Category Archives: Products

FreeCell Plus 4.00

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A new FreeCell solitaire game for Mac and Windows

Today, on the 14th anniversary of version 1.0, Goodsol Development published FreeCell Plus 4.00, a major update to its basic collection of FreeCell-type solitaire games.

FreeCell Plus 4.0 is an entry-level collection of 8 solitaire games, including the original FreeCell (with compatible deals), plus several similar card solitaire games, including favorites such as Sea Towers and Penguin.  The registered version includes 4 more bonus variants, all for only $9.95.  As with all of our products, one can download trial versions from the FreeCell Plus web site (or for Windows or for Mac OS X directly).

This particular update has been interesting because the previous version, FreeCell Plus v3.0, was released way back in 1998, for Windows 3.1!  Aside from being a less expensive product for FreeCell lovers, this title makes two new games available on the Mac side (and in Windows climb mode): Two Cells (standard) and Three Cells (bonus game).

We are just getting ramped up for a very productive year, with two releases already, plus three or four more in the pipeline for the next couple of months.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 Mac Edition 2.00

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A new product release for the New Year

Last week, Goodsol Development released Goodsol Solitaire 101 Mac Edition 2.00, as our first new product for 2010.  Now equivalent versions of Goodsol Solitaire 101 are available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 is a collection of 101 of the most played solitaire games the world over, plus 34 bonus games for customers, and it includes support for climb mode.  You can download the product for Mac OS X here (or for Windows here) and purchase the game now for only $19.95 here.

In the several days since its release, Goodsol Solitaire 101 Mac Edition 2.0 has (as of this writing) taken the #4 position in the Cards & Puzzle category at Apple Downloads, which translates into #9 in the general Games category.  (Most Popular Solitaire 2.01 is still hanging in there at #15 of the 20 games on the first list, too.)

This release is the first of many expected throughout 2010, including some new products, major upgrades, and probably support for a new platform as well.  There are already two more products scheduled for publishing in the next few weeks.  This New Year is starting out to be as strong as last year ended, and I hope only to build on this momentum.

Beatles-style sweep of the top 3 positions, anyone?

10 Years!

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One whole decade in the ASP.

On this date back in 1999, I joined the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals), so this is the 10th anniversary of my membership in this important trade organization.  (As a side note, through some game playing, it is also the 5th anniversary of the second company membership for Sherry.)  I was the last member to join in the 1900s, having taken almost ten years to join in the first place, and I immediately regretted not joining earlier.

In the past 10 years, I spent nearly half of that time in a volunteer position, mostly the 4.5 years during which I was a Director, including two stints as ASP Chairman of the Board.  I do not currently hold any official job, concentrating on developing our company and products, but I still strongly believe in the value of membership for access to the private newsgroups alone, nevermind other benefits.  In fact, I am now a Lifetime Member to be sure to always have this wealth of information and experience available to me.  (Anybody who fails to join just because of the “shareware” word in the organization name is making a very poor business decision.)

Clearly, one of the biggest benefits of ASP membership to me was to network with successful shareware publishers, which led directly to our association with Goodsol Development, which involvement has now lasted more than 8 years and could easily have paid for annual ASP membership dues into the next millennium.  That is only one contact I have made, but I have both learned and profited from many of the other members of the ASP.  Join Now!

Speaking of Goodsol, in wrapping up the year, I had a chance to review the products we shipped during 2009:

That is not too bad a list for year, but I bet that we can beat that in 2010!  (We already have three products on the publishing schedule, and 5 more big projects in the immediate pipeline.)

[Note to self:  Press the ‘Publish’ button when the article is finished and proofread.]

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.10

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A major update to our best-selling Mac solitaire game is published.

Last week, Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.10 was released by Goodsol Development, capping a very successful period of development.

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.10 adds 99 new games since the previous version (2.0), bringing the total to 200 games, nearly double the previous count.  The full (purchased) version includes a few more bonus games, so our Mac users now have access to 245 solitaire games, and this is a free upgrade to all previous PGSME customers.

