Last year I reviewed one of the most interesting and different games I had ever played, Solitairica. I’ll not go into details here (go read the review!), but to summarise it is an RPG roguelike played out via a game of solitaire… kind of…
Anyway, it’s now available for iOS and Android – and it’s just as good as the PC game in every way! There are a few differences though, the first and most obvious of these is how you buy it. On iOS Solitairica costs £2.99 for the full game, whereas on Android it can be downloaded for free, with in-app purchases.
One of the in-app purchases is for the full game (which costs 60p more than the iOS equivalent for some reason), but there are smaller purchases too, such as if you want to buy a new deck to play with, which costs 69p per deck. Your collected loot is also halved in the free version of the game, but you are given the option to watch a video advert after each round in order to double it back to normal. Both of these restrictions are removed with the purchase of the full game.
I downloaded the free Android version onto my ageing Nexus 5, and was immediately impressed with how buttery-smooth the Unreal engine ran on the phone. The second obvious change is the in-game layout – your abilities are now presented across the bottom of the screen in order to take advantage of the portrait orientation. If anything, I actually prefer it this way over the PC version as the abilities just seem more naturally placed across the bottom of the screen. There’s also less wasted space, without feeling cramped or unwieldy in any way.
Something I hadn’t considered was how the game would deal with being closed and opened all the time, as is usually the case with mobile games. Thankfully it is handled gracefully, with your progress being maintained at all points. While it’s being played though, Solitairica hammers your battery… just something to be aware of as you play for hours and hours!
And you will be playing for hours and hours, because Solitairica, as it is on PC, is a brilliant and highly addictive game. If you have an Android device, you must at least try out the free version – what have you got to lose? Apart from lots of time of course…
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