KPoker

When video poker meets KDE, KPoker emerges. At first glance, it's full-featured and grand, but appearances are - only a bit - deceiving. It's relatively grand, regardless.

Because poker is fun! When you're playing against someone, anyways, and the computer opponent doesn't seem to win as often as a computer should, making it enjoyable, while he does seem to win enough to keep you on your toes, making it satisfying.

Y'know how I said it seemed full-featured and grand at first glance? At first-glance, when you start a new game, it looks like you can have multiple players, configure their names, and maybe even play some local multiplayer instead of just playing against computer opponents.

In actuality, you can either play one player by yourself, or two-player with a player named 'Computer 1'. Who is a computer. Those are your only options. As a poker replacement for Solitaire, then, KPoker does fine. But as a full-featured card game, Hoyle's it ain't.

On the plus side, it's got lots of different deck facings - and you can mix and match fronts and backs for ultimate flexibility - some of which are actually quite decent. So it's at least as configurable as its chief rival, Solitaire for Windows. It also features persistent score-keeping in the form of how much cash you (and your opponent) have, and even has a save-game feature.

That's about all there is to say about it. It's got the grimy, low-fi look of what must be last-gen KDE games, but it's not ugly, just very plain. If you enjoy playing what is, if I remember my poker games properly, '5 Card Draw', you'll have fun with this one. Of course, it would be nice to have other poker variations, and a decent implementation of versatile multiplayer, but for what it is, it's competent. You know if it appeals to you; I don't need to recommend it, or warn you away.

Hearts

Gnome Hearts is the full on official name for this game that doesn't work upon install. I really don't understand what's up with this; I've run into games that were out of date by long periods of time before, but this one's still in active development and I would think the developers would talk to the people who are in charge of the repositories and make things happen.

The game crashes immediately upon launching. From what I can gather, if you download the game from the official site (linked above) you can get it working. This blog doesn't deal with games that you download from web-pages, it deals solely with games that you download from the default Ubuntu repositories as accessed through the 'Add/Remove...' feature under 'Applications', and as far as that goes, the internet has this to say:

"And yes, it's a shame that by default, edgy still installs a version that crashes, four months after it has been fixed and three month after it's been proposed for inclusion in Edgy."

Or rather, the internet had that to say. That's from a post written in April of last year (2007). It still hasn't been fixed at this point.

Mahjongg

At last, a short one. This is my favorite form of solitaire, and I've played at least four or five versions. For the record, Mahjongg is the single-player "match like tiles" form of mahjongg, not the multi-player pokeresque form. Matching tiles removes them from the board, but only the tiles that have at least one side not touching another tile can be played. The point is to get rid of all the tiles.

Only two tilesets, so it's not as fancy as other versions I've played, but the two tilesets are nice-looking traditional styled, and anything else is just window-dressing. The controls are the same in this version of mahjonng as they are in every other version I've ever played: click, click. There are around ten different formations you can play in, so there's a decent amount of variety, but all you really need is the default one.

One interesting thing about this version is that the status bar keeps a count of how many different moves you have available at the moment, dynamically updating every time you make a move. This is handy if you're like me and like to just willy-nilly click on whichever ones you see first; if you notice that you're running out of options, you can take your time and make sure you're making the wisest move.

It looks alright, it plays fine, it has some nice features: Mahjongg is mahjongg. Good job, guys. It's not broken like Gnometris.

I apologize for that.

FreeCell Solitaire

I'm a little at a loss as far as this one goes. This is the exact same FreeCell as is available for play in the AisleRiot Solitaire game which is also installed by default. It's the same engine, the same cards, the same fonts, the same version number, the same programmers, the same copyright date.

To see if there was anything different at all, I played a game of FreeCell in each. In AisleRiot the icon next to the program name is different from the icon that shows up in that spot while playing FreeCell.

I can only assume that this special double-availability of FreeCell was given so that Windows users could find their favorite program already waiting for. As if grumpy old women are only holding off on installing Linux because they are afraid they won't be able to find a copy of FreeCell that works in Linux, or something. This really seemed pointless, and it made me spend time playing two extra games of FreeCell to look for differences, and I hate FreeCell.

It's odd that they make special mention of FreeCell by having it as a stand-alone entry in the 'Games' menu. Unlike regular solitaire, which compares favorably to its Windows sibling, or the other solitaire games which have no Windows analog, FreeCell is decidedly worse in its Linux incarnation.

Since it utilizes the AisleRiot engine, it doesn't have support for any of the handy-dandy ways that Windows FreeCell makes your life easier. Generating a game from a number, so you can always recall it? Not doable. Double-clicking a card sends it not to the stacks where you're trying to get all the cards, but instead to the one-card slots in the top left, which is both annoying to Windows users, and annoying to people who've played other games in the AisleRiot engine.

Also, I spent a few minutes wondering if my copy was buggy because it let me pick up stacks that should have matched another card, and drag them to the card, but wouldn't let me place them. I eventually realized that it was because I didn't have enough open slots; the Windows version makes that clearer, if I recall correctly. In all fairness, I might not recall it clearly, but I don't ever remember having that problem in Windows, even when I was learning the game and didn't know the rules.

The interface is prettier in the Windows version, as well. Something about the beady little eyes of that king who follows your cursor around is comforting, and the way the slots for storing cards and the slots for winning are seperated just makes it look cleaner; it's more organized. Loading up FreeCell in Linux is an intimidating looking beast because there's no clue to what's what in the layout.

