How do you play poker in a country where it’s illegal? That’s the question that the maker of Politaire asked, and managed to answer via this beautiful eye candy of a game: you pair it with Solitaire!
You will start each match with a hand of 5 cards. You have the pile, face down, in the corner and 3 cards from that pile are available for your next move. Similar to the “next” piece coming up in Tetris.
From those five cards, you will need to discard some to make room for the next ones coming up, and hopefully make a hand. To do this, you can choose one, two or even three cards by tapping on them and swiping up. They are not gone forever, they return to the bottom of the pile and will come back later in the game.
You don’t need to be an expert at poker to make good moves: a handy cheatsheet in the form of the hand list is available for you at all time. When you make a successful poker hand, automatically the cards will match-up, showing you how much you added to your score.
Not only is the gameplay simple, the artwork is crisp and beautiful.
While you are limited to only one deck, you can unlock the 2-deck mode with an in-app purchase. Ads are lowkey in the game and only show up after you completed a match.
I don’t know if it’s beginner’s luck, but I was never able to match or beat my first score. This gives me the perfect excuse to play over, and over, this wonderful game that is Politaire.
Of the many game variations of Solitaire I encountered in my life, this is truly the best one. The game design was expertly done, the layout/interface is absolutely wonderfully thought out. The game is terribly easy to pick up and you enter some sort of trance where you just can’t put it down.
And your ears are in for a treat also! You get bewitched when you manage to make multiple combos in a row as the tune goes higher and higher. And when you manage to finish the game without any left over card, you do so under a thunder of applause and some confetti thrown your way: everything short of a parade really. This is event better than the cascading cards when you finish Solitaire on older versions of Windows. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about… So this hits a lot of dopamine really quickly.
I can’t hide my disappointment that the stars in the night sky were removed in the evening mode, but truly, this is the only negative thing I have to say about the game!
If you want a good, very good game to pass the time, or even to immerse yourself in for hours, ever chasing the elusive highest score, this title is just up your alley. Politaire is free in the AppStore.
Politaire is a very usefull game especially for those who wanted to play poker on their smartphones. Even the stars in the night sky were removed in the evening mode, the game is awesome. Just try it!