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yhleeIt was helen_keeble who introduced me to the first Regency Solitaire, which I originally played (probably) on macOS and then later on Nintendo Switch for a number of hours I refuse to disclose to you. It's a great chillaxing game with an extremely predictable but soothing and sweet Regency romance storyline and the absurd but soothing and sweet premise that the heroine Bella has to...earn money (thanks to her wastrel brother gambling away the family fortune) by playing solitaire. XD As you win levels, her story is revealed in (non-animated) cut scenes; this is completely linear but for this game I actively prefer that because I want this to be a destressing game. :)
The original Regency Solitaire was and remains a great game. You remove cards in the usual solitaire way (aces wrap around), but you can have a hand of up to 10 wild cards including jokers (any card) or "wild cards" for specific numbers/face cards that you can use to continue a run - longer runs get you more bonuses. The spreads themselves vary from level to level. There are also special things like "royal locks" (e.g. a royal lock of "3" will "unlock" to reveal the card stack beneath after you've cleared 3 face cards). Levels have goals that vary, and there's both a Normal Mode and a Hard Mode. Failing a level isn't really bad; you can just retry until you get it.
The other thing is as you earn money by winning at levels, you can spend it on various improvements, from higher probabilities of turning up wild cards to powers. This is "turn-based" (each time you play a card) so three powers in particular recharge after X number of turns: one lets you remove a targeted card (two cards in its upgrade); one "burns away" two playable cards from the spread selected at random (three in its upgrade); and one reshuffles the spread and stock deck as long as anything's left.
Very happily, Regency Solitaire 2, which I picked up for the Steam Deck (not yet available for Nintendo Switch when I checked), takes all the things I loved about Regency Solitaire - already, as I said, a lovely fun casual solitaire-themed game - and makes a bunch of small tweaks that make it even more pleasurable and fun to play. The storyline remains charming - even curmudgeon characters ultimately come around or have sympathetic pasts/motives. The expanded set of powers are slightly tweaked in a way that's really fun - there's just something very satisfying about making cards burn up and go away. XD There are some new types of "locks" and so on, plus some bonus levels.
In any case, I loved this and probably will also sink a terrifying number of hours into this. XD If I could figure out how the heck to program solitaire AT ALL in GameMaker Studio 2, I would be tempted to make the evil hexarchate solitaire version of this. XD
helen_keeble who introduced me to the first Regency Solitaire, which I originally played (probably) on macOS and then later on Nintendo Switch for a number of hours I refuse to disclose to you. It's a great chillaxing game with an extremely predictable but soothing and sweet Regency romance storyline and the absurd but soothing and sweet premise that the heroine Bella has to...earn money (thanks to her wastrel brother gambling away the family fortune) by playing solitaire. XD As you win levels, her story is revealed in (non-animated) cut scenes; this is completely linear but for this game I actively prefer that because I want this to be a destressing game. :)The original Regency Solitaire was and remains a great game. You remove cards in the usual solitaire way (aces wrap around), but you can have a hand of up to 10 wild cards including jokers (any card) or "wild cards" for specific numbers/face cards that you can use to continue a run - longer runs get you more bonuses. The spreads themselves vary from level to level. There are also special things like "royal locks" (e.g. a royal lock of "3" will "unlock" to reveal the card stack beneath after you've cleared 3 face cards). Levels have goals that vary, and there's both a Normal Mode and a Hard Mode. Failing a level isn't really bad; you can just retry until you get it.
The other thing is as you earn money by winning at levels, you can spend it on various improvements, from higher probabilities of turning up wild cards to powers. This is "turn-based" (each time you play a card) so three powers in particular recharge after X number of turns: one lets you remove a targeted card (two cards in its upgrade); one "burns away" two playable cards from the spread selected at random (three in its upgrade); and one reshuffles the spread and stock deck as long as anything's left.
Very happily, Regency Solitaire 2, which I picked up for the Steam Deck (not yet available for Nintendo Switch when I checked), takes all the things I loved about Regency Solitaire - already, as I said, a lovely fun casual solitaire-themed game - and makes a bunch of small tweaks that make it even more pleasurable and fun to play. The storyline remains charming - even curmudgeon characters ultimately come around or have sympathetic pasts/motives. The expanded set of powers are slightly tweaked in a way that's really fun - there's just something very satisfying about making cards burn up and go away. XD There are some new types of "locks" and so on, plus some bonus levels.
In any case, I loved this and probably will also sink a terrifying number of hours into this. XD If I could figure out how the heck to program solitaire AT ALL in GameMaker Studio 2, I would be tempted to make the evil hexarchate solitaire version of this. XD
