Hey all,

So I've been going through Bombcasts I missed and there have been a handful of episodes when the guys were going hard on Solitairica. From their recommendation, I picked it up on Android, and I feel like I'm missing out on something crucial.

On my first run I got up to battle 11, I think? It was a big angry cat. However, I've found since then that the first three battles are always hard. Always. Without spells or buffs or items, I find myself struggling to make it past the bearded dude or Lord Gumpington or w/e with any regularity. It seems random as hell, much in the way that regular Solitaire is, but at least regular Solitaire is relaxing. Or at least other roguelikes are skill-based, like FTL or Spelunky or Dead Cells. Losing a run because I can't pull the right cards to match what's in front of me just kinda sucks.

And on top of that, the grind is very slow and seems uneven as hell. On my first run I earned 26 upgrade currency, but then I realized after a while that I would earn between 3 and 6 currency within the first two battles. So, it seems way more effective to win the first two or three battles and then flop until you die.

Unless there's something I'm missing entirely about Solitaire conceptually, this game just doesn't seem like a ton of fun with the roguelike dressing on it.

If it hasn't hooked you yet my guess is that it won't. I don't worry about currency, really...I just play for fun and take what I get it. Changing up class keeps it fresh for me, and I think you'll get better at making it past those early battles as you get better at the game (and are able to buy the helpful bonuses), but there will also certainly be times where you just have bad luck and take an early dive.

It's a game that rewards patience, I guess, but I can see how it might be off-putting early on.

@the_nubster: I loved that game and played it enough to max out every deck. Sometimes the RNG fucks you hard, but there's a lot of strategy to be had in using your spells to minimize randomness. If anything, in my experience, you're way more likely to get fucked by FTL's RNG. Also completing a run significantly boosts the amount of upgrade currency you get, like over 200 I think?

After the first battle I'd suggest buying the spell that turns all front cards into 3-coin cards, then cast it as much as you can so you can buy whatever good spells and weapons end up showing up in the store.

I played it for like 10 hours with varying degrees of success, it doesnt change much other than seeing new enemies, upgraded spells and items. If youre not big on solitaire or the gimmick, id move on. I did.

This thread actually made me start playing the game again. I just bought the mini-expansion. Love it.

RNG is a absolute thing in this game. Its absolutely possible to beat the whole game, on every difficulty, unlock everything and get maxed out money...but in the course of doing that I lost, due to RNG, about 30-50% of my games. Often, since they introduced the mayor as the always third encounter (if that's still the way it is have not played in awhile)..often at that boss. Since you have not yet had the ability to smartly buy the right abilities.

The thing about the game is, if you can get your hands on the right abilities/items, (depending on the class you pick) it becomes a breeze. Honestly, I've rarely gotten to the last boss and just barely beaten him. Its either 'I get everything I need and blaze through the whole back half of the game' or "I struggle to survive, never get the abilities I need and my RNG luck eventually runs out. "

The first thing I will say is, unlocking all of a classes bonus card effects (Ace King Queen) does provide some much-needed help. As does learning what works and what doesn't ability wise. The cheaper agility based cards that either randomize the cards available, or create matching cards 1 to either side of a given card can go a long way towards keeping runs going. The item that lets you see a row back at all times is absolutely amazing since you can better plan out what cards to take in what sequence. Unless your on a class with a better healing option, the +2 hp for 4 wil is way better then the +1 for 3...unless you can get a +1 or +2 healing item (or both!) same goes for the armor upgrades...except when you can get the +1/+2 items. That's when you go from 'well I might win' to "Guess I can't lose".

But all that said? If those items don't show up, if you don't get the cards you need, if the rows are bad..you lose, nothing you can do. Even as experienced as I am with the game (full-clear everything etc) My skills lifted me from 1/10 wins to 1/2-3. Skill plays a significant role..but not a big enough one to win-over people bothered by RNG, for sure. If your that type, pass on this game.

If you don't like it at the moment, I doubt you're going to like it in the future, but try out different decks and see if you can work out what the best spells and ways of making money are because there are techniques. As far as I'm concerned, unlocking the face cards in each deck is also essential if you want to make it to the end. You can get somewhat more or less lucky due to the RNG of the cards, but the way bigger deal is getting lucky with being able to purchase the right items and spells from the shop at the right time. That's the big hole in Solitarica; so much of your success is dependent on whether that item you want happened to appear in the shop and whether you happened to have the chance to earn the cash for it at the time. Some decks also just seem straight-up way better than others. I would advise against grinding the first few battles over and over though, as they're the most boring. Before you have the chance to build up a lot of energy and get new spells and items, there's almost no strategic depth to the game.

@gamer_152: I would love to try out different decks but they're all locked. It would have been great to have 3 starter decks available and go deeper on the upgrades, and have the last few decks as unlockables. Or to have them locked behind achievements or amount of runs, maybe. But right now, I'm just stuck with the same crappy deck with the stupid useless spell to look at the top card of my deck, and that's how it is until I grind out enough of the currency to buy a different deck. It's just the grind that kills me, combined with the reliance on RNG to make it past the first few fights. (Btw I'm not grinding the first fights over and over, that was just something I had realized was possible based on the payout at the end of each run.)

Coincidentally, I had finally got around to downloading Solitairica and was just starting it when I saw this thread a few days ago. I decided to play more of the game before I chimed in. As a fellow newcomer to the game, I'm enjoying it even when I get screwed by RNG against some enemy that is a perfect storm of negative traits, so maybe the game isn't for OP.

I will say that the basic class of Warrior is SUPER boring and vanilla compared to the other classes. Every base Warrior ability is just "do damage", "get X health", "get X armour", and the base abilities are all pretty weak, so especially with Warrior you really have to hope you get offered good spells and items in the shop. Insight (which the Warrior starts with and is the worst green ability in the game) just reveals the next card you're going to draw, and is especially worthless and almost never actually helps to extend your combo and doesn't directly manipulate the board. At least the crappy version of other colours still DO something (armour/damage), they just cost way too much mana for how much they give you. Insight is almost completely worthless as an ability, and your first couple matches as Warrior most green energy you get is meaningless because you can't spam Insight since it does nothing.

So all that being said, if you find Warrior boring as hell (I sure did), don't bother upgrading the class at all, and instead unlock Monk or maybe Paladin. Even when I had all of the item upgrades and deck upgrades for Warrior it still took me like 5-10 tries to beat the game as that class, whereas literally the first time I tried Monk at all (I happened to save enough currency to unlock the item slots on Monk but had none of the deck upgrades) I had an amazing run and beat the game. The unique Monk abilities (blue ability that stuns AND gains armour, and the green ability that gives you a wild card) are both way more interesting and can actually be useful into the late game.

I've glanced at the later classes and they also seem to work in cool ways, so basically fuck Warrior, but the other classes seem rad.