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Solitaire

localthunk.com

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Re: Solitaire

#31

Post by ARandumGuy »

santoshalper wrote: post #10

What a thoughtful post. I think there is a narrative that localthunk is a "shitty programmer" (which he might very well be), but that by extension, it also means that he just got lucky and bumblefucked his way into massive success - almost as though he didn't know any better. A post like this dispels that narrative - he clearly put a ton of thought into the design of that game and was incredibly intentional about whe…

Even if the underlying code is "bad", who cares? There are far more important skills in indie game development then programming ability. I'd much rather play an interesting, well-designed game with a few bugs and messy code over a well-programmed but boring game.

Re: Solitaire

#32

Post by schnable »

diggan wrote: post #18
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…

Was looking for this on iPhone as well some weeks ago, and came across a Solitaire that is included in Apple Arcade that works really well, doesn't have any ads or other distractions, just plain Solitaire. And another bonus is that Balatro (which the submission author created) is included in Apple Arcade too, which was the original reason I got Arcade.

Apple Arcade is great for avoiding all the adware and in-app payment crap.

Re: Solitaire

#33

Post by foobarian »

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 why I play it with actual physical cards. I learned it as kid so partly it's a comfort ritual, and partly the tactile interaction is very soothing.

Re: Solitaire

#34

Post by npteljes »

par wrote: post #5

Reading this makes me sad actually, because I grew up on windows machines (starting with windows 3.1) and have so many memories of Solitaire that came shipped with windows. The deck variations, the little and big effects (like winning!) I played it so much as a grade schooler. Now that mac is so ubiquitous, most kids wont ever know the simple pleasure of playing solitaire.

Forget Mac, people, kids play on their phones first. And yeah, it's far from the offline simple please that is solitaire. I wonder what they'll say when they reach this stage of life. Today's popular things seem soulless to me, but I'm sure they are connecting to it (and to things I don't know about) just the same as I did back then.

Re: Solitaire

#36

Post by dilDDoS »

mikepurvis wrote: post #12
santoshalper wrote: post #10

What a thoughtful post. I think there is a narrative that localthunk is a "shitty programmer" (which he might very well be), but that by extension, it also means that he just got lucky and bumblefucked his way into massive success - almost as though he didn't know any better. A post like this dispels that narrative - he clearly put a ton of thought into the design of that game and was incredibly intentional about whe…

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 takes to make a game like Balatro by yourself. Maybe that’s an unfair judgment. But so is calling LocalThunk a “shitty programmer” over some questionable if-else logic.

Re: Solitaire

#37

Post by jsheard »

modeless wrote: post #24
jsheard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want the numbers to go even more up, the Talisman mod reworks everything to use BigInts for practically unlimited number go up potential. It's mainly intended to be paired with other mods like Cryptid which add obscenely overpowered cards, but Talisman can be used on its own if you just want to attempt the normally unwinnable ante 39 and beyond in vanilla.

Wow you can do that in a mod? Crazy. I wondered if localthunk would do this or if it was actually kind of nice for the game to have a "kill screen" ending like the old arcade games.

The game is entirely written in Lua (on top of Love2D) so it's pretty malleable.

Re: Solitaire

#38

Post by npteljes »

santoshalper wrote: post #10

What a thoughtful post. I think there is a narrative that localthunk is a "shitty programmer" (which he might very well be), but that by extension, it also means that he just got lucky and bumblefucked his way into massive success - almost as though he didn't know any better. A post like this dispels that narrative - he clearly put a ton of thought into the design of that game and was incredibly intentional about whe…

He clearly comes across as a conscious game designer as well. And programming doesn't need to be good on today's machines. Many of the indie successes are shit software, like Minecraft, Valheim, Cities Skylines, Project Zomboid, and I'm sure there's many others. Great product design and PR are infinitely more important than software quality.

Re: Solitaire

#39

Post by sl3dge78 »

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.

Re: Solitaire

#40

Post by dilDDoS »

Great read, I always love reading about the thoughts and intentions behind game design.

> I play a couple runs before I go to bed

I do see the relaxing component of the game once you’ve got the hang of it and are playing on white stake. But I do feel like the game encourages you to take on more difficult/frustrating stakes and decks, so for someone working on gold stake for the black deck for example, it would absolutely not be something to play before bed (unless you’re in the mood to cry yourself to sleep)

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