Regency Solitaire

Developer: Grey Alien Games | Publisher: Grey Alien Games | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Indie / Casual | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

Regency Solitaire is, as the name suggests, a solitaire title set during the Regency era in the United Kingdom. It stars Bella, a young girl whose father is set on marrying her off to their rich, but unscrupulous neighbor. However, Bella has her heart set on a far more suitable match, but since her brother foolishly gambled away the family fortunes her hopes of a happy ending seem to be dashed. Using your solitaire skills you will have to help Bella overcome all these challenges in order to create the ballroom of her dreams and win the heart of the dashing Henry Worthington.

As far as solitaire games go, Regency Solitaire has quite an elaborate plot which provides a nice excuse for all the beautiful backdrops. The game features 20 different chapters, set in the theaters, music rooms and lavender fields of London, Brighton, Bath and the other locations on offer. Short story snippets are played out before the start of each chapter and then it is down to the addictive business of solitaire. The game is only available on PC, unlike alternatives such as Spider Solitaire on iOS and Android.

With 180 levels to complete, all with unique layouts, Regency Solitaire is definitely not lacking in content. It took me about ten hours to complete everything on the “Normal” mode, although I did go out of my way to get a “perfect” score on each level. The game follows the classic one-up, one-down style of Solitaire which means it is easy to pick up and play. For those unfamiliar with the rules, you are given a stockpile of cards to draw from and a mix of face up and facedown cards displayed on the board. Your goal is to click the cards on the board which number one value higher or lower than the foundation card below. As soon as you can’t match any more cards to the foundation card you draw a new one from the stockpile. The round ends when all the cards are cleared from the board or your stockpile runs out.

Regency Solitaire spice things up by introducing some extra elements. For example, you can build up combos by matching six or more cards in a row and there is even an achievement for managing a 35 card combo! It is unlikely that you will be able to make so many matches naturally though, which is where the jokers and wildcards come in. These special cards are found randomly on the board and stored until you use them. Jokers can be substituted for any other card while wildcards can be used to fill in the gaps for your combos. Later levels increase the challenging by including cards with ribbons that have to be matched twice in order to clear them and even locked stacks where keys must be uncovered first. Then there are the stacks with regal locks, which can only be opened by matching a specified number of royal cards. Don’t worry if this sounds complicated it is actually very straightforward and keeps things interesting.

As you progress through the levels you earn currency, which can then be used to upgrade Bella’s ballroom and outfit. The items you buy all have special stats or abilities to make life easier for you. Some increase the chances of finding wildcards while others provide you with other advantages, such as increasing the amount of times you can undo your moves. There is a total of 31 different upgrades that you can purchase as they become available. Bella also learns three different special abilities over the course of the game and these can be the difference between a huge combo and failing a level. The cupid power enables you to knock a pesky card or two off the board, while the phoenix power burns away random cards. You also get the ability to shuffle all the playable cards on the board in the hope that they will land up in more favorable positions. You’ll have to use these abilities sparingly though as they take time to recharge.

As I mentioned earlier, Regency Solitaire can be played in either “Normal” or “Hard” mode. The difference is in the tasks that you are given in order to complete each chapter. For example, in “Normal” mode you might be required to achieve seven perfect hands, a multiplier of 2.3 and earn 4300 gold, while “Hard” ups it to eight perfect hands, a multiplier of 2.5 and a total of 4800 gold. This means that even if you are a solitaire expert you’ll find that the game still packs a challenge.

Visually the game is very good with some beautiful artwork, but it is a pity that the resolution is set at 1024×768. On a widescreen monitor it appears stretched, but you can set the aspect ratio from the options menu if you prefer to play with black borders instead. I understand that this is a casual game and its target audience probably won’t be playing on high definition monitors, so I won’t be too harsh on the low resolution. The backgrounds look great and although they are only static paintings, they definitely capture the spirit of the era. You can even set the background of your favorite chapter as your Windows wallpaper from within the game, but once again this is only useful if you are not using a HD monitor. The various characters from the game are featured as designs on the cards, but if you prefer, you can also play with a plain deck.

The soundtrack is about what you would expect from a solitaire game set during the Regency era and features plenty of relaxing classical music. It’s a pity that there is no voice acting as it would have helped to bring the various characters to life, but the sound effects are decent enough. I don’t have any issues with the controls either and completed the game using a mouse.

Solitaire is addictive enough as it is, but this game packs enough extra features to ensure that you are hooked right to the end. The game also features some nice Steam Achievements to boost the replay value and give you an excuse to play on the “Hard” setting. If you like solitaire, enjoy casual games or simply want something that is polished and addictive to play in short bursts you should definitely check out Regency Solitaire. It had me hooked from start to finish and is definitely one of the most addictive examples of the genre.