Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 2.12

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Gregg

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

Goodsol 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).

Action Solitaire 1.50

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Gregg

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!

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.34

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Gregg

A free update is now available.

This week, Goodsol Development released Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.34, a maintenance update that fixes a few bugs (introduced by yours truly) in the previous release version. This is a free update for any customers who have purchased the downloadable version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition (ever). [This version is functionally equivalent to PGSME 2.33 from the Mac App Store.]

As a refresher, PGSME is a Solitaire program for Mac containing 350 different games, plus 50 bonus games, with over 2 billion deals of each. It runs on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and higher, including both Intel and PPC systems. You can download a trial version, and you can purchase a copy for only $24.95 US.

This is the latest product in a long series of upcoming game releases from Goodsol. Next up: Look for an upgrade to Action Solitaire (free to anyone purchasing the game between now and then).

Pretty Good Solitaire 13.2

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Gregg

Goodsol’s flagship Windows game gets even bigger.

This week, Goodsol Development released Pretty Good Solitaire 13.2, the leading Solitaire program for Windows. This new version now includes 780 (!) different Solitaire games, including all of your favorites, such as Klondike (a.k.a., “Solitaire“), FreeCell, and Spider, as well as many games not available anywhere else.

Pretty Good Solitaire 13.2 is available for download here, and it is a free upgrade for any customers who have purchased since version 12 (i.e., in the last 4 or 5 years).

The 10 new games in this update are:

Alloway Kirk
Five Pirates
Kettle Hill
McCarver
Open Peek
Pyramid Rank
Richard’s Patience
Undercover Aces Easy
Weddings
Yukon Two Suits

Aside from a little bit of play testing, I actually did no development work on this product; this is actually a triumph because our GDcard playing card library, which still runs the display of cards, symbols, and backgrounds, as well as the card animations, continues to work flawlessly. Thomas Warfield (Goodsol) did all of the development work for this update.

Of course, now that Thomas has added yet another 10 games to the Windows version, it is now time for me to retaliate on Mac OS X, so look for a Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition update, with 400 games, coming soon to an internet near you!

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.3

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Gregg

Now with 350 games!

Yesterday, Goodsol Development published Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.30, the latest version of the premier computer Solitaire program for Apple Mac OS X.

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.30 adds 50 new solitaire games, bringing the total to 350 games in the trial version, and 400 games in the full version (with 50 bonus games). This game also introduces the Tour Explorer, which allows players to play game tours for a total score in pursuit of the perfect tour. Click here for a list of other features in PGSME. You can download a trial version of the product and buy it for only $24.95! This version is a free upgrade for all previous PGSME customers, and new customers will get free upgrades through the end of 2012, which will include even more releases and new games.

As mentioned in my 2011: Year in Review article, this product is the culmination of a fairly long development and beta test cycle. Surprisingly, the game tours feature (like the game groups before it) was the biggest single issue in getting the product released sooner. Not only does the feature consist of four separate dialog boxes, plus two more back-end data classes, but the only specification was a somewhat flawed implementation, so I needed to rethink and redesign the entire feature, and then tweak the behavior until we had something that worked well. Complicating matters was the fact the beta testers were not inclined to play game tours, and none are quality assurance professionals (nor aspiring to be), so in essence, only we developers (mostly me) were doing any real testing of this feature.

Of course, the sheer mass of 50 new games, when combined, contributed much more to the overall development and testing time, though none (even the real “oddballs”) took a huge amount of time alone. Fortunately, our beta testers were more meticulous about play testing individual games, so the few significant bugs I let slip through to the beta versions were (hopefully) identified and crushed. I challenge anybody to find a bug in PGSME now.

After a short breather, I will be back on development of PGSME 2.4 (a.k.a., GS400), which will contain (surprise!) another 50 games for a total of 400 (plus at least 50 bonus games). Bring it on!

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.21

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Gregg

First, the Good News…

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.21 is now available in the Mac App Store.

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.21 is essentially the same as Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.20, including all 350 games (including bonus games), with the alterations required for MAS inclusion. Mostly, this is just the elimination of any registration codes or acknowledgment that Apple is not the one and only possible source of this product.

Click here for PGSME 2.21 on the Mac App Store. (We would really appreciate decent reviews, too.)

… and then the Bad News.

Apple, in its myopic wisdom, has determined that updated products should not be shown at the top of the various product lists, so PGSME 2.21, despite having 50% more primary games than its MAS predecessor, PGSME 2.14, which itself helped make the initial Mac App Store launch successful, is not listed on the first (visible) page of ‘All Card Games’ (nor under ‘New and Noteworthy’ on the general ‘Games’ page).

I can understand and appreciate the concept of not automatically bumping up minor updates and bug fixes, thus encouraging spam-like behavior and regular submission of inconsequential changes, but when one of the launch day products adds 100 new games (plus another 10 bonus games), after being trouble free for 5 months, it seems genuinely unfair to penalize it with keeping its (now) almost bottom of the list position. In fact, it is actually counterproductive, as it encourages us to bombard them with releases of “different” titles using our internal product names (GS200, GS300, GS350, GS400, etc.). Apple needs to review this policy.

