Desperately Seeking Solitaire
Published on Oct 28, 2023
Earlier this year, I got back into Last Call BBS, Zachtronics' penultimate game release. Specifically, I got really into the most basic-ass game in the collection, Sawayama Solitaire, which is just 3-draw Klondike solitaire with some bangin' tunes.
This brought me back to the good old days when computers (specifically Windows PCs) knew they were dumb machines and didn't try to guess your every move by invasively tracking you, or try to sell you some shit at every turn, and always shipped with a handful of free games, solitaire being chief among them.
You might be surprised to learn that this is no longer the case! Windows now ships with some paid subscription-based bullshit called Microsoft Solitaire & Casual Games, which I'll let speak for itself:
Yikes.
In my reverie, I thought up a seemingly simple task for myself: find a solitaire game for my phone. That way, I wouldn't have to boot up my Z5 Powerlance, or leave it running in the background, every time I wanted to grab a quick game of something simple in between work emails. And let's be honest, I wanted to play on the toilet.
Reader, if it had been as simple to find a normal-ass mobile solitaire game as I naively thought it would be, I might have instead written about how the point when PCs no longer came with simple, free games pre-installed was a sign of a grim turn in our relationship to consumer technology and its increasingly rent-seeking overlords.
Instead, you get this.
All I wanted was to play solitaire. I love Zach Gage games dearly, but I was not looking for a fun new take, just normal, boring, old solitaire. Otherwise, I had very few criteria. No ads, no XP bonuses, no maidens to save, no 10,000+ levels, no farming simulators (this is real), and if it has more than just Klondike (like Freecell or Spider for example), that would be a nice bonus.
I was of course prepared to pay for the privilege. After enjoying a very brief enlightened period in the early 2010s, the mobile game space quickly devolved into the ad-supported, free-to-play cesspool of nightmares we have today, so I understand the importance of paying for the things you want to see in the world. But I didn't want to pay for a subscription. Because, to reiterate, it's just fucking solitaire. The bar was so low, or so I thought.
After searching the word "solitaire" on the iOS app store, and wading through the truly shocking number of games that offer an experience other than Just Playing Solitaire, I curated a small list of what I guess I consider the least offensive options, which I will share including their developer name, since they were pretty much all titled some variation of just "Solitaire."
Microsoft Solitaire Collection
I'm sayin'
The big dog. The OG. Surely this should be the definitive solitaire experience. Or maybe you know better after reading the preceding few paragraphs. It includes many versions of solitaire, but it's filled with attention economy bullshit like XP and coins and events and all that garbage.
To cap it off, removing ads requires a recurring subscription payment of $1.99 per month, or $9.99 per year. Which is an absurd ask for, again, Just Some Solitaire.
MobilityWare - Solitaire
Ok, here we go. This appears to be mostly regular Solitaire. Furthermore, there appears to be an Apple Arcade version of this app, which I think still speaks to an app's and/or developer's quality.
However, this one also features levels and XP and daily challenges (please just be solitaire I'm begging you), and turning off ads requires a subscription that will run you, confusingly, either $1.99 per month, $4.99 every 3 months, or $9.99 every 12 months. Goodbye, MobilityWare!
Brainium - Solitaire: Classic Card Games
This one looks similarly clean and simple, as MobilityWare did, but it's functionality is somewhat limited. It only offers Klondike solitaire, which isn't a dealbreaker, but it also only lets you customize the back of cards, whereas other apps also let you customize the front, and I'm not a huge fan of the look of these cards.
All in all, this app is just fine, and might be an acceptable compromise, if it weren't for the fact that its ad-free version costs $11.99. Granted, it's not a subscription, and that's great. But it's a bit more than I'm looking to pay for solitaire. Especially in such a limited form.
Solitaire City
I might have overlooked Solitaire City had it not been recommended to me on Cohost. The splashscreen shows a copyright date of 2008, and it looks like it hasn't been updated since then. But this little guy has a lot going for him.
For starters, there are tons and tons of variants on offer here — 20 in all — most of which I've never even heard of. There are loads of customization options, including the background, card backs, and card fronts. There are leaderboards and achievements, but you can turn all of that off. There are no increasing levels, no XP to earn, no in-game currencies, and best of all, the ad-free version is a one-time purchase of $4.99.
We have a winner. I am officially a resident of Solitaire City.
In the months since going on this voyage, I've continued enjoying my time with Solitaire City. Nothing about the experience I was looking for has changed, it runs super smoothly, and I believe it has received at least one update in that time, so the developer hasn't abandoned it. Bonus points for not collecting any personal information, either (why would a solitaire app need to do that).
In the end, I found exactly what I was looking for, but good god. I was not prepared to go on such an odyssey to get it. Maybe that's naive in this day and age, but — one last time with feeling — IT'S JUST SOLITAIRE!!!