Deep within the pastoral county of Dorset within the south of England, Jake Birkett (also called Gray Alien Video games) toils away making a really particular type of recreation. He arranges enjoying playing cards in pleasing tableaux on the display, and invitations the participant to clear them by clicking on them in ascending or descending numerical order; it’s his private evolution of the TriPeaks solitaire variant. He ensures the click is crisp and satisfying, and arranges enjoyable recreation mechanics and a lightweight storyline — typically written by his companion Helen Carmichael — round this deeply satisfying core.
Birkett used to make video games for the informal PC gaming portals of the 2000s — websites like Large Fish. As that scene wilted in 2015, Birkett and Carmichael experimented with bringing a recreation they’d made for Large Fish to Steam: Regency Solitaire, which performs out in a pleasant, light-touch spoof of the novels of Jane Austen, as debutante Bella pursues her marital match throughout the manicured croquet lawns of Regency England. Improbably, the Steam crowd liked it, and it grew to become a minor hit there. Gray Alien then experimented with marrying solitaire with role-playing methods in a few puzzle RPGs, the buccaneering Shadowhand and extra brooding and darkish Historical Enemy. These are glorious video games, however with their XP, loot, and fight, they inevitably misplaced just a little of Regency Solitaire’s ineffable, consequence-free appeal.
Now Bella is again in Regency Solitaire 2 (out now on Steam and itch.io), and it’s as mild and deliciously insubstantial as an ideal soufflé. That is pure informal gaming, designed to appease and reward, with simply the correct amount of problem and complexity: sufficient to maintain issues fascinating, not a lot that it ever will get remotely disturbing.
The plot is that Bella, now fortunately married to the aristocratic Mr. Worthington, has determined to have a backyard occasion at their property. Gentle impediments come up: Worthington’s rakish younger brother elopes with a maid, whereas his stern mom, the dowager Duchess, frowns in disapproval at Bella’s frightfully fashionable tea behavior. There’s nothing for it however to clear stunning, curlicued card layouts on hand-painted backdrops as a way to earn gold to spend on ugly statuary for the backyard.
Birkett’s solitaire design, refined over many video games now, is inflected with an arcade sensibility that’s not 1,000,000 miles away from basic PopCap puzzlers like Peggle. There are brilliant, chiming sound results; there’s a combo rating multiplier for clearing lengthy runs of playing cards; there are unlockable powerups on cooldowns, in addition to wild playing cards you possibly can hold in your hand to get you out of a jam later. There’s a mild, strategic layer to selecting when to make use of these to maximise a run, or to get you out of bother because the stockpile dwindles towards the top of a degree. There are not any card fits to fret about, however Birkett ensures there’s at all times lots occurring within the structure to maintain you engaged.
Regency Solitaire 2 is an ideal gaming palate-cleanser, a refreshing sorbet to clear the thoughts between extra intense or difficult experiences. That’s to not be mistaken for faint reward; there’s completely an artwork to this, and inside the underappreciated discipline of informal recreation design, Birkett is a grasp at work. If there’s a extra stress-free recreation launched in 2024, we’ll all be very fortunate (and really chill).