Zachtronics Solitaire Collection Analysis

Yes, solitaire. No, really. The thing your dad played at work because it was less boring than actually working.

Zachtronics is generally known for their very unique takes on puzzle games, a series of 'zach-likes' that are based primarily around problem solving rather than puzzle solving. The games never really feel like they have a specific solution in mind for a given puzzle, like a lot of puzzle games do, and instead drop you in with a select list of mechanics and have you figure out everything for yourself.

This makes it both incredibly engaging and incredibly difficult. I've never beaten one, not because I probably couldn't but because I keep losing my progress halfway through for a bunch of non-game related reasons and now I'm kind of tired of trying. Maybe one day...

Since their game Shenzhen I/O, Zachtronics has taken the time to add a unique solitaire minigame to each of their titles, and damn their solitaire is GOOD. For their last act before disbanding, Zachtronics decided to jam all of these solitaire games into one big collection and include one new one.

Aside from Kabufuda I've played a bunch of rounds of pretty much all of these.

Sawayama Solitaire

Klondike done right.

This is notably the only Zachtronics solitaire game to have hidden information: a traditional klondike deck where you pull out a few cards that you can set into the columns. Unlike traditional klondike, you cannot reshuffle this deck. Instead, once you've exhausted it a freecell is given. This means you have to carefully consider what cards you can place into the column, instead of just shuffling it over and over again hoping that one of the cards you get can be put somewhere.

The amount of strategy given from just a few simple changes is baffling and easily makes this one of the most enjoyable klondike variants I've ever played. Some of the later games can get more complicated, so something like this that's fairly simple in comparison is appealing too.

Sigmar's Garden

One not related to cards, this utilizes the orbs from Opus Magnum in an interesting way. Tons of the little orbs are placed onto a board, and you have to match them to free up more space that lets you match even more orbs. You also get some salt orbs that cancel out any other orb, but this can easily fuck you over if you're not careful. For example, if you accidentally leave one set of orbs as an odd number.

Also technically every variant is beatable. I don't know how that works, ask a mathematician.

Proletariat's Patience

Stack a series of number and face columns into each of the cells. Interestingly here instead of face cards leading into numbers the face and number cards are entirely separate. Faces can be stacked any way as long as they share the same suit while number cards are stacked decreasing by opposite colors like usual.

Amusingly it's also metaphorical, designed to be a sort of Russian card game as you could've probably guessed by the title. You're essentially gathering the proletariat while also helping the royals escape.

Very simple, but again easy to screw up on. You gotta be careful about how exactly you stack face cards, or else you might end up stuck.

Cribbage Solitaire

The only solitaire variant on here that scores. Make a series of cribbage hands in order to reach 75 points. Also comes with that little cribbage score thing which is fun.

Can be pretty frustrating at times, you can easily be left with a deck that won't get the score requirement and you can be pretty reliant on getting low runs as much as possible. That being said, it's very replayable and you can feel a lot more in control here than in most of the other games.

Can be annoying if you fucked yourself over early since there's no quick restart.

Cluj Solitaire

A unique take on giving the player freecells, here all of the cards are the same color and the only requirement is to stack them by number. You can also "cheat" cards by moving them into an area that doesn't meet the stack requirement, which will successfully move the card but also block that column until you can move it into a proper location.

Despite its seeming simplicitly this one can be fairly difficult. You have to be rather careful about when and where you cheat, or else you might make a deck impossible by locking all of the remaining 7s behind a cheated 6, for example.

This uses the Russian cards so it goes in order of T/K/D/V/10/9/8/7/6. Kind of hard to remember sometimes.

Also some of these variants are winnable without cheating. Somehow. I don't know, I've never really done it.

Kabufuda Solitaire

Sucks. I didn't like it very much. You match a bunch of cards together and then shuffle them into a freecell or something, but the way the cards look hurts my eyes. I get that's how Japanese playing cards looked back before good 'ol Perry showed up but I still didn't like it that much.

Has a difficulty slider though, so I guess that's cool.

Shenzhen Solitaire

The classic. Zachtronics says this is one of their best, and I'd have to agree. The solitaire variant that set the ground rules for all others, giving you perfect information on everything and a breadth of strategic options to make but still being fairly difficult.

Here you have a typical row of decreasing, suit varying numbers but you also have 'dragons' that are difficult to get out of the way. You have to expose all 4 of a specific dragon to move it to a freecell, as long as that freecell isn't being occupied by something that isn't one of the dragons.

Simple to learn, awesome and engaging. Incredibly satisfying when you get the hang of it.

Fortune's Foundation

The one solitaire game exclusive to this collection, and also the most difficult and trying of them all. How difficult? So difficult that they felt the need to put in an undo button, which is something NONE of the other games have.

You need to resolve all of the cards to win, which includes tarot cards and traditional playing cards. Both sets of cards can be stacked in both directions, and the tarot cards can be resolved in either direction, but the face cards can only be resolved by the lowest number first.

What makes it so difficult? You can't pick up and move an entire stack, you're forced to move one card at a time. This seems like it'd just make it tedious, but it means that if you're not careful you can screw yourself out of a very simple move.

Long, challenging, and damn rewarding at the very end with a different ending corresponding to the last tarot card you managed to resolve. One of the best solitaire games I've ever played.

The collection's definitely worth getting, assuming you feel the urge to pop open a little minigame every now and then like I do. Although considering Solitaire is like, free, why would you bother? Just pop open Microsoft solitare or some Flash freegame shit.

The reason is because regular solitaire kinda sucks ass. I wasn't too big on soliatire myself before Zachtronics and since then I've realized exactly why I was not too big on solitaire.

A lot of solitaire variants are entirely based on luck, even if there's the "90% of freecell decks are winnable" theory floating around. This is because the player is entirely forced to work on limited moves and limited information, which makes for an incredibly boring experience where you're constantly shuffling around the deck trying not to screw yourself over on some random move that looks good until you realize that it's not because the deck just so happens to not want you to do that.

Then you accidentally corner yourself in 3 moves when you could've easily avoided that as long as you knew where the card you needed was.

It's bullshit. It's unfun. There's little problem solving, it's more like I'm just sort of blindly pecking at cards like a parrot.

Zachtronics solitaires are great because it's more like untying a giant knot. Every single one of them except Sawayama lets you see every single thing you can do, the only thing left is to solve it. Unlike Klondike or Freecell or whatever the fuck, Zachtronics solitaires truly feel 100% solvable and every single screwup feels like one on your part rather than the random nature of the game's.

It's difficult and unforgiving but also incredibly engaging because of that. You don't just hit the undo button the moment the game bullshits you.

It's unique, and also really goes to show how many variations you can have on such a simple idea. Just a few simple changes can create an entirely different experience, and that's the beautiful nature of game design that Zachtronics heavily tapped into throughout all of their games. There's nothing like freshing up a simple concept to make you rethink how players interact with games.

Most importantly it's fun and that's a lot more than most solitaire variations can accomplish. If it wasn't fun, nothing I said would've mattered.