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Solitaire

localthunk.com

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Re: Solitaire

#51

Post by skeaker »

sl3dge78 wrote: post #39
bbkane wrote: post #14

I love Solitaire - it's such a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting for something else. Unfortunately, many solitaire phone apps are filled with ads, slow, or have clunky controls. A few years ago, however, I found https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire... . Its free and open source, and quite fast with nice shortcuts to move the cards. I love this app and have played multiple Klondike/S…

I highly recommend the Zachtronics Solitaire Collection. Greatly designed solitaire games. I play them every day on my commute to work.

Thirding this recommendation, Fortune's Favor solitaire and Shenzen solitaire from this collection are some of my favorite variants ever. Either of them would be worth the price of admission alone.

Re: Solitaire

#52

Post by Trasmatta »

ksynwa wrote: post #28
ziddoap wrote: post #22

> It’s now been over a year since launch and I am still playing Balatro almost daily. I play a couple runs before I go to bed I think this is really important, especially for games. Play the game you make! There's a fair number of games that I've played where the developer clearly has not sat down and played through the game as a player would . No skips, no custom developer-only starts or features, no rushing through…

Reminds me of Miyazaki from FromSoft who said he doesn't play his own games.

No, he said he doesn't play them AFTER they release. But he plays them constantly when they're in development. One of the difficulty rules at FromSoft is that each boss and area has to be beatable by Miyazaki (which he said is a good baseline, because he likes challenge but doesn't consider himself good at games).

Re: Solitaire

#53

Post by NoboruWataya »

bbkane wrote: post #14

I love Solitaire - it's such a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting for something else. Unfortunately, many solitaire phone apps are filled with ads, slow, or have clunky controls. A few years ago, however, I found https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire... . Its free and open source, and quite fast with nice shortcuts to move the cards. I love this app and have played multiple Klondike/S…

This is the one I use too. I like how many variants it has as well.

Re: Solitaire

#54

Post by skyyler »

aaroninsf wrote: post #47

It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and .

If you spent as long reading search results for "Balatro" as you did writing this comment, you would have enough context to understand what localthunk and balatro are.

I find your musing on the topic interesting, if only as a reminder that people have largely forgotten to help themselves to the free information that surrounds us.

Re: Solitaire

#55

Post by svelle »

ziddoap wrote: post #22

> It’s now been over a year since launch and I am still playing Balatro almost daily. I play a couple runs before I go to bed I think this is really important, especially for games. Play the game you make! There's a fair number of games that I've played where the developer clearly has not sat down and played through the game as a player would . No skips, no custom developer-only starts or features, no rushing through…

The story of the Hotline Miami 2 devs comes to mind where they mentioned that they play tested the game at half speed a lot of the times, which, including many other factors, contributes to the game being way harder than the first part.

See: https://youtu.be/IcgmmBEEHsk?t=1427

Re: Solitaire

#56

Post by IsTom »

exitb wrote: post #9

It really does work that way. It’s a perfect game if you have ~25 minutes to kill. It’s fairly complex, but doesn’t really require player to keep much information between runs. I hate going back to a game after a few weeks only to discover that I no longer remember how to play it.

> 25 minutes

Personally I've had ~1 hour runs often. Am I just a slow player or am I missing something? For context I've been playing for less than two weeks and haven't yet beat ante 11 (7M feels like a big step in difficulty).

Re: Solitaire

#57

Post by Trasmatta »

IsTom wrote: post #56
exitb wrote: post #9

It really does work that way. It’s a perfect game if you have ~25 minutes to kill. It’s fairly complex, but doesn’t really require player to keep much information between runs. I hate going back to a game after a few weeks only to discover that I no longer remember how to play it.

> 25 minutes Personally I've had ~1 hour runs often. Am I just a slow player or am I missing something? For context I've been playing for less than two weeks and haven't yet beat ante 11 (7M feels like a big step in difficulty).

Nah, it's pretty common for runs to take that long, especially if you're going into Endless. Some of the top Balatro streamers I watch will frequently have runs that take that long (or longer).

It does help to increase the game speed. I've got mine up to max speed (but I played it at normal speed for quite awhile, while I got used to the mechanics).

Re: Solitaire

#58

Post by IsTom »

dilDDoS wrote: post #36
mikepurvis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what quarters is that narrative? Surely one only has to play Balatro for an hour or two to understand the incredible game design effort that underpins it all, which is brought so vibrantly to life by the music, art, animations, and all the rest of it. I can't imagine someone appreciating all this and still managing to poo poo it over a few bugs or maybe some quibbles about it having been built in Lua.

People that mention this are usually referring to this chunk of the source code: https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q My assumption is that a lot of the people that look at small chunks of code and judge someone’s programming ability are people who have only worked in corporate environments and have never had to build a large project on their own, and don’t have any understanding of the effort it t…

It's verbose and could be simplified, but also looks like something you write once and never look at again. If it works it makes no sense to spend any more time on it.

Re: Solitaire

#59

Post by jjice »

aaroninsf wrote: post #47

It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and .

TLDR: Balatro is a roguelike card game where in you make poker hands to score points. You can enhance cards and get jokers that have more effects.

It wont a ton of awards this past year (it's just about a year old) and was incredibly well received.

Localthunk is the developer. I believe he did everything for the PC version himself (except maybe a single joker's art). He has a publisher that helped port to pretty much every other platform you can think of.

Re: Solitaire

#60

Post by saulpw »

throwaway019254 wrote: post #35

This game is freaking addicting. I had to uninstall it.

It was for me too, but only for about a month or so. Once I got 19 of 20 achievements (and the last one is nigh-impossible), I lost interest, and haven't played it since. (Though this post is tempting me to try a game or two with a different non-addicted attitude!)

This is in stark contrast with Slay the Spire, which I've been playing compulsively since 2019.

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