![]() Once you’ve decided what kind of card design and background suit your fancy, there’s a “demo” you can use to watch the computer play solitaire all by itself. There’s even an option to have penguins on your face cards, a feature Windows Solitaire will probably - and sadly - always lack. There are many card design choices too, and not just the card backs but, unlike the competition, card fronts as well. You get dozens of background options instead of the “any color you like as long as it’s green” non-selection offered by AisleRiot or Windows Solitaire. KPatience is computer solitaire the way God intended it to be. AisleRiot solitaire needs someone to take over the project and update it. There is also a “Hint” utility, conveniently located in the menu bar, which is good. Like Windows solitaire, card flips are unanimated.ĪisleRiot offers one major improvement over Windows Solitaire, especially in the “play while you’re supposed to be working” context: When you remove a card from one of the stacks other than the main card pile, the one under it is exposed automatically. The AisleRiot site hasn’t been updated (as of this writing) since 2001.ĪisleRiot gives you many game choices, but only two card design selections. Klondike is one of about 25 different kinds of solitaire found in AisleRiot, which is part of the gnome-games package. Some might consider “hints” a bit of a cheat (and we all know Microsoft hates any kind of cheating or other underhandedness), but what about when you’re snatching playing time in between work tasks and forget where you were in your game? Is it cheating to have a little reminder handy under those circumstances? I think not!Īll in all, Windows solitaire is an “oldie but goodie,” the computer game equivalent of a 1964 Ford Falcon you take down to Mel’s Diner for a classic car show, but don’t want to drive every day because it lacks modern automotive amenities. There is no “hint” feature you can turn to if you’re stuck. The background is the color of green felt, which is a fine color for a card game, but there is no way to change it. It has a passable, if uninspired, set of card appearance choices. Windows solitaire has few play-style options. Card flips have no animation to them, so if you blink or glance away from the screen momentarily (for instance, while trying to look as if you’re working, not playing) they’re easy to miss or forget, especially if you’re actually doing some work while you play. You still need to manually turn over every card. ![]() What’s surprising is that the version of Solitaire in Windows XP has advanced little beyond Cherry’s original. Here’s an interview with Matt Cherry, the original developer of Windows Solitaire. I’ll start here because Microsoft Windows, an operating system primarily designed for gamers rather than for professional use, was the first widely distributed one to include a solitaire-style card game as part of its base installation. Trying to sneak in a statistically significant sampling of multiple versions could easily lead to adverse employment ramifications (in layman’s language, “getting fired”), which is why I narrowed the focus of this study enough that I could complete it in a single week while still giving the appearance of “being productive.” This study may have been more rigorous if other solitaire games were considered, but in today’s rush-rush world it is hard enough to find time to test one version of a computer game without your boss catching you. First, I decided exactly which type of solitaire to test. Such an important software study cannot be undertaken lightly or without proper preparation. So okay, everyone has solitaire, which leads us to the burning question of the day: “Which has the best built-in version of solitaire: Windows XP, GNOME, or KDE?” Now, of course, solitaire has been part of the KDE and GNOME desktops for so long that most users can’t remember not having it. Later, in the mid-1990s, several critics told me Linux would never catch on unless it, too, included solitaire. One of the original Windows selling points was that it included a version of solitaire, the centuries-old, time-filling card game.
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