Fortunately, despite the lack of attention from Apple itself, our customers recognize the quality of our product and, somehow, have managed to find out about the new release. Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition is (as I write this) back to #3 on the ‘Top Grossing’ chart in ‘Card Games’, so we have been voted onto the page anyway.

Nice.

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.2

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Gregg

What is your profession? Fun! Fun! Fun!

After half a year in development, the latest version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition has been released by Goodsol Development this week.

Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.20 adds one hundred new solitaire games to the product, and also makes some significant interface improvements, including customizable game groups, to allow players to arrange games just the way they desire. The 300 games in this title are joined by 50 bonus games (in the full version), to make PGSME the ultimate solitaire game for Mac OS X.

You can download a trial version of the product, or buy it for only $24.95! (That is not even a dime per game for hours upon hours of relaxing enjoyment; where else could you get that much fun for less than 10 cents?) This version is a free upgrade for all previous PGSME customers, and new customers will get free upgrades through the end of 2012, including PGSME 2.3 later this year.

In other news…

By popular request, our RSS feed has now been updated to display each article in its entirety. (Thanks, Rich, and you are very welcome.)

Careers (April Update)

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Gregg

February/March spent some time in the doldrums.

In this periodic update to my productivity game based on Careers (for accountability), I have to admit to slower than expected progress. As a reminder, the basic goal and object of the game is to reach 20 points in each of the three categories.

At this point, my scores (in deadline order) are:
Fame/Accomplishment: 6
Happiness/Health: 6
Money/Finances: 1

I was expecting to have reached my goal (20 points) in the Fame/Accomplishment category by April 1st, and that would have a knock-on effect for the Money/Finances category, but instead my focus reduced progress in the Happiness/Health area instead. Bah.

“An explanation, not an excuse.”

Although the tangible progress is less than I hoped right now, I have (with the exception of one bad week) been working hard and long on a number of different projects. My work on the Goodsol Solitaire Engine (which powers all of our solitaire games) got bogged down in a couple of new features and the associated interface changes on Mac and Windows, but that is almost resolved now, and the iPad version has been making progress, too. I count five (5!) new titles and major product upgrades due in the next month or two.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 (and more)

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Gregg

GS101 versions 2.04 and 2.05 are released.

101 favorite solitaire games Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 2.04 is now available for download on both Mac OS X and Windows, while version 2.05 is also available in the Mac App Store. (The only differences between these two versions are minor restrictions imposed on the latter by Apple.)

Goodsol Solitaire 101 contains 101 of the most played solitaire games from Goodsol Development, including all of the favorites included in Most Popular Solitaire, plus 34 bonus games. All of this can be purchased for only $19.95 (although quick readers may be able to catch a special introductory price on the Mac App Store).

Goodsol products on the Mac App Store

a dozen great FreeCell games Through a fluke of timing and the whims of one Apple reviewer, FreeCell Plus 4.05 arrived on the Mac App Store last week, while the store version of Goodsol Solitaire 101 (submitted first) appeared just a few days ago. However, the debuts of these two products are very encouraging. All four of our playing card solitaire products have spent time in the Top 10, seemingly taking turns to share the spotlight.

As of this writing, all four of these solitaire titles are among the top 24 card games in the Mac App Store (3 in the top dozen):

Fortunately, FreeCell Plus has been camped in the ‘Top Paid’ chart since its release, usually among the top 3 card games. Unfortunately, it is our least expensive (current) offering, which shows the downside of eliminating trial versions in favor of straight sales (and indicates that shareware still works).

Most Popular Solitaire 2.04/2.05

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Gregg

Thirty (30) great solitaire games are ready for download.

Goodsol Development has released Most Popular Solitaire 2.04 for both Windows and Mac OS X. This maintenance release fixes a rare bug and updates the title for 2011.

Most Popular Solitaire is a collection of 30 of our best solitaire games, plus 13 more bonus game variants for registered users, all for only $16.95 (less than 40 cents per game).

This game is also available at the Mac App Store.

Now, Most Popular Solitaire 2.05 is available on the Mac App Store. This version is functionally equivalent to MPS 2.04, but with minor alterations required by Apple (such as the removal of all download links). However, it automatically includes ten (10) additional card sets for your immediate enjoyment. (Card sets are also available for free download on both Mac OS X and Windows, and these work on all versions.)

As I write this, Most Popular Solitaire is currently ranked #7 in the ‘Card Games’ category, and rising, despite only becoming available hours ago. If you are interested in getting a copy, now is the time to do so, as it is currently being offered at a special introductory price for a limited time only. (I will not publish it here, but suffice it to say that it is substantially less than the price mentioned above, so act quickly.)

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