They light up and when they’re played on top of another stack, they use their ability. You see, once an Ace is uncovered from the stacks and placed in one of the 4 central stots, the Court cards – the Jack, Queen and King – for the related suit activate. You play with up to 4 of these teams/suits at any one time and the mixture depends on the tactics you’ll need to use. Each team has their own specialisation, background description and excellent art work for each of the royal family, brought to life by the talented artist Jen Pattison (who also did a fantastic job on Ancient Enemy). Gone are diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades to be replaced with symbols which represent 8 different Protego teams. The major difference with The Solitaire Conspiracy is the inclusion of suit based abilities. Cards can be moved from the top of their pile but they can’t be put down on another card unless it’s a higher number. The game is then played out as per usual, challenging the player to move all of the cards into 4 stacks of cards going from A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,19,J,Q,K. In the usual version of this game, all 52 cards including the Aces are dealt into 8 piles, 4 stacks of 6 cards and 4 stacks of 7. The mechanics of The Solitaire Conspiracy are centered around the Streets and Alleys variation on Beleaguered Castle Solitaire. While the narrative telegraphs itself from early on, the FMV’s deliver a fun and light-hearted framing to the card play. Tomlinson plays his character much straighter than his co-star and brings a little more edge to the plot. Miller is joined by Inel Tomlinson around the halfway point in the game who plays a character called Diamond. Greg Miller really channels his inner ‘Tim Curry in Command & Conquer’ at times and honestly, it’s kind of excellent. Instead, it feels like a tribute to 90’s spy movies and those games that have leveraged cheesy FMV’s to deliver their story in the past. The plot here isn’t Shakespearean by any stretch of the imagination. Once you’ve reached level 15, you’ll gain full control of the spy mission systems and Mr Ratio can once again do his job. As you do so, you’ll gain experience and level up. Using a system called “C.A.R.D.S.”, you’ll be using playing cards in order to move the various Protego crews around on their operations against Solitaire. He has pulled you in from a list of potential recruits as he’s desperate for your help. The spy agency Protego has been attacked by a shady opponent called Solitaire who has locked Jim out of the systems. The main Campaign mode begins as you’re introduced to Jim Ratio (played by Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller), your “man in the chair” handler. The most unique aspect of The Solitaire Conspiracy is that its narrative is delivered via FMV videos. It’s pleasingly approachable, has mainstream appeal, is strategically deep and unique for the genre. No matter if you’ve never played a solitaire video game or your Steam library is filled with them, The Solitaire Conspiracy caters to you. This genre now has RPG elements, engrossing narratives and ingenious mechanics that mean that it is completely indistinguishable from the version of Solitaire that many will be familiar with that came free with Windows for years. It’s a niche after all – but one that’s been quietly growing and evolving on PC for the past few years. I think there’s probably a far smaller chance that you’ve come to this review as a hardcore fan of Solitaire video games. The name ‘Bithell’ is becoming synonyms with high quality, well designed and inventive games, if it hasn’t for you already.
There’s a pretty high probability that you’ve arrived at this review for The Solitaire Conspiracy because this is Mike Bithell’s latest short game project. A smart and highly polished take on a classic card game is melded with an FMV narrative in Bithell Games’ latest, The Solitaire Conspiracy.
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