1294: Zachtronics Solitaire Collection PC \\ 5 games that are too easy, & 1 too hard! (Leaves 2!)
1Playing solitaire variants in The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection, GOG PC version! Also some free-to-play (for the first 7 variants, anyway) Solitaire Forever II from Steam, for the sake of comparison.
My other computer games playlist: • smbhax plays other computer games!
0:00 - start
1:49 - Proletariat's Patience
1:16:06 - Cribbage Solitaire
2:12:58 - Kabufuda Solitaire
2:21:50 - Shenzen Solitaire
2:28:38 - Solitaire Forever II
2:42:59 - Sawayama Solitaire
2:57:11 - Cluj Solitaire
3:14:07 - Fortune's Foundation
Once I got the rules down, Sigmar's Garden, Proletariat's Patience, Cribbage Solitaire, Kabufuda Solitaire, and Shenzen Solitaire felt too easy, to the point where I feel like I'm just shuffling cards around and could be playing something a little more interesting instead. Yes I am playing Kabufuda on the Easy setting but somehow just being more and more limited in how many cards I can move around at the harder difficulties doesn't seem compelling.
Cluj Solitaire defeats me. I can't seem to get it; probably doesn't help that I can't seem to remember the V, D, K, T face card sequence; my brain also can't seem to handle the possibilities opened up by the "cheating" mechanic where you can put any card out of sequence on any other card, but then can't play anything onto it and have to play it back into something in-sequence. The black and white minimalism doesn't help me get into it and I don't think I'm going to keep trying.
That leaves Sawayama and Fortune's Foundation. Sawayama still feels hard to me; plus, it's the only one where at least at the beginning as you deal from the deck, you can't see all the cards, leaving that feeling of mystery, romance, and anticipation that is probably kind of vital to standard Klondike solitaire. And after dealing off the deck, you probably have a longish sequence of cards to work through, and if you do get through it, it feels like you've been on a journey.
Fortune's Foundation feels insanely thick and complicated: you're building up not just the four Aces, but also a 0-21 Tarot sequence--from both ends simultaneously, ideally--and even stacking numbered sequences is agonizing, because you can choose to stack them in EITHER increasing or decreasing values--yet, you can't move stacks, only single cards, so re-organizing any stack probably involves exceedingly complex gyrations around your few precious hold cards. In a seeming nod to the difficulty, you are granted the only undo function in the Collection--but it's just a single card undo, and it feels like you have to think so far ahead in FF that a single card is pretty much nothing--it's just taunting you. But man, if I could clear it...
(From reading Steam discussions, the key thing for FF seems to be to get a column free: once you've done that, inverting stacks is simple. And the bottom option on the Options screen even makes the card flow when inverting automatic! Oh and the second-to-bottom option changes the numbers on the Tarot cards from 1, 2, 3 etc (forgot these are Arabic numbers duh) to Roman numerals I, II, III etc.)
OH. Solitaire Forever II (from Steam; to remind me what regular Klondike is like--and it's like, just clicking through cards and yes waiting for that gambler's rush of knowing you beat chance if you win; less compelling than Microsoft's appallingly smooth ad-ware Solitaire that can guarantee you a solvable deal and even lets you pick a difficulty level for it, like, even a really easy one so you just win win win oh hey you leveled up don't you want to keep playing and you know it's just a couple bucks a month not to be interrupted by those full-screen video ads...) gives you the seven games in the initial list free--the others of the 302 solitaire games require a non-Steam $9.99 purchase. I kinda like those big janky (that is configurable, as is almost everything else) 3D cards, though.
2/6/22
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