''The Solitaire Conspiracy'' is an

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...

and FMV video game developed by

Mike Bithell Michael Bithell is a British video game designer, developer, and podcaster best known for his work on '' Thomas Was Alone'' and ''Volume''. He is a regular host of the ''Play, Watch, Listen'' podcast, along with Alanah Pearce, Troy Baker, and A ...

and published by Ant Workshop. It was released for Windows on October 6, 2020, where it was self-published by Bithell himself, and November 3, 2021, for

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North Ame ...

Switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

and

Xbox Series X/S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...

. The player is cast as a

spymaster A spymaster is the person that leads a spy ring, or a secret service (such as an intelligence agency). Historical spymasters See also *List of American spies *List of British spies * List of German spies *List of fictional spymasters This is ...

who must manage teams of spies, represented by

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...

s, in order to stop a

supervillain A supervillain or supercriminal is a variant of the villainous stock character that is commonly found in American comic books, usually possessing superhuman abilities. A supervillain is the antithesis of a superhero. Supervillains are oft ...

's plans. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the graphics but whose opinions were divided on the excitement of the gameplay and quality of the story.

Plot

The player starts off as a spymaster in the service of a freelance

intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, Intelligence analysis, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objective ...

called Protega. A mysterious villain known as Solitaire shut down Protega's means of communication with its field agents, and the player, with the assistance of their handler, Jim Ratio ( Greg Miller), who speaks to them in FMV cutscenes, starts to rebuild the communications network by sending their spies on missions around the world. Each spy group is represented by a different deck of cards. While Ratio appears hapless at first, a spy known as Diamond (

Inel Tomlinson Inel Tomlinson is an actor, TV personality and stand-up comedian from London, best known for being one half of Johnny and Inel alongside Johnny Cochrane, the UK's first black comedy double act. As part of Johnny and Inel, the duo are well known ...

) relays that something is wrong. The behavior of Ratio (whose name contains the letters for "traitor") is later revealed to be an act, and he is exposed as Solitaire, whose ultimate plan is to trick the player into handing him control of the spy network under the guise of working for Protega. Dropping the act, he attempts to persuade the player, but the player rebuffs him and goes rogue, cutting off communications with Solitaire.

Reception

The game's PC version received an aggregate score of 70/100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, indicating "mixed to average" reviews. Peter Glagowski of ''TheGamer'' rated the game 4/5 stars, calling it short but "refreshingly stylistic", and praising the story as "rather cool", but noting that there was little that the game had changed about the base game of solitaire and that skilled players could "blitz" the campaign easily. Andrew King of ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' rated the game 7/10 points, calling the game "exciting", "well-paced", and "a solid take on solitaire", but criticizing the story as "weak" and "too static to work well as a spy thriller", calling it "like a dress rehearsal via Zoom call". He praised Miller's acting as Jim Ratio, but called him unconvincing as Solitaire. Josh Wise of ''VideoGamer.com'' rated the game 6/10 points, criticizing its tone and "low-rent comic" themes, and stating that the plot twist "came as no surprise whatsoever".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solitaire Conspiracy, The 2020 video games Full motion video based games Patience video games PlayStation 5 games Nintendo Switch games Indie games Single-player video games Spy video games Video games designed by Mike Bithell Windows games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games