Featured Tweet (#441)

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Details: I dropped the iOS Deployment Target to 3.2, and the project built (seemingly) properly for all iPads, but Xcode 4.4.1 refused to actually send the app to the device.  It ran the existing (older) version on the device the first time, and when that was deleted manually, it threw error messages about not being able to find the file. (!)  Cleaning the project did not seem to work, but erasing the intermediates folder did the trick.

Most Popular Solitaire 2.10

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This is a wonderful collection of favorite solitaire games.

MPS 2.10Goodsol Development has published Most Popular Solitaire 2.10, a maintenance update to this collection of the most popular solitaire games for both Mac OS X and Windows.

Most Popular Solitaire contains 30 games, including the most common varieties such as Klondike (a.k.a., “Solitaire”), Spider, and FreeCell, as well as more unusual forms of patience such as Crazy Quilt.  This version greatly improves the interface for selecting and organizing games.

In Most Popular Solitaire, you can play a wide variety of different types of solitaire, giving a taste for various forms of gameplay and allowing you to decide (and mark) your favorites.  Here is a quick sampling: Pyramid is very popular, involving removal of pairs of cards to reveal other cards and clear the layout; Forty Thieves is enormously popular, involving the proper selection of cards and use of tableau spaces; Aces Up (which I learned more than 40 years ago as “Idiot’s Delight”) involves eliminating lower card ranks until only the four Aces are left; Canfield is a historical game with some cards needing to be unburied from a reserve; Golf is based on removing cards by building up and down on the waste pile; La Belle Lucie is a favorite game of mine of the Fan variety; Cruel is an interesting form of solitaire made popular in the (original) Microsoft Entertainment Pack; Scorpion and Yukon are solitaire games where entire columns of cards are moved regardless of sequence.  I have mentioned fewer than half of the games in this collection; there is truly something here that will appeal to everyone.

You can download a free 30-day trial version for Mac OS X 10.4 or later (Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, or Tiger) or Windows 8/7/Vista/XP.  When you buy a copy here for only $16.95, you get both Mac and Windows versions for one low price.  You also get access to 13 bonus games not available in the trial version.  (The web site says that is less than 57 cents per game, but it could be less than 20 cents per game, considering both platforms and the bonus games.)

Most Popular Solitaire is another one of the games based on our proprietary Goodsol Solitaire Engine; in fact, MPSol 1.0 was the original source for GSE, as well as the first version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition.  It was originally introduced, more than 7 years ago, as an alternative product for those solitaire players who were a little overwhelmed by the hundreds of games in PGS (for Windows); however, my design and programming approach (and tools) were enough different from the flagship product that, while the deals are the same, the playing experience is certainly different.

Pretty Good MahJongg 2.41 / ME 2.02

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MahJongg Solitaire and Tile Matching for Windows and Mac OS X.

Goodsol Development has published Pretty Good MahJongg 2.41 and Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition 2.02, maintenance updates to this award-winning MahJongg game, featuring both original solitaire games and traditional tile matching puzzles, available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Pretty Good MahJongg contains 300 tile matching layouts, an integrated layout editor, and 55 solitaire and puzzle games, most of which are original and unique, including Pyramid of Wild Dragons, which was designed exclusively for this product by Thomas Warfield.

In Pretty Good MahJongg, you can play 10 different types of solitaire and puzzle games, including MahJongg FreeCell, Crazy Quilt, MahJongg Klondike, MahJongg Spider, and MahJongg Gaps, playing card solitaire games adapted to only 3 suits with 9 ranks, plus extra tiles (such as Dragons).  In Pyramid of Wild Dragons, you build pyramids from a hand of tiles.  In Great Wall, you match tiles to remove them from a grid and then the tiles above fall down to fill in the gaps.  In Pelmanism (Memory), you play a classic game of memorization and recall.  In Four Rivers (Shisen-Sho), you remove proximate pairs of tiles until the tableau is cleared, while in MahJongg Stones, you add single tiles to a zen garden until all of the tiles rest in harmony and balance.

Of course, PGMJ also features standard tile matching, and it ships with 300 layouts, including “Standard” (the most common layout); you can play more than 2 billion deals of each layout, and these deals can be (by default) guaranteed winnable.  However, registered users also get an integrated layout editor that allows them to create and play custom layouts, using up to 4 full MahJongg sets (576 tiles!), alongside the other layouts.  You can share these layouts with your friends or even share them with all other players.  You can download more tile sets (for both solitaire and tile matching games), and with any image editor you can create your own custom tile sets.

