Zachtronics Solitaire

Absolutely needs to have some kind of save function. If you leave your phone for 5 minutes, you’ll lose all your progress. Fortune’s Foundation especially sometimes takes a while to figure out, and if you get interrupted before you’ve solved it 100% you’ll get reset and lose a win you for sure were on your way to. If it weren’t for that I’d give it 5 stars.

These are undoubtedly great solitaire games by one of my favorite game designers… but in a very barebones port that is honestly a pretty bad experience on my iPhone Mini. Pillarboxed interface, minuscule text. It feels bad to have to play a mobile solitaire game in landscape when so much horizontal screen space is wasted. On top of that, they don’t have the best track record of app support on iOS (RIP Spacechem and TIS-100P) and the last update definitely didn’t eliminate the possibility of losing games in progress when app switching. Bottom line: great solitaire variants let down by a subpar port, at least for phones. iPad probably fares better.

I’ve already played all the Solitaire games that Zachtronics had previously published but having them together in one mobile app is so convenient. If you're familiar with these games then you already know what you're getting, but if you aren't then you'll be delighted with some lovely games for chilling out but still getting your brain working a bit. Each game has a fun twist to keep you coming back for one more deal. It's just a lovely way to relax with enough variety to keep it interesting. If you have played Zachtronics Solitaire games before you need to give Fortune's Foundation a try. It's quite challenging but possibly their very best variant ever. Cards can stack in either direction but you can only move one card at a time. This leads to planning out how you can shuffle stacks back and forth between ascending and descending order. You get a free cell, but it blocks removing cards from the board. It's incredibly deep. I'm kind of obsessed. Zachtronics will be deeply missed, but I appreciate this parting collection.