Most Popular Solitaire 2.02

Our entry level product for Mac OS X and Windows is updated.

This week, Goodsol Development released Most Popular Solitaire 2.02, a maintenance release of this popular solitaire title.  The product contains 30 of the most popular solitaire games, including FreeCell, Spider, and Klondike (known to many as simply “Solitaire”), plus 13 more bonus variants (not available in the evaluation version).

Ostensibly, this update contains a few bug fixes and does not change much about the product itself, though internally it takes a sizable step forward.  This version brings the code up to the latest (properly tested) version of the Goodsol Solitaire Engine, so future updates will be easier to build and maintain (on multiple platforms).

Most Popular Solitaire is available for only $16.95 via secure server, and trial versions are also available for Windows and for Mac OS X.

More is yet to come.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to challenge myself to completing three products in three weeks.  I have been sequestered in my office, for the most part, since then.  As much as I would like to proclaim the two Most Popular Solitaire 2.02 SKUs as two of those, the truth is that they were not even considered, so there are still three products (and SKUs) yet to come, albeit not next week.

My status is that the first priority, a full Mac OS X port, has taken longer than originally anticipated, but it will be announced shortly.  The second project, extending a recent product to operate on a new platform, has been forcibly pushed back for at least 9 more days.  (You figure it out; I cannot talk about it.)  The final product in this group, Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.20 (with 100 more games and a few new features), is making good progress but…  there is only so much we can do at once.

Finally, although I have not had any time for Facebook during my challenge, I will tell you that you — yes, you! — can now become a fan of Pretty Good Solitaire.

FreeCell Plus 4.00

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.

Most Popular Solitaire 2.01

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

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.

Windows 7 Escapes

Microsoft releases its latest operating system.

Last week, Microsoft published Windows 7, the successor to Vista, to some fanfare.  The reviews have been fairly positive, perhaps because Vista softened the audience, but it seems that the sales tag line should be “Windows 7: what Vista should have been.

We tested the new operating system, in a couple of virtual machines, by running Sun VirtualBox virtualization software.  My first impression was that this was a great productVirtualBox, I mean.  Although I have not yet delved into the advanced features, it did exactly what we needed with a minimum of fuss and bother.  We were able to test both Windows 7 x86 (32-bit) and Windows 7 x64 (64-bit) on the same 32-bit Vista host system without serious problems.  In fact, the only problem we experienced was an inability to find a 64-bit sound driver through Windows Update (so our x64 VM did not have sound).

Back to the operating system, we found it to be perfectly adequate.  It performed as expected and was easy to use (for somebody already used to Vista, anyway).  There is nothing particularly revolutionary, but (as with the update from Windows 98 to Windows 98se) everything seems to be more polished, with a few minor features added.  The big change, really, is that the 64-bit version is becoming mainstream (whereas the 64-bit support for the previous versions was not quite ready for prime time).  It is for this reason that I am likely to upgrade my development system to Windows 7 x64 in the near future.

Some of the changes include the ability to “pin” an icon to the task bar (replacing the Quick Launch toolbar), and a new management feature for task bar (a.k.a., tray) icons, allowing the user to control when these icons are displayed or hidden.  In order to encourage users to make use of this feature, Microsoft kindly made their own icons here very ugly, so the first customization item is to get rid of them.  (This will also facilitate ignoring the loads of useless preinstalled junk that comes on some new computers.)

As far as developers are concerned, nothing much has changed.  As long as your software is Vista-compliant, it will probably run unmodified under Windows 7. All of our recent product releases worked just fine; the only items noted were the (now) missing Quick Launch toolbar and the task bar icon disappearing (i.e., being hidden) after its first appearance.  The only significant caveat, though, is that 16-bit applications (those built for Windows 3.1) will not run (directly) in Windows 7 x64.

Of course, I do have a couple of recommendations for Microsoft to consider in the future.  First, they should probably do a better job of considering the symbolism they (perhaps, inadvertently) put forward.  The default wallpaper for the beta and release candidate versions of Windows 7 was a male Siamese Fighting Fish, also known as a betta.  (“Get it?”)  The latter name may be punny, but the fact that these fish (at least at the pet store) have to have separate enclosures because they are nasty and do not play nicely with the other fish suggests that Win7 is intended to be likewise.

Also, perhaps underlining the above weakness in Microsoft’s overhyped marketing capabilities, I will point out that they had great successes with Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1 (standard version numbering), as well as Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 (release year numbering), moderate successes with Windows 286/386 (hardware support), Windows NT, and Windows XP (opaque version lettering), but commercial failures with Windows Me, Windows Vista, and even Windows (1.0, initial release) itself.  I suggest that Microsoft stop trying to “evoke” some greater vision and stick to practical version identification.

Finally, I note that the “Starting Windows” screen of Windows 7 is the best feature of the product, nearly perfect for its purpose.  It is too bad that the same design was not carried through to the system icons, which really are a step backwards in aesthetic terms.

No Magic Numbers

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

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

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.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.01

A maintenance update to our latest Windows solitaire game is released.

Goodsol Development has now published Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.01, an update to the initial version of GS101, which was released last November [2009]. (Internally, I refer to the product as GSCI to avoid confusing naming such as GS101101.) This version fixes a number of bugs that were discovered since the original release.

What makes this release interesting is that it shares its game data file with our Mac product, Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.0, and both games are based on common source code, so several of the bugs that were fixed were originally discovered during beta testing for PGSME 2.0, and then confirmed and resolved on GS101. Of the various arguments I have heard for cross-platform development, additional testing of the fundamental program logic (on each system) was not mentioned, so this was a welcome surprise. It should only benefit the quality of both products.

For more information on the game, please visit the Goodsol Solitaire 101 web site, or just download the program and give it a try. This update is free to all customers who have already purchased GS101.