What makes this particular release special is that, for the first time, Mac users have access to game features that are not (yet) available to Windows users.  In particular, PGSME includes climb mode for all of the 200 (+45) supported games, which gives users of this title access to 99 (+11) climb mode online high score listings that are not yet accessible from any of our products for Windows.  (Goodsol Solitaire 101 supports climb mode for all its games, though.)

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.10 is available for only $24.95 and can be ordered via secure server, and you can get the (optional) CD for only $7.50 more.  A 30% discount is available for registered Pretty Good Solitaire [Windows] users.  Of course, as with all of our game products, a trial version is available for download.

But wait!  There’s more!! PGSME 2.20, with 300 games, has already been announced for release in 2010, and it will be a free upgrade for everybody who purchases the current version.  Buy now!

Most Popular Solitaire 2.01

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A maintenance release of our popular Windows and Mac game is released.

Last week, Goodsol Development published Most Popular Solitaire 2.01, an update to this title available for both Windows and Mac OS X.  This update fixes a couple of bugs that were uncovered since the release of MPS version 2.00 back in May.

Most Popular Solitaire is a collection of 30 of the most popular solitaire games, including Klondike (a.k.a., Solitaire), FreeCell (same deals as Windows FreeCell), and Spider (plus the One Suit and Two Suits variants), as well as some more unusual games, such as Crazy Quilt.  There are 13 more bonus game variants for registered users, for whom this is a free (and recommended) update.

If you are looking for a fun collection of solitaire games, but feel overwhelmed when confronted with hundreds of different games, try Most Popular Solitaire.  You can download and try either the Windows 98/Me/XP/Vista/7 version or the Mac OS X 10.4+ version, or you can simply and safely purchase online for only $16.95 (with an optional CD for $7.50).

Note that the Windows and Mac OS X are compatible, such that all initial deals are identical, saved games can be exchanged between platforms, and they both use the same online high score tables.  This allows for result comparisons and discussion of games in the (active) Goodsol discussion forum.

(Yes, we have been very busy on the development side lately, and an even bigger release is scheduled for next week…)

Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.02

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Another maintenance update for this Windows solitaire product is released.

Goodsol Development has published Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.02, an update to this popular solitaire title for Windows.  The product features 101 different types of card solitaire, as well as 34 more bonus games when the full game is purchased.

This free update fixes the few bugs reported since GS101 version 1.01, which was released back in April, and is recommended for all users.  Fortunately, there were no issues associated with the release of Windows 7, so the software is fully compatible.  (This should be the last Windows-only release of GS101, as the Mac OS X version is expected soon.)

For more information, please visit the Goodsol Solitaire 101 web site, or just download the trial version now and try it.  The program can be purchased now for only $19.95, with an optional CD available for $7.50 more.

Vote for Us

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One of our titles is nominated for an Epsilon Award.

Epsilon Award

This year, Most Popular Solitaire 2.0, has been nominated for an Epsilon Award, the software award associated with the European Software Conference, which takes place November 7-8, 2009, in Berlin (Germany, in case anybody is confused about that).

Unlike other software awards, there are no categories here; only one award is presented each year.  This year (again) there are 25 nominees, and our product is the only game title nominated.  Accordingly, we would appreciate your vote.

Today is the last day of voting, so please vote (for us).

On the voting page, you will find the following description:

Most Popular Solitaire 2.0 by Goodsol Development, Inc. Most Popular Solitaire is a collection of only the 30 best and most popular solitaire games (selected from a collection of hundred of different varieties). There are versions for both Windows and Mac OS X, with combined high score charts and interchangeable save games. Its great popularity in Windows is even surpassed on the Mac, where it has been in the Top 20 at the Apple Store since its release. http://www.moposol.com/ Gregg Seelhoff

Voting is basically open to anybody and everybody (i.e., the “public”), so if you are reading this, you probably qualify.  To vote, simply go to this page, click on the (above) graphic with “[VOTE]” superimposed, and follow the instructions.

(Note that I would have included a ‘Nominated for the Epsilon Award’ image here, too, except that they are only available for 2006-2008, and those are really, really ugly.)

Thanks!

No Magic Numbers

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Action Solitaire 1.31 is now available for download.

After the last posting, we discovered a rather significant bug in Action Solitaire. It was fortunate that it was discovered in house, but unfortunate that it was not found during beta testing and, hence, required a public update. The problem caused two of the 65 games to behave incorrectly (or even crash) when large or huge card sizes were selected, either explicitly or implicitly through automatic sizing.