I will probably update this post the next time I dual-boot back into XP, so I can clarify exactly what's superior in the Windows edition, but basically FreeCell in Linux is, while functional, very inferior to the version that ships with Windows. If Windows FreeCell is grade-A uncut pure heroin, Linux FreeCell is a godawful 10th-person-down-the-drug-foodchain, cut with arsenic, nastiness that may get you through if you need a fix, but certainly won't satisfy.

UPDATE: Yep, confirmed. It looks better and plays better in Windows.

Blackjack

Fairly competent and full-featured version of Blackjack, but with such a simple game (where the house inevitably comes out ahead, making repeated play punishing by default) some graphical flair or personality would have gone a long way towards making it not something painful to play.

There are a couple different variations on the rules of play ("Vegas Strip," "Atlantic City," "Downtown Vegas", etc.) but their impact on my virtual cash was minimal. I lost more than I won, regardless of which area's rules I was playing by. Interestingly absent is a reset for the player's balance - I assumed that "New Game" would reset my cash to the original starting value ($400 or $500 I believe) but it doesn't. I'm sure I could just edit a text file somewhere but not having a way to reset it within the GUI simply seems kinda lame.

As far as the gameplay goes, it all feels a bit clumsy. There was an annoying lag between cards coming to the deck, that I was able to turn off in the preferences, but rather than having buttons for "Draw" or "Stand" or what-have-you, they went with an efficient and minimalist interface that was confusing at first, and prone to my clicking the wrong thing from time to time when I was just trying to zip through some games.

For example, you click your pile of cards to hit, and you click it to deal a new hand, and you drag it to split. No worries. Except clicking on your chips changes function as well - in between hands, it adds a chip of that denomination to your bet, but if a hand has been dealt it doubles your bet and asks for one card, ending your turn automatically. In the heat of frustrated gambling, I would accidentally click my pile of cards an extra time, resulting in dealing a new hand, and not realize it until I had tried to change my bet. Because instead of changing my bet, I would be looking at a fully played hand that cost me double.

That happened less once I cut off the card delay, but it was still an occasional annoyance. Basically, I understand the aesthetic beauty that comes from an interface with no extraneous buttons, but I don't feel it's as functional from a user-friendly standpoint as having separate buttons for each command. Indeed, as far as keyboard shortcuts go, there is a separate key for "Deal" and "Hit" so on some level, the programmers were aware of this. Last and least, I didn't notice any way to add or remove chips using the keyboard, so the keyboard support is not fully implemented.

Blackjack on Linux is frustrating and flawed, but competent enough if you are desperate for a casino-blackjack experience. I will probably never play it again (although the fact that my ending balance is 2k in the hole will probably lead me to try to get back to zero at some point in the future; I'm OCD like that).

AiseRiot Solitaire

Wow. I didn't expect this to take more than a few minutes of me going "Shit, I'm bored with Solitare in Windows, and now I can safely say I'm bored with Solitaire in Linux." Then I discovered the "Select Game..." option, and found out that there are way more variations to solitaire than I had ever imagined, or even wanted.

I briefly flirted with the idea of playing all of them, but quite frankly, solitaire is not my gaming cup of tea. It's a thing you do when you're waiting for your place in the queue at FilePlanet, not something you do for fun. Or even for scholarly gaming research reasons. That said, AisleRiot Solitaire in Linux is definitely a better experience than playing Solitaire in Windows.

For two reasons: the first one I've already mentioned, namely, the variety. Some of these games made my head hurt, not aided by the fact that I was playing them while intoxicated. I take back every thing I ever thought but didn't have a chance to say about the lack of complexity in casual games. 'Agnes' is my new favorite solitaire-game. It's over quickly, it's easy to understand, and it's a game you play for points, rather than a game you play to win or lose, which adds deeply to the addictive-replay thing. (full disclosure: you can play it to win or lose, but since I always lose, I play to maximize points; if solitaire is your life, you may win more often than not, though I doubt it)

The other reason? The features! First thing I noticed is the card-size scales to the window-size. If I maximize the game, I'm playing with bigger cards, not just playing with the same tiny cards with a lot more space between them. I've always been annoyed by that in the Windows version of Solitaire; when you're at 1024x768 which is actually pretty low resolution these days, you've got an ass-ton of empty green space and tiny little cards. Not so, in this AisleRiot thing. The cards are constantly re-evaluating how they should look so as to maximize the space available. It's a small thing (is that a pun?) but it was immediately apparent.

Then you've got the hints. When you're totally brain-dead - which is really the only time playing solitaire on the PC is anything like a fulfilling experience - it's nice to be able to hit a button and see a move. Mind you, it's not like there's a lot of AI behind the hit system. It just gives you a possible move. Not always the best move, and it doesn't seem to go any deeper than the obvious; it can't differentiate between "You can move some cards around and win this!" and "You can move some cards around, but you'll still be fucked!" but for a simple (or not-so-simple) game of solitaire, I think any more advanced hint-system would ruin the game.

Downside? The backs of the cards aren't readily changeable. There may be an option for it I didn't see, but I did look around a bit, and there wasn't any obvious way to change it. I like to play with the roses on the cards in XP. Due to the scaling nature of the cards, they're often kinda fuzzy looking. Graphically, it's not as crisp or as easy to customize as the version found in every Windows environment from 3.1 on. But the gameplay features, and the scalability, totally make up for that. Linux wins the nonexistent solitaire-war.

Bonus points for the name making me think about shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater.