Solitaire Expeditions
Broken global statistics
I contacted Steam and they say that they are unable to do anything about it.
It looks like I am going to have to create an entirely new set of global stats, which is a significant amount of work and means everything will start at zero again.
Personal in-game win/loss records will not be affected; this is strictly related to the global statistics.
Small bug fix for Superior Canfield
- Superior Canfield: Fixed bug with rules not matching gameplay
Celebrate National Solitaire Day with Solitaire Expeditions!
National Solitaire Day is Sunday, May 22
To celebrate this holiday, you can play Solitaire Expeditions for free this weekend! If you like the game, you can buy it for a 20% discount.
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New sounds and other minor changes
- Added some new sound effects
- Queen of Italy: Fixed bug where cards could not be dragged off of Reserve pile
- More improvements to hint/end game detection
Misc new features and improvements
Improved hint/end game detection
The original implementation for hints and end game detection (they use the same logic) was fairly rudimentary. It had basic detection for circular moves so that games would end if the players could only move the same cards back and forth between two stacks.
This worked well most of the time, but would sometimes prematurely end games where a new move could be uncovered if the player moved cards from stack A to stack B, despite the move being circular in nature.
I have completely rewritten the code so that it is now better at giving hints and detecting when the player is actually stuck. I will continue to test and improve this code moving forward.
New feature: Free play favorites
Are you tired of scrolling through a list of 100+ games in free play mode to find your favorite variants? The free play selection screen now has a feature where you can mark your favorite variants and they will always appear at the top of the list:
To mark a game as a favorite, click on a star outline in the leftmost column. To remove a favorite, click on the filled in star.
Updated feature: Play random game
Can't decide which variant to play? The 'Play random game' button has been updated to offer categories for random game selection:
Other changes
- 18 new backgrounds added to unlock
- Acme II: Changed difficulty rating from Very Hard to Hard
- Australian Patience: Changed difficulty rating from Medium to Hard
- Osmosis: Changed difficulty rating from Hard to Very Hard
Variant #115: Batsford
Other changes in this build:
- Rewards prompt is no longer shown if all available rewards have been unlocked
- Agnes Bernauer: Fixed issues with loading saved games
- Agnes Bernauer: Changed difficulty rating from Very Easy to Medium
- Gargantua (no redeal): Changed difficulty rating from Medium to Very Hard
- Variegated Canfield: Changed difficulty rating from Medium to Very Hard
Variant #114: Rainbow II
One 'Rainbow' variant allows building on the tableau regardless of suit. This is the variant that has always been in Solitaire Expeditions. I updated the rules on this variant to be complete.
The other 'Rainbow' variant is identical to Canfield except that you turn over cards one at a time and are allowed two redeals. I have added this variant under the name 'Rainbow II'.
Variant #113: Three Blind Mice II
Also made the following difficulty rating adjustments:
- Clock: Very Hard
- Peek: Very Hard
- Three Blind Mice: Hard
Incorrectly implemented rules lead to variants #111 and #112
Two new (?) variants
So it turns out that I had incorrectly implemented rules for two similar games: Salic Law and Faerie Queen. In these games, you are not supposed to be able to build on the tableau ( here are the rules on Wikipedia).
However, the implementation was allowing you to build on the tableau for both of these games, making them much easier to win.
Personally, I find the "incorrect" versions of these games more interesting to play so I have renamed the existing games to "Salic Law II" and "Faerie Queen II" (and thus preserving your stats if you have played them). I then added "Salic Law" and "Faerie Queen" which adhere to the "official" rules.
Game difficulty adjustments
Now that the game is collecting Steam statistics, I can make adjustments to the difficulty ratings for games based on global win-loss records as it becomes clear that games are not rated appropriately.
The following games have been adjusted in this build:
Eight Off: Moved from Very Easy to Easy
King Albert: Moved from Medium to Very Hard
Wasp: Moved from Easy to Medium
All in a Row: Moved from Medium to Very Hard
Variant #110: Big Apple, plus Steam stats!
Variant #110: Big Apple
This variant is derived from New York. The rules are the same with one exception: You can fill empty spaces from the tableau (in New York, they can only be filled from the reserve or waste piles).
Steam statistics
Steam statistics have been fully integrated into the game. You can now see global win-loss statistics for all variants. This will also give us information to adjust difficulty ratings for variants based on real world winning percentages.
There is also a new ticker at the bottom of the profile selection screen that shows fun facts about the statistics:
Other changes
- Steam popup notifications will now display correctly when in game
- Golf: Fixed foundation stack being marked complete too early
- Aunt Mary: Adjusted difficulty rating to Very Hard
- Spider: Fixed card selection highlight not getting cleared when completing a stack