The problem turned out to be magic numbers in the code. We released the first version of Action Solitaire back in 2003, which was six years of coding experience ago and at a time when I felt under some (self-imposed) pressure to get the product finished. Unlike some of the other projects, the source code for this game has not been refactored, except to the extent necessary to make updates for Vista and add new games, so I never revisited these (working) games to see the problem.

For those who do not know, a magic number is an explicit and undocumented constant in the source code for a program, so named because the value works like magic, without any proper explanation. In this particular case, the width and height of an image buffer were set to constant values, calculated (manually) to accommodate an area based on the largest card sizes supported by the game at that time. Rather than actually letting the computer determine the necessary buffer size, based on named constant values (e.g., MaxCardWidth and MaxCardHeight), the code just used constant numbers directly. When the maximum card size increased, the buffer was too small and problems ensued. Such are the dangers of magic numbers.

It did not take long to find and fix the problem, but it should not have been necessary in the first place, especially since we had standards, even back then, that discouraged the use of magic numbers. I made an exception and got burned. Ouch.

Anyway, Action Solitaire can be downloaded here, and I guarantee ample opportunity to find other bugs in this product, but the game is fun (and addictive) as well.

Action Solitaire 1.30

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Can you believe it? Another product release!

Goodsol Development has released Action Solitaire 1.30, continuing the string of product update releases in 2009. This latest version of Action Solitaire adds five more games and (belatedly) implements support for larger card sizes, including those provided in all of the newer downloadable cardsets. The new action games are:

  • Two Cells
  • Three Cells
  • Klondike Deal Three
  • Canfield Deal Three
  • Black Hole

One nice thing about these new games is that it creates 5 more opportunities for players to climb to the top of the standings (or ten, if one counts both tables for each game).

As this product was in beta testing, I noticed that, oddly, all of our Action Solitaire releases have been in odd years, starting in 2003:

  • Version 1.0 – December 9, 2003
  • Version 1.1 – April 18, 2005
  • Version 1.2 – May 24, 2007
  • Version 1.3 – June 16, 2009

Following this pattern, this would be the last update until the second part of July, 2011! However, a popular clambering for a Mac version would probably result in AS 2.0 well before that time.

Download and enjoy! [from here]

Most Popular Solitaire 2.00

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An update to yet another successful card solitaire game is released.

One week ago, Most Popular Solitaire 2.00 was published by Goodsol Development. This is a major upgrade to a product first released (for Windows) in 2003. Most Popular Solitaire is a collection of 30 of the most popular (surprise!) card solitaire games, including all of the favorites: Klondike (often known as simply Solitaire), FreeCell, Spider, and a number of (well, 27, obviously) others.

In terms of features, either the most important or least important, depending on ones system, is that Most Popular Solitaire 2.00 has equivalent versions for both Windows and Mac OS X available. This new version also includes Climb Mode and 13 bonus games in the full (purchased) version, as well as a number of other smaller features. (Of course, everything is a new feature on this initial Mac release, but it is an improvement on Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 1.0, which included the same 30 games.)

In terms of technology, this release used the same revisions of our Goodsol Solitaire Engine that were used for Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.01 (on Windows) and Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.01 (on Mac OS X). These are the last planned updates before the next GSE upgrade, which will add a few additional features and make some internal changes to reduce the source code differences between platforms.

The marketing challenge for this product is handling both the Windows and Mac OS X versions simultaneously. Having the same price (and registration codes) for both makes it easier, and also allows customers to switch to Mac (you know, or the other way) without having to repurchase. The biggest issue is the different approach to trial versions: whereas the Windows version can be converted into the full version by entry of the registration code, the Mac OS X version has a separate full version download.

In the three weeks since the latest Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition update, that product has risen (back) into the top 5 on Most Popular in the Cards & Puzzles category for Apple Downloads, but Most Popular Solitaire (Mac Edition) is now in the top 20 (and climbing) in only a week. Downloads of both products (trial versions) are increasing, but we will have to see how that translates into sales.

In any event, somebody is enjoying our games, and I dig that.