First time seeing this in KPatience. The game shouldn’t even start if it isn’t solvable though but it’s something.
The Zachtronics solitaire collection (steam, Linux version available) has a bunch of fun unique solitaire variants, and every layout is guaranteed to be solvable.
Seems nice, added to my wishlist. Thanks for the heads up!
Edit: It’s also available on GOG, which is better.
If you play more regularly, you get quickly used to this message.
How do you actually play this game? I’m not into card games in general but this one seems oddly interesting
Haven’t played in a while; if i make a mistake please correct me.
You play with a standard 52 card deck. The goal is to sort the cards by suit in ascending order (A,2,3,4…).
You can move revealed cards (or complete/partial card stacks) onto the next higher, different colored card, e.g. in the example above you can move the clubs 2 onto the diamond 3. if you uncover a hidden card, you can turn it over, making it accessible. Empty places on the board are only allowed to receive Kings, the target spots can only receive the next valid card, in the upper example you can move the Ace in one of the top spots.
If you don’t have a valid move, you draw a card from the stack on the top left. The currently revealed card there can be accessed while it is the topmost card; this means if you can move the topmost card you can access the previous card (if there is one).
There are two main variants of the game: Draw one and Draw Three. In draw one, your game is over as soon as the last card is drawn from the stack and there are no more valid moves; in draw three, you draw 3 cards at a time, only the topmost card is accessible, but you are allowed to flip over the staple 2 times when you run out of cards - giving you an information advantage for the additional disadvantage that you can only directly access every third card.
Score is counted by how far you can fill up the upper spots; Vegas rules have you buy in and get payout depending on how far you can fill the top row, with higher card numbers reached being worth proportionally more.
Not all games are winnable by default, since there’s the possibility that lower value cards might be stuck under cards that aren’t movable; this is not knowable, and as you can see from the above discussion, it’s not trivial to calculate either :-)
The idea is to have four stacks of cards at the top. One for each suit, ace thru king. Once you get that you win.
You can move cards around the bottom by stacking them in descending order (King thru 2), in alternating colors (red, black).
You can move multiple cards to a new stack if it’s suitable.
You can turn the upside down cards on the bottom once there are no face-up cards covering them.
When the bottom stacks are empty, you can start a new stack in that spot, but only with a King.
The draw pile at the top is where the different sets of rules come into play…some people draw 1 at a time, some draw three at a time. Some people also play with a limit of how many times you can loop through the draw pile.
There’s also a scoring system but that’s unimportant for most people unless they really care. After all, solitaire is a one player game.
First requisite: you need to be alone.
The ultimate goal is to gather all 4 types of cards to top right empty slots from the smallest card to biggest card (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K).
You pull from the main deck 1 or 3 at a time (1 is easier) and you can only put that card under a bigger one. Also only K cards can be placed on a completely emptied out slots under. Sorting should be opposite colour too (If you pull 10 black, you can only place it under J red). Black if red, red if black.
I hope I was clear.
I think Windows 7 solitaire had an option where you could only get solvable games. Personally i like it when you don’t know if it can be solved - part of the puzzle for me.
To each their own, that’s the reason I don’t play Solitaire physically and play it digitally I hate spending 5-10 minutes on a game just to find out that I can’t beat it. There’s no sense of satisfaction for me
what solitaires are you playing? I wonder what are the chances of getting an unsolvable one in your case
For standard Klondike, ~82%
the standard 3 draw one. I understand 1 draw has a higher chance of success tho
I was grateful for the option for a few games, before realizing that I was miserable. The game felt too easy with the option on. If they also had a stock of difficult levels to occasionally kick me to death, that’d’ve be nice. Going from 50% to nearly thoughtless 99% completion rate was no fun.
I partially agree. From the start, it should be solvable. But if it can be solvable in a very certain way, I’m fine with it. I think a good puzzle should be at least solvable even if it was badly designed.
Windows 7 solitaire was good, though it was kinda easy IIRC.
I remember seeing the option, it required an account and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a paid subscription after that.
You can’t always trust the KPatience solver for some games. I have not worked out yet which games it’s broken for but I routinely win Simple Simon games that it says can’t be won. There others, but I can’t remember which.
I also have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the solver hinting - I’d like hints to only point out moves that I’ve missed based on the cards on the table. The hints often seem to be positioning the cards for future moves.
Program it so it only deals unsolvable games on a given day of the week
Thanks Satan.
Yeah, KPat just does this. Skip em or persist in your doomed timeline, I guess.
It’s also my experience that KPatience doesn’t skip unwinnable games. It also occasionally generates one where it can’t determine whether the game is solvable or not, which is probably due to search space limitations. I’ve won a couple of those, but they’re risky to start in the first place!
I can see the logic for not skipping unsolvable games.
KPat uses a seed system (called “Numbered Deals”) to “shuffle” the cards before a game. The seed can be generated (pseudo-)randomly, which is the default, or entered manually. In theory, a manually-entered seed could be unsolvable, and there would then need to be completely different logic flow for random and manual seeds after the shuffle and deal.
It’s way simpler to just generate a new game seed randomly as necessary and then have the rest of the program be clueless as to whether it was typed in or not.
It also occasionally generates one where it can’t determine whether the game is solvable or not, which is probably due to search space limitations. I’ve won a couple of those, but they’re risky to start in the first place!
I kinda like those. I’ve also won couple of them and one of them was quite close to a win and it was always unwinnable at the very last parts (I tried the same seed 3-4 times).
Yeah, I get the logic and with the current system it might cause a long start if it runs into a bad string since it should also skip undeterminable games. Maybe someone should rewrite it in Rust. /j