You can download a free 30-day trial version for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP or Mac OS X 10.4 or later (Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, or Tiger).  For only $24.95, you can buy PGMJ 2.41 for Windows or buy PGMJME 2.02 for Mac, and receive all of the above, including the integrated layout editor.  (That is only 7 cents per game/layout!)

Pretty Good MahJongg just celebrated its 10th birthday in October!  This was the first full game that I (solely) wrote to be published by Goodsol, and it remains the one game that I still play almost daily a decade after its initial (1.0) release.  I also flexed some quasi-artistic muscles and generated three tile sets myself, including two (Simple Tiles and International Marine Signal Flags) which ship with the game, and the other, Playing Card Tiles, which is currently the most popular downloadable tile set.  Active development continues, as version 2.5 with even more games and layouts is scheduled for 2013.

Happy Halloween 2012!

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Enjoy Hallowe’en, Samhain, All Hallows’ Even, and Day of the Dead.

The above card images are from the Halloween Card Set, available for all of our Solitaire games [*] as a free download of the Holiday Card Set Pack.

[* Disclaimer: An exclusion applies for games purchased through the Mac App Store, which forbids the installation of new card sets from this download.  These card sets can be installed for MAS games, but the process is convoluted.]

Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 2.12

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This is a great collection of solitaire games with a nice interface.

GSCI 2.12Goodsol Development has published Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 2.12, a maintenance update to this collection of the most played solitaire games for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 contains 101 games, including Klondike (a.k.a., “Solitaire”), FreeCell, Spider, and many other favorites.  This version has an updated game selection interface that makes it quicker to find games and easier to organize them as desired.

In Goodsol Solitaire 101, you can play any of more than 2 billion deals for each game, and the program keeps track of your score and time on each deal, as well as other statistics.  Better yet, you can play in climb mode, where deals are played in ascending order for a total score, for direct comparison with other players.  The game list can be arranged according to any of the statistics, and automatic groups let you select from, for example, games you have not played yet.  Of course, all scores can be reported to the online high score server, which shows results for individual games and lets you compare your results against other players (even those on other platforms or using different Goodsol products).  You can also customize your experience by using different free card sets, such as the Halloween Card Set, perfect for the current season.

You can download a free 30-day trial version for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP or Mac OS X 10.4 or later (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion).  When you buy a copy here for only $19.95, you get both Windows and Mac versions for one low price.  You also get access to 34 bonus games not available in the trial version.  Note that this is the largest current Windows version that supports climb mode (unless you apply to be a beta tester on the Goodsol Solitaire Forum); Mac users may want to consider Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition as well.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 is one of the games based on our proprietary Goodsol Solitaire Engine, for which your humble blogmaster was the sole programmer and primary designer (with Thomas Warfield).  GSE currently runs under Windows and Mac OS X, obviously, with a version for iPad in the testing phase, and it is regularly being improved to provide additional features (and, for some products, even more games).

Featured Tweet (#424)

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Action Solitaire 1.50

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Save $7 on this arcade-style game of solitaire against the clock.

Goodsol Development has published Action Solitaire 1.50, a significant (and long awaited) update to this arcade Solitaire game for Windows.

This version of Action Solitaire adds 5 more games, bringing the total to 75 games.  The new games are ForeCell, Seven by Five, Seven by Four, Double Klondike Deal Three, and Scorpion II.

In Action Solitaire, you play rounds of Solitaire against a timer for points; earn enough points and you advance to the next level.  Strategy involves not only deciding which moves to make, but also consideration of tradeoffs between actions that cost points (like undoing a move) and acceptance of a suboptimal result, as well as determining when to just accept the current bonus points versus continuing to play.  A wide variety of different games, with varying lengths of play, provide an addictive challenge for any player.  All games have two online high score charts (recent games and all-time scores) so you can compare/compete with hundred or thousands of other players around the world.

You can download a free 30-day trial version here, and you can buy a copy here for the reduced price of $19.95.  Wait!  There’s more!  If you act now you can save $7 on Action Solitaire, which is less than 18 cents per game; however, I do not know how long this offer will last, so you should stop waiting and start playing.

Action Solitaire was programmed entirely by yours truly, and it has now been around, actively maintained and supported, for 9 years, though it is only available for Windows at the moment.  If it gets a little extra outpouring of appreciation, we should be able to justify versions for Mac OS X and iOS (iPad).  If you want this to happen, please let us know!