeCell with shared deals, per-deal leaderboards, replays of the top finishers, group lobbies, daily challenges, and five difficulty bands.
• MSO Minesweeper Arena — The same competitive model applied to Minesweeper: shared seeds, leaderboards, replays, group lobbies, and a strict solvability guarantee on the lower difficulties.

Both games run natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux (Electron, code-signed and notarized). FreeCell on mobile is currently in Google Play Open Testing and iOS TestFlight; Minesweeper on mobile is next on the list. See the roadmap for what's shipped and what's coming.

Trust & verification

Every desktop build is code-signed and verifiable — Azure Trusted Signing on Windows, Apple Developer ID with notarization on macOS, signed AppImage on Linux. Mobile builds are distributed through Google Play and Apple's App Store with their own signing requirements. Your operating system will refuse to run, or warn loudly, if any of those signatures fail.

What we promise

The MSO Games brand promise is the inverse of the modern free-to-play playbook:

• No ads. Not banner ads, not interstitials, not rewarded ads, not "watch this video to skip a turn." None.
• No third-party analytics. No Google Analytics, no Firebase Analytics, no Mixpanel, no behavioral SDKs whatsoever.
• No data sold. Your data is yours. See the Privacy Policy for the full details.
• No microtransactions. No cosmetics for sale, no coin packs, no "remove the timer for $0.99."
• No engagement-bait notifications. We celebrate when you show up — daily challenge streaks, milestones, badges — but we won't hassle you when you don't. No "your streak is at risk!" push pings, no "we miss you" emails, no guilt-trip design.

MSO Games is free to play during open beta on every platform. The long-term plan is a low flat subscription that unlocks the social features (leaderboards, rivalries, Hall of Fame) — never ads, never microtransactions.

Contact

• Privacy questions / data requests: [email protected]
• General support / feedback: [email protected]
• Community Discord: discord.gg/BPNQ8tRMW
• Privacy Policy: msogames.com/privacy
• Roadmap: msogames.com/roadmap