So, this game is kinda bad. But you know what isn't? Some of the games I'm giving away for free here on Backloggd!

Sights & Sounds
- Not a lot to talk about visually given that it's just a card game with some FMVs separating the rounds. I did like the character portraits and some of the art on the face cards, though
- The soundtrack is pretty generic, and all that I really recalled about it was a predilection for brass instruments
- The FMV performances were interesting since all the actors are content creators, many of whom were at some point associated with Rooster Teeth. I won't say that it broke my immersion (how immersed can you truly be in solitaire?), but it's difficult to put on a serious face while taking mission orders from Greg Miller when all I've watched him do is video review Oreo cookies. I'm also more used to seeing Alanah Pierce try to convince a man from Tennessee that Deadly Premonition is good, not asking me to save her spy mentor

Story & Vibes
- You're just some dude that Greg Miller kidnaps because you're apparently some god of 1-player card games. In this universe, I guess that translates to being good at orchestrating teams of operatives aiming to waylay the global domination plans of the game's antagonist, Solitaire
- You'll travel the globe to exotic locales to... play a card game on an unthemed background. Could they not at least put a picture from the real world location or something?
- Honestly, the vibes are all over the place. I can't tell whether the game is trying to be serious or not, and I'm not sure the devs knew either. It comes off feeling inconsistent and confused

Playability & Replayability
- So, it's a game focused on a single card game, but there's lots of flavors of solitaire. Surely they mix it up here with stuff like Klondike, Golf, Yukon, or Pyramid right? Nope. There's only one variety with 8 stacks of face-up cards. You don't even have to worry about alternating suits or colors
- The game does inject a little variety by giving you factions to work with ahead of each mission. The face cards from each faction have special abilities that may be purely beneficial, purely problematic, or a double-edged sword that can be useful if used correctly
- These powers mainly come into play if you're attempting to beat each level in a defined number of moves. Finishing a mission in fewer moves than that limit will net you bonus experience points
- Leveling up doesn't confer any benefit other than unlocking more factions for use in other game modes, which include a survival mode, "countdown" (same as the regular game, but the move limit is actually enforced), and an infinite mode
- Your main task in the campaign is to reach level 15. Given that the reward for playing optimally is additional experience, the de facto upshot of good performance is that you play the game less. No new skills, card art, backgrounds, or side missions. You just get to play less Solitaire Conspiracy
- I beat the campaign, but I'm not so enamored with card games (or, in reality, the single solitaire variation present here) that I had any desire to go back and try the additional game modes. Not much replay value here in my estimation

Overall Impressions & Performance
- I'm not sure what I was really expecting going into this, but the biggest disappointment is that the game barely evolves as you beat it. Unlocking new factions just didn't offer enough variety
- It ran well, but that's unsurprising. All it has to do is render cards, a map, and some video. No issues on the Steam Deck

Final Verdict
- 3.5/10. I guess I just thought there'd be a bit more variety as far as gameplay is concerned. There's so many varieties of solitaire, and it's not like you have to pay anyone to add them to a game. It's not a complete waste, but I just don't know who this game is for or who I'd recommend it to

Definitely the most fun I've had playing Solitaire.

Great aesthetics and UI and that are quite immersive too. The game's theme also goes really hard. I've seen Greg Miller being silly in too many things online to take him seriously here but he was alright.

It's also a great length! The game ends right as I started to feel like I was going through the motions. Always really respect when games have the decency to not overstay their welcome.

Common Mike Bithell W.

The Solitaire Conspiracy is a beefed-up version of Streets and Alleys solitaire where face cards have special abilities depending on their suits, some good and some bad, that can trigger during gameplay. It boasts outstanding production values for a game of its kind, having been developed in a modern game engine, which allows it to present fancy graphics and VFX together with FMV cutscenes that put you in the role of a spy working to overthrow the most powerful man in the world.

It's fun while the novelty lasts, which is not very long and much less than the game's length. There's three main ways to play the game: one with a time limit, one with a move limit, and one with neither. The game really wants you to play the former two, and both work to an extent, but the thing about solitaire is that not only is it too luck-heavy to be treated as skill-based, it's also a casual game to be played once in a while, to burn five idle minutes, and the way TSC requires you to be confortable with each suit and its associated abilities runs counter to that. Picking it up again after a few months away, having to relearn everything, is painful.

And the story? Good grief. The FMV cutscenes are cringy, but even giving the game the benefit of the doubt by assuming that was intentional, the overall writing is still dull and repetitive. It didn't take me long to just start skipping every blurb of text, just clicking random missions and trying to finish the game faster. For a game so short, it manages to stretch its plot thin.

Despite all that, The Solitaire Conspiracy still makes for a fun couple of hours, again, while the novelty lasts. After that, though, I'm not really sure who this game is for.

A totally fine little time waster - I didn't click with it deeply enough to engage with the move limits, so I can't really say how deep the puzzle mechanics are. Without the turn limit it definitely never approached "difficult" but that's not the kind of difficulty it's going for obviously (move limits are).

The star of the show is obviously the incredible production value - the whole thing is a little goofy of course, but I can't help but love it. Taking the popular idea of putting a narrative frame around simple puzzle mechanics like Professor Layton and others to its logical extreme - solitaire with FMV cutscenes. I can't help but love it. Fun little thing.

Mike Bithell makes some of the most inventive and interesting indie shorts I play across all of my time with video games, and he delivers yet another wildly diverse entry into his catalog with The Solitaire Conspiracy. Here, you solve government conspiracy missions by ordering cards in randomized decks from Ace to King. It has basic card game ideas and properties, but certain cards switch up the playstyle when certain moves and strategies can be employed. The gameplay is extremely fun and addicting, and the rogue-like Countdown mode I can see becoming an essential to speedrunners and high-score chasers. Overall, I will say I was disappointed by the story. As a person who was totally captured by Bithell's two previous "Circular" games, this story felt completely flat for me, and the FMV of Greg Miller made me want to skip the cutscenes sometimes and just get back to the cards. Overall, well worth it if you'd like a card-based puzzle game, or you really enjoy playing Solitaire and would love a twist.

Em algum momento, eu até posso tentar voltar e continuar jogando, mas talvez seja a implementação mais chata que eu já vi de paciência.

Sim, o jogo é lindo, a história é simples mas interessante, a parte FMV é divertida, mas o jogo em si é bem repetitivo e o que era pra dar variedade (os poderes) não são tão úteis? Sinto que o jogo não se deu muito tempo pra me ajudar a entender como usar, então no fim eu só ignoro (ou me atrapalho) com eles.

Quando é a terceira vez que você começa jogar e desiste por estar chato demais, é hora de deixar de lado por um tempo.

Throughout the campaign, you unlock new crew decks. Each deck has a unique ability that will either help your game or create a challenge. There are two extra recruitment crews you can unlock by completing missions. They aren't required by the campaign but it's added content.

Every Joker, Queen, and King card shares background story on the character's portraits. I enjoyed the art style and that each crew had a different vibe. I wonder why we didn't get the story with these characters instead of the FMV characters. It felt like they were separate things. The FMV was fine, but not everyone did a great job acting. I didn't care what was happening. The story was much too predictable. I was more interested in, well....playing solitaire.

After the campaign, you unlock daily missions and two gameplay modes. One is practice while the other is an endless mode if you can survive the time. Overall, it was a fun spin on solitaire.

The guy who made Thomas Was Alone and like six other games you never heard of is back with a twist on Solitaire.

In this game, there's the most cheeseball "spy thriller" story involving you as a new recruit of an intelligence agency who has to direct different outfits of agents through missions that play out in this bizarre take on Solitaire.

You get a "mission" and are told what organizations you work with. Each one is akin to different suits in cards like hearts, spades and so on but in this game, the face cards of each suit have "abilities" that interact with the cards in the game in some way. The face cards are activated by placing the respective suit's ace and then they can do things like playing the next card in the suit based on where you moved the card to and dispersing a stack of cards to other stacks. I had a hard time grasping it at first but it makes more sense when you play it and pay attention to how the cards move. Once you get the hang of it, it's quite fun.

The actual story is laughably bad. It almost feels like its done tongue in cheek but the only character you talk to for most of it is played by internet personality Greg Miller. Miller seems to be making a genuine acting attempt and his character is played straight which ultimately makes me doubt they were being coy with the writing and its actually just bad. Worse still is, because he's the only person you really interact with, it's obvious that when they hint at betrayal how things were going to go down. I did like the choice of the character you play as at the very end. My game bugged out or I skipped the end cutscene or something when I finished it but I looked it up and was mildly impressed with how they chose to end things.

A story in a game is not usually very important to me. Sure its nice when its good but there are plenty of incredible games that have weak or no story that I could almost argue are better for it. I think having a story in this works to the game's detriment ultimately. Sure it helps to establish something as to why the game works differently to regular Solitaire but when its leaned into so much to make it its identity and you get someone to star who is well known enough to be noticeable it just feels that much worse when its unintentionally bad.

I think they could have gotten the same intent across and context for the game's systems without leaning into it as hard as they did. The core gameplay itself is a blast and I appreciated the addition of modes that just focus on the gameplay and have high scores and time limits. I think it misses the mark as far as the ethos of Solitaire at the roots but as its own thing its quite enjoyable. Would recommend to people who like puzzle games I think. Man the story is bad though. Maybe its ok those scenes are easy to skip lol.

This game looks great, with sharp, vibrantly colored presentation and evocative character art per card suit. The world-building ties to past Bithell games are neat, too. Ultimately all that theming is empty wrapping around streets and alleys solitaire, but it’s a relatively fun game in short bursts. Each suit has a unique effect, but they’re a hindrance to be worked around as often as they’re helpful.

The FMV-delivered story is actively bad, and eventually made this one of the only games I’ve ever skipped cutscenes for. I’m not sure the writing is great but it isn’t a deal-breaker; the choice to cast various gaming media celebrities is what ruins it. They’re perfectly fine as podcast guests, but their dramatic performances here are laughable and a couple appear to actively be reading their lines off a teleprompter. It’s baffling that they shipped with these scenes.

The most over-produced game in history? Full-on opening credits sequence, FMV performances, dynamic music... it presses all my buttons, and I fell in love with it, and then I played it.

So, FMV solitaire. Greg Miller plays the lead role. Unfortunately for him, the other role is played by Inel Tomlinson, who, unlike Miller, is an actor. There's an espionage thriller plot that's equally delightfully absurd and plain confusing. It exists exclusively to build up to a big decision to be made by the player character but not the player, which was disappointing to learn.

The solitaire is quite unsatisfying too. For all the design and mechanics around the cards, it never felt there was much need for them. I tried to use the abilities as much as possible, but always with the assumption that brute-force was a decently efficient backup plan.

There's been a trend of "serious" solitaire-based games lately, and this feels like Bithell saying "I can do that too." He was right, I